If someone felt they lost out financially as a result of a service you offered, they might have the right to sue for damages. This can be a grey area and very costly to defend in the courts, which is why it’s so important to be protected.

As a design professional, clients rely upon your skill and knowledge to deliver on the services you agreed. Whether that’s typography, logos, rebrands, advertising or any type of illustration, the potential cost for damages can be very expensive.

If you’re self-employed or operate a small design studio, you might think that business insurance isn’t for someone like you. However, if you don’t have designers professional indemnity insurance, you could be taking a considerable risk.

What does design professional indemnity insurance cover?

Perhaps someone could argue that the logo you designed caused their business to lose customers? Maybe a slight mistake in a lettering has been posted online or gone out on a press release to thousands of customers.

Whereas, intellectual copyright infringement can be a very serious allegation for a graphic designer. Even if you did not intend to produce a design that bears a similar resemblance, you might find yourself involved in a costly legal battle to defend the originality of your work.

Professional indemnity insurance, otherwise known as professional liability insurance, offers protection against errors, mistakes and omissions in your work, in addition to intellectual copyright infringement and breach of contract.

Design professional indemnity covers the legal costs to defend the allegations and any damages awarded by the courts. So, you don’t have to worry constantly about making a mistake, or the cost of a professional negligence claim.

How much could a claim for a design mistake cost?

If you provide professional design services, you may need to be better protected than those that are selling products.

If someone’s injured as a result of a product fault, the impact is easy to measure. However, if someone believes that your advice or service has lost them business or damaged their reputation, these types of claims are very difficult to calculate.

If you provide a professional service where the impact of a design error or mistake is hard to measure, this type of business insurance can offer invaluable protection. There’s potentially no limit to how much someone could claim!

You might think that you can cope without business insurance but consider the benefits of having a quality legal team protecting your interests. Could you afford to cover the costs of damages or a resulting legal battle?

Unfounded allegations can cost small business time and energy that can sorely do without. Imagine the impact of being caught up in a dispute, where you knew the error was not your fault, but you have to allocate resources to protect the future of your design studio.