Advice, Development, Product

Is Your Cleaning Insurance Fit For Purpose?

The thought of organising insurance cover sends many into a panic or causes a collective rolling of the eyes. Yet doing your homework and selecting the right policy could mean the difference between continuing to trade and failing clients.

Robbie Spear, Director at Gleaming Insurance, explains why researching your options is crucial. He also highlights why it makes sound business sense.

A claim under your home or car insurance policy can be inconvenient. In some cases, it may even be emotionally traumatic. However, it is unlikely to have a lasting impact. It is even less likely to affect your livelihood or business reputation.

What do you need to consider?

When reviewing the insurance cover for your cleaning business, there are key factors to consider. Ideally, start this process 30 days before renewal. First, assess the risks involved in your business. What tasks do you or your employees perform that could pose potential hazards? For example, if you’re a window cleaner, what’s the maximum height you will work at? If you clean domestic properties, what happens if a product damages furniture or a carpet?

Also, consider your legal obligations to the public and employees while working. Ensuring compliance is essential for protecting your business.

We live in a litigious society where the law often favors complainants when they bring cases, sometimes due to negligence. While many businesses are proven not negligent, insurance provides safety and reassurance in these situations. Your policy must respond if you face legal action. Beyond liability, consider the value of your equipment, stock, and machinery. Ensuring proper coverage protects your business assets.

Which is the right kind of insurance?

Once you’ve started to get clear around your requirements, what are the next steps in determining which is the right kind of insurance for your business? Step 1 (detailed previously, understanding the risks to your business) should have helped you in this sense. Whilst there’s no actual legal requirement for you to take out Public Liability cover, this will protect your livelihood and reputation if you were found to have been legally liable for damage or injury you caused during your business activities.   

We see many claims where cleaners have accidentally damaged a carpet, sofa, oven, etc and the cost of the damage is well in excess of £2,000.   Do you have a spare £2,000 to pay a customer their compensation, plus legal fees?  Not many people do, hence the need to take out public liability insurance.  

As also mentioned previously, you need to ensure that your equipment, your tools of the trade, are adequately covered against loss, damage or theft – where would you be without them? What level of cover (insured values) will you need, and does the insurance product that you’re considering adequately provide this?

Additional Insurance Considerations

As well as these fairly basic but vital considerations, there are numerous other aspects of insurance cover that you could consider. There are far too many to list here. However, examples include loss of customers’ keys, failure to secure a customer’s premises, losses attributable to the dishonesty of your staff, and loss of money/takings.

Gleaming is a specialist insurance provider for the UK cleaning industry and has been facilitating insurance solutions for cleaning businesses since 2011. We have helped thousands of companies in the industry arrange their insurance. We pride ourselves not only on our wide-ranging cover but also on our extensive knowledge of the sector and our understanding of what is important to our clients.

Our exclusive insurance offering, combined with our in-house underwriting expertise, ensures that we can provide cover for a wide range of cleaning activities. We also include specialist extensions, such as Damage to Property Being Worked On (if you are accused of damaging the item you are cleaning) and Treatment Risks (if solutions or chemicals damage an item being cleaned). These are not available under most policies.

The Gleaming team is headed by Martin Holden and Robbie Spear. With over 75 years of combined experience in the insurance industry, they are widely acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading specialist insurance providers.

Learn more about cleaning insurance at www.gleaminginsurance.co.uk.

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