You know your TikTok from your Twitter. You’ve joined Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg as an early adopter of Clubhouse. You’ve nailed that Facebook formula (again, thanks algorithm changes) so your posts are popping with engagement. You’ve got social media sorted.
What insurances should a social media freelancer hold?
Do you have the right protection in place if something goes wrong? Social media can be a minefield of hazards even for the most careful marketing gurus: it only takes minutes for a bad post to go viral. While we can’t stop you getting ratioed online, where we can support our social media freelancers is in making sure they have the right business insurance in place to protect themselves, their clients and those around them. So before you go hunting down those likes, follows and thumbs ups, make sure you have these crucial policies in place. Read on for an overview of the insurances a social media freelancer should consider.
Professional indemnity insurance for social media experts
Your clients get you in to sort their socials because you’re reliable, trustworthy and you know your stuff. You’ve spent a long time building your reputation and your business, and you need to protect it. Professional indemnity insurance provides freelancers and their clients with that extra back-up and reassurance that everybody’s covered if something goes wrong. Professional indemnity insurance, or PI, covers you if a client disputes the quality of your work or accuses you of making a mistake. Professional indemnity insurance from Dinghy will step in and provide an expert legal team to build your case, and we’ll cover any fees and damages awarded to the other side up to the limit of your policy. Professional indemnity disputes can cover all sorts of things to do with protecting your work, including:
- bad advice – if you tell your client this is the right strategy, and it absolutely isn’t;
- negligence or not taking reasonable care – if your work has mistakes that cost your client money;
- copyright dispute – if you accidentally use material belonging to someone else in a post;
- defamation, liable and slander – if someone thinks your social media posts are damaging their reputation based on untrue claims.
Example claim: You make an inspirational Instagram grid post for a client, using a quotation that you found on the internet and an amazing landscape image that you thought was copyright-free. Unfortunately, the photographer of the image sees it and they are furious to see their work used without payment or attribution. They try to sue your client for breach of copyright and the client maintains that you are the responsible party. If you don’t have professional indemnity insurance, you will have to try and find money to pay for legal representation in the dispute, and could find yourself accumulating large bills and ultimately having to pay damages to the photographer. A social media freelancer with professional indemnity insurance from Dinghy will be covered, supported, and represented by our insurers.
Public liability insurance and social media freelancers
Public liability insurance is there to protect those around you: clients, collaborators, and anyone else that you come into contact with in the course of your job. It covers any potential damage to someone else’s property and any accidents that might be your fault that causes injury or harm to another person. If you deal with anyone else in the course of your work – visits to clients’ premises for meetings, working in public places such as cafes, or even taking taxis, it’s a good idea to have public liability insurance in place.
Example claim: You’re working for a lifestyle client and trying to take some amazing autumn-vibes photos to fill their Insta feed and give it that perfect autumn hygge aesthetic. You set up a shoot in your local park to take some snaps of the leaf fall, but a jogger runs past at speed and trips over the leg of your tripod. They smash their knee and can’t run for weeks – or work at their job as a HGV driver. The jogger thinks you’re responsible for their injury and wants you to compensate them for the damage and the time they will be off work.
Without public liability insurance, you would be scrabbling around, trying to find a solicitor to take on your case, and worrying about how you’re going to find the money to pay someone else’s bills as well as your own. But a social media freelancer who’s taken out public liability insurance will be protected.
Business equipment insurance
Okay, so this one is a bit more obvious than the others, but no less important. What use is a social media freelancer without their laptop, their smartphone, their tablet, and their camera? We know analogue is in, but that’s just taking it a step too far. Dinghy’s business equipment insurance covers your essential equipment anywhere in the world and protects it against loss, theft or damage. Your gear will be replaced or get the cash in your account within 24 hours of you reporting a loss, so that you can get back to work ASAP.
Example claim: You’re travelling across London on the Tube to visit a client for a strategy meeting about an upcoming Facebook ad campaign. You’re so nervous about the big presentation that you have to give, that you don’t even notice that you’ve lost your bag on the Victoria line – with your nearly new MacBook Pro in it. An uninsured freelancer would have nothing to do but weep, and let all their clients know that they are going to be unable to work for a few days while they source a replacement. A freelancer with business equipment insurance from Dinghy can give us a call and know that they will be back in business within 24 hours.
Freelancer Assist
Not so much an insurance policy as a guardian angel, Freelancer Assist comes bundled as standard with our professional indemnity insurance. It’s our way of letting our freelancers know that they’re not alone out there – Dinghy’s got your back. As well as free legal, tax and counselling helplines, Freelancer Assist provides a unique debt-chasing service. If a client is dragging their heels in paying your bills, you’ll get access to an expert team of lawyers who will help you recover the money you’re owed.
So there you have it – insurance for a social media freelancer is actually not all that complicated. In Instagram terms, it’s like a healing crystal or a positive mantra; good to have on your side to give your business a boost and offer you protection. Freelancers can get a quote on our website today, and of course, you can also give us a follow on socials: we’re on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.
