What is liability insurance?
Liability insurance is an insurance policy that protects you when you are being sued and/or being held legally liable for claims of negligence resulting from damage or injury to a person or property. Simply put, you’ve been negligent in some way at work and it resulted in injury to a client or damaged their property in some way.
Liability insurance protects you against these types of situations.Here are the three types you should always carry:
- Professional Liability: A client has been injured during the service you performed.
- Product Liability: A client has suffered an allergic reaction caused from a product used on them in the treatment room or sold to them for at-home use.
- General Liability: A client has been injured during a slip and fall, or due to faulty equipment, including damage to client’s property.
The Broken Nose
No matter how careful we are, sometimes things go wrong, and a client is really injured. Your insurance is there to protect you when this happens.
Beth was treating her guest. They were at the shampoo bowl and our member had lightened the client’s hair. She rinsed out the processed bleach and was going to pre-tone the guest’s hair with purple shampoo. Beth was trying to get the last bit of the shampoo out of the bottle, the bottle slipped out of her hands and slammed onto the guest’s face. The liter sized shampoo bottle had broken the client’s nose upon impact.
Beth immediately grabbed a towel to help stop the bleeding. The client, irate, of course, kept saying she was fine and would go to the doctor and get her nose looked at. Beth called over another employee and they thought it would be best to call an ambulance or at least offer to drive the guest to the hospital. The client refused and said she would take care of it herself. The service was never finished, and the guest left in a hurry.
The next day Beth called the guest to see if she was ok and if there was anything she could do help and, of course, apologize for the incident as she felt terrible.
Two days later the client called the salon and said her nose was indeed broken along with terrible bruising. The client wanted Beth to pay her bills for going to the emergency room to seek medical treatment for the damages and occurred during her service. Unfortunately, Beth didn’t have any liability or any type of insurance to cover herself, her business, or her assets. She had a booth rental and didn’t have any coverage for herself.
Make sure you have the best professional liability insurance and a team to support you so you can avoid what Beth went through. Some accidents are small and some are big, and sadly, some accidents aren’t even real. Unfortunately, we live in a very litigious society and sometimes unethical clients can invent an injury in hopes of being compensated. So even if you do everything right, things can still go wrong.
Choose AHP as your Insurance partner and check out all the benefits we offer to support and protect you and your career.
AHP membership provides vital professional liability insurance to protect you in case of an accident. Having the right team and coverage can make even the hardest situation a lot smoother.
Not an AHP member? Join today and access all of the benefits we offer to support you and your career as a barber or cosmetologist.
Note: The insurance coverage descriptions above are illustrative only. Refer to a copy of the policy for specific coverages, limitations, exclusions, terms, and conditions. The insurance information contained herein is not a part of your insurance policy; it is instead a partial illustration of benefits, conditions, limitations, and exclusions. In the event that there is confusion or conflict between the policy language and any information provided herein, the policy language shall control.