As a beauty therapist, you help clients look the best they can be; making themselves feel good about themselves at the same time. Your goals in having your own beauty business are to give your clients the indulgence and care that will make them feel beautiful and special. While your job can be rewarding in this respect, you should always consider what could happen if things don’t go to plan and someone is injured, or you cause damage to their property as part of your work. In these cases, you could be liable for a significant payout to make things right which could result in a major financial loss.

While you may not face the risks associated with other types of more physical work, it is possible for a client to trip over your equipment and injurie themselves or for you to cause an unfortunate spill that results in damage to a client’s expensive possessions. When incidents such as these occur, you could be found legally liable for the personal injury or property damage caused and be required to pay compensation to make it right. Depending on the circumstances this could result in significant costs that have the potential, in the worst cases, to result in personal or business bankruptcy.

Therefore it is important for beauty therapists to have public liability insurance in place for those situations when things go wrong on a job. This type of insurance may cover your costs in defending yourself against claims for personal injury or property damage to a member of the public that was caused by your work activities. These costs may include engaging legal representation to defend yourself against claims for which you are not responsible as well as any compensation you are required to pay when you are found legally liable for any injuries or damage caused. While you don’t expect things to go wrong as a beauty therapist, public liability insurance gives you the peace of mind of knowing that if they do you are protected.

There is a range of public liability policies that provide coverage up to a specified maximum limit. The amount and type of coverage you need will depend on various factors such as the locations where you see clients, the size of your business and whether you work solo or with others.

You should get quotes from a reputable insurance broker, such as Public Liability Insurance Australia, after discussing your individual business needs. In general terms, you should consider the worst-case scenario that could occur and make sure you buy enough coverage for that situation.