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Stephen Walton
If you’re running your own photography business, you really ought to have photography insurance. Well, why do you have home, car or life insurance? Just in case.
You never know what can happen. Insurance for photographers is important to not only protect your clients but also yourself. Accidents can happen, a trip, a fall, equipment failure or illness can all be covered with the right photography insurance package.
Our friends at Ripe Insurance have reached out to iPhotography to provide some valuable information about what type of photography insurance is available and how it can protect your business.
Author: Ripe Insurance
For the purpose of our insurance, a professional photographer is someone whose photography earnings represent more than 50% of their annual income. In other words, being a photographer or videographer is your main profession.
If your photography or videography earnings make up less than 50% of your annual income, you are classed as being semi-professional, so you might want to take a look at our semi-professional photographer options instead. If you don’t earn any money from your images, take a look at our amateur photographers cover instead.
As a professional in the photography industry, your insurance needs are probably more extensive than just your cameras, lenses and other equipment. You are likely to want to consider Public Liability insurance, which provides cover against any claims against you for injury to third parties and/or damage to third party property.
You’ll probably also need to consider Professional Indemnity insurance, to cover you for mistakes, such as losing or causing damage to photographs or videos that your clients have commissioned.
If you employ anyone as part of your business, you are also legally obliged to take out Employers’ Liability insurance.
By law (in the UK), you are required to have Employers’ Liability insurance if you employ anyone to work with you in your photography or videography business.
Public Liability and Professional Indemnity are optional, but most professionals working in the photography industry would tend have this cover in place, as without it, you could be at risk from expensive claims if things go wrong.
As a professional, you are likely to have lots of expensive equipment and the risk of damage or theft increases as you’ll be using it more regularly. Relying on your home or motor insurance to provide you with adequate cover might not be the answer, as many have exclusions for business use.
Ripe Insurance offers cover for damage to your equipment up to the value of £60,000 in total (the maximum amount of portable equipment is £30,000), theft from an unattended vehicle up to £20,000 and mobile phones and tablets up to £1,000.
You can choose Public Liability cover from £1m, £2m, £5m or £10m. Professional Indemnity is available up to £75,000 or £150,000 and Employers’ Liability is fixed at £10m. We also offer additional cover for Accidental Damage/Theft to your Portfolio (up to £2,000), Equipment Hire and Hired-In Equipment, Legal Expenses and Associates Cover.
There are a variety of different cover options available, and the cost of your policy is generally dependent on what you choose, and the level of cover you need. We know that photography businesses can vary so much that there is little point in creating packaged policies, as this often leads to unnecessary cover and inflated premiums.
With Ripe Insurance for Photography, you’ll see that we clearly display prices for each item of cover as you add it to your quote, so you’ll see exactly what’s covered and there will be no nasty surprises at the end.
Ripe Insurance are committed to giving the best prices we can, so we offer discounts for members of Photography Associations and trade bodies, as well as offering the lowest price guaranteed.
If you’ve got your equipment insured elsewhere, you can zoom through check out in no time and you’ll get your Public Liability insurance sorted in a matter of minutes. Try it here.
As a professional working in the photography industry, it’s unlikely that your home insurance will provide you with the right type, or level of cover you’ll need.
Your expensive equipment may be above the limits in place and cover outside of the home, or whilst at work, may be restricted.
It’s also unlikely that your home insurer will cover you for Public Liability, Professional Indemnity or Employers’ Liability, so it’s probably best to try a specialist photography insurer.
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