Insurance for Interior Designers, Home Stagers, & Organizers

Yes! All small business owners need their own insurance coverage, including home stagers, designers, and organizers. As a professional home stager, designer or organizer, you regularly work with expensive furniture, decorations, and antiques as well as freshly renovated homes. Many accidents can occur while on the job. Therefore, working with an insurance company that offers specialized coverage for home stagers, designers, and organizers better protects your business at an affordable price.

Every business owner that is looking to protect themselves, in the long run, will need to have coverage for any accidental mistakes, especially if a mistake financially harms a client or leads to an expensive lawsuit. Professional liability insurance for home stagers, designers, and organizers can help you protect yourself and your business from any lawsuits in the event of any error in your professional service offerings.

Professional liability insurance helps you cover claims made against your business while providing services. Professional liability insurance for Home Stagers, Architects/Engineers, Interior Designers, and Organizers includes several options to cover all of your business and personal assets.

Some of the major reasons for you to get professional liability insurance are:

• If you have a contract with your client that requires you to carry coverage
• If you are offering direct professional services to the client
• If you are providing regular advice to your client

Your service agreement is an excellent tool for you to use to document exact terms of your work. It’s important that you have an agreement that you understand and are comfortable with so you won’t have any problem explaining it to your clients when it comes time to sign it. Having this document signed before you start to stage, design or organize can help you avoid any misunderstanding with your clients, as well as potentially protecting you from claims or lawsuits. All home staging agreements should include at least:

• Your company name
• The name of the person performing the work
• The name of the client
• The date the work will take place
• What services are being offered
• What will be covered in your job
• The cost of the services
• A limitation of liability or other contractual defenses

While purchasing interior designer insurance, you need to know and provide an estimation of annual revenue, details of any past claims, number of employees and subcontractors, year established, address and contact information.

The type and amount of interior design insurance required varies by state. There might be variation in the cost of interior designer insurance depending on your state as well. Additionally, Pen-Ex offers state-specific service agreements to help you manage your risk of claims. For more information about state insurance requirements, contact us at (484) 580-6661.

At a minimum, interior designer insurance should cover general liability. Here is a detailed list of what Pen-Ex’s liability insurance for interior designers covers.

Yes, each state has different requirements for your agreement. If you’re unsure about what should be included or excluded from your agreement, SDOpro offers state specific agreements to all of our insureds at no additional cost. Our agreements are tailored with the specific provisions your state may require and are written with the aim of making it easy for the contract to be enforced and to be understood by your client. The contract uses, in states where enforceable, limitation of liability and other contractual defenses to insulate you from risk.

Agreements with your subcontractors or independent contractor must include, at a minimum:

• Indemnity and defense clause
• The scope of work
• Jurisdictional limitations or limitations by county
• Noncompete clause to prevent soliciting your referral sources or clients

In case you are facing a loss related to property damages, here is what you can do:

• Report the loss to your insurance agent with the date of the loss and proper description of the loss as soon as possible
• Take photos and video of the damage as proof
• Keep a detailed record of all emergency expenses and temporary repairs. Additionally, separate the damaged items as your insurance company will want to inspect the damages.
• Make a detailed list of all the damaged property which should include their purchase details and original receipts if possible
• Get the estimates for the repairs and replacement of the damaged items.

*Note – In case of theft or vandalism, contact your police department immediately.

In the case of general liability claims, contact your insurance agent with the date, time, and detailed description of the incident. Also, ensure that you have the names and addresses of the injured party or the owners of the damaged property. You can also add the names and addresses of any witnesses for additional help.