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Insurance Tips for Coaches

Tips on Insurance for Coaches.

Webinar by the Association of Coaching on the 23^rd March 2021 presented by Diane Caplethorn & Haydn Dodds- Jones of Towergate Insurance.

“You don't have to have done anything wrong to have a claim made against you; someone only has to allege wrongdoing for you to need to be covered against a possible claim.” 

Potential risks for coaches:

• Unknowingly breaching the ethical code
• Giving incorrect advice/info.
• Client could complain about your service to a professional body e.g. a coaching body or HSE & they could take disciplinary action against coach
• A client could injure themselves while coming to see you.
• A competitor could accuse you of false or slanderous accusations.
• Copyright infringement allegations
• A dispute with client about monies/payments

1. HMRC could carry out an enquiry into your tax affairs (you can guard against this with cover via your accountant too)
2. Running coaching sessions in the outside with clients is OK if within the current coronavirus guidelines whatever they are at the time.
3. There is no difference for working face to face or virtual in terms of insurance cover; you will still be covered.
4. Try a belt and braces approach and ensure that you are registered with the ICO regarding data protection
5. Consider taking out separate cyber cover to help protect against hacking, phishing, smishing (texts), viruses, malware etc to ward against leakage of financial or confidential details of clients. It may reputationally damage your business (lost confidentiality) and clients may have a claim if their own computers are hacked as a result. The UK is now ranked 4th country in the world for cyber-attacks.
6. Internal coaches need to check with their employer and not to assume that they are covered by company insurance policies. Supervisors need to ensure that they check this with internal coaches before working with them. Internal coaches doing work with external clients will need their own insurance.
7. A recent update: your current insurance will cover for covid claims so for example if a client claims you have given them the disease you can be protected against that claim.
8. If you have employees, you legally have to have employer’s liability insurance.

Towergate have a Covid19 hub: www.towergate.com-19-updates

Julia Menaul 23.3.21

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