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The Importance of Business Insurance

Regardless of the size and industry type, all businesses will deal with risk on a daily basis. Business insurance is there to help you manage these risks and keep the costs of any unexpected risk or accidents to a minimum. Examples include theft, fire, accidental damage and equipment breakdown to name a few. Those that choose not to take out business insurance risk losing their business should the worst happen.

Business insurance is made up of a group of insurance coverages that are in place to protect the business against work related risks and lawsuits. Within the Aesthetic Industry, the following insurances need to be considered:

– Public Liability Insurance

– Employers Liability Insurance

– Professional Indemnity Insurance

– Medical Malpractice Insurance

Public Liability Insurance:

As a business owner, you can be liable for all kinds of accidents to either the property or a member of the public. Public Liability Insurance is there to protect your business against any costs of defending or settling claims for property damage of bodily injuries to a member of the public, including trips, falls and slips. This type of insurance is for businesses who have customers visit their premises or if they visit customers in their own homes and for those that employ members of staff.

Employers Liability Insurance

Your employees are one of your greatest investments, and as an employer you have an obligation to provide safe working conditions for them to work in. Employers Liability Insurance is there to protect your business against any employee claim, whether that is a bodily injury or Illness caused by the work your employees do for you.

Who needs Employers Liability Insurance?

In order to safeguard all employees in the UK, it’s a legal requirement* for most businesses with employees to have at least £5 million of cover in place. If you’re self-employed, liability insurance will also, in most cases, be a legal requirement if you employ one or more people.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

Also know and ‘PI’ insurance, this can help to protect your business if there is a claim made against the work that you have done for a client. PI will offer you cover if you need to pay compensation to correct a mistake, and cover your legal costs if you are settling a claim including; negligence, infringement of property rights and breach of confidence.

Medical Malpractice Insurance

This Insurance is designed for anyone working within the healthcare industry, and provides public liability and professional indemnity cover to safeguard claims of negligence and medical malpractice.  This cover will cover you for legal costs of defending action as well as bodily and mental injury and illness cover.

Insurance Providers

Here at Cosmetic Courses, we work with a number of insurance companies who will be more than happy for you to contact them if you’re looking at, or have decided to have a career within the aesthetic industry.  The medical professionals that we train will already be aware of the necessary insurances that will be needed to ensure they are covered, but will incur extra charges when mentioning that they wish to start in the aesthetic industry. Here is a little more information on the insurances companies that will be more than happy to discuss your needs:

HPPB: cosmetic courses hppb logo

Cosmetic Courses are proud to partner with Healthcare Professional Protect (HPPB) to offer our delegates comprehensive packages of support and insurance for aesthetic treatments. Giving you protection and support at a fixed price. 

Once you have completed your training it is time to obtain your insurance. HPPB have teamed up with an underwriter at Lloyds of London to offer competitive fixed price insurance based on the treatments you perform. You can apply through their online application process by clicking here. 

As a member of the Healthcare Professional Protection family you will have access to 24/7 advice and support from peers and their specialist claims handlers with decades of experience in protecting healthcare professionals.

HPPB are specialists in supporting practitioners through every sort of complaint or claim if things go wrong.

They believe that you should not be harried by complaints of dissatisfaction which are more related to a desire to reduce costs. HPPB care about all aspect of the cost of complaints and claims.

Website: www.hppb.co.uk/healthcare-professional-protection

If you would like to find out more about how you can get in contact with any of the above insurance companies, or you would like to discuss anything mentioned with any of our team, please call 01844 390110 or email [email protected]

 

As an aesthetic practitioner it goes without saying that you want to deliver the best possible service to your clients. However there may be occasions when things go wrong and a claim is made against you. We know how distressing this can be for not only the patient but also the practitioner.

Eddie Hooker, CEO of Hamilton Fraser Cosmetic Insurance, recommends the following five steps that will help in the event of a claim being made against you:

1. Obtain full consent

Always ensure you obtain full consent from your client before the start of any treatment. Set out all the risks and benefits as well as any potential side effects and ensure your client has read and absorbed all of the information before they consent to the treatment they will be undergoing.

2. Keep detailed records

Always make sure you maintain a written record of all of the treatments you have provided, on the date you provided it. This should include machine settings together (where appropriate) with before and after photographs. You will need to keep your notes for 10 years in case a claim may arise in the future. You will also need to keep your equipment in good working order and up to date in accordance with manufacturers’ guidelines.

3. Stay up to date with your training

Ensure you can demonstrate you are fully trained and competent by undergoing initial training and also regular re-training throughout your career and retain all certificates.

4. Manage expectations

It is important to ensure the client has realistic expectations of the outcome of the treatment and whether (and when) any top up treatments may be necessary. Ensure that you allow sufficient time at consultation to cover this.

5. Medical due diligence

Make sure you get a full medical history from the client and explain full aftercare treatment and what they need to carry out themselves.

It is important to ensure that you have adequate insurance protection in case the worst happens. At Hamilton Fraser Cosmetic Insurance we have been insuring aesthetic practitioners for many years and understand the aesthetic industry, so please contact us on 0800 63 43 881 or email [email protected] for insurance advice and a free quotation.

Ceart in Administration? Please Advise

As you may be aware by now, the specialist healthcare insurance broker Ceart Risk Services has gone into administration.

If you do have a policy with Ceart, it is best to try to contact them to find out your options as, technically, you should be OK if already covered.

Hamilton Fraser Insurance help worried Medical Aesthetic delegates

According to reports, however, they are not responding to many enquiries via telephone or email. For many confused and anxious medical aesthetic delegates, alternative cosmetic insurers Hamilton Fraser Cosmetic Insurance have stepped in to offer advice and support; even for those who are not currently insured with them.

Hamilton Fraser ran a live Questions and Answers session on their Facebook page this Tuesday 7th February to deal with the unusually high level of enquiries and concerns. Many of the answers can now be seen posted on their page.

Cosmetic Insurance at Cosmetic Courses

At Cosmetic Courses medical aesthetic training, we have always chosen Hamilton Fraser as our principal insurance company, displaying the logo on our homepage and recommending them to our delegates when they ask us who to turn to for their own business insurance.

We are very proud to be one of only 4 recognised Hamilton Fraser Partner Courses (you can identify these by the gold ‘training course partner’ badges as featured on our site which differs from the standard Hamilton Fraser recognised training course icons).

What does this mean?

  • Well, the biggest bonus for you is that all our delegates receive 10% discount during their 1st year of insurance with Hamilton Fraser…something that only these special Training Course Partners can offer!
  • You can also find us right at the top of the recommended course listings on the Hamilton Fraser website (for London, Buckinghamshire and Northampton)
  • And read regular articles about us in the Cosmetic Insurance News Letter
  • Like all Hamilton Fraser recognised training courses, Cosmetic Courses’ membership means that our delegates receive Risk Management support and information leaflets, presentations and advice.

It is this kind of unconditional support which we know medical aesthetic delegates are really valuing at the moment, with uncertainty over Ceart and increased scrutiny of the industry in general. It’s good to know that there is an insurance company we can rely on, who recognizes Cosmetic Courses’ high standards too!

For any further questions about your cosmetic insurance or medical aesthetic training in general, please do not hesitate to call us on 0845 230 4110.