Opening a salon is an exciting opportunity to put your skills to good use. You may love the way you can help bring a smile to someone’s face, listen to their problems and give them a new, stylish look. Yet, this is still a business. As such, you need comprehensive business insurance to protect your investment. There are a few key things to do to ensure you are protecting your salon. Here’s where to start.
What Does Salon Insurance Do?
First, know what your policy can do for you. Your business insurance should provide specific support for you in minimizing risks to the business. That means it needs to help protect the structure of the business itself as well as your inventory and assets within it.
Coverage should offer protection for your business in total, including:
- Structural protection if you own or lease the building
- Possessions protection such as your styling chairs, furnishings, and computer systems, as well as any product inventory you have
- Employee protection, as needed, such as workers’ compensation
- Liability insurance, including potentially professional liability (E&O) insurance in situations where you are advising people on their beauty plan.
- Cyber threat coverage if you collect and store customer data, which could get stolen
Most salon owners have both industry-specific, business-specific and generalized risks. Your business insurance policy needs to fit these risks to keep your business safe.
Know What Makes Your Business Unique
There are a few things to remember when buying this type of insurance. Here are a few ways to consider your coverage.
- Do you hire beauty contractors or lease space in your salon to independent contractors? This is an important difference. If you are not directly employing them, you may not need workers’ compensation. However, they are still a risk to your operation, meaning you need liability insurance. You might need to require them to buy their own coverage, too.
- Do you make or sell products to your customers? If so, consider the need to have proper protection if those products fail or cause injury to your customers. Because many are chemical-based, having proper faulty product protection is a must.
- Have coverage that matches all of the services you offer. Do you offer nail service? Perhaps you have coverage needs for foot procedures, waxing and makeup application. Make sure your policy provides enough insurance for them.
Work with your Tampa business insurance agent to customize all aspects of your coverage. This includes things like equipment breakdown coverage and drain and sewer packages. It’s possible to create a custom plan to address each of these needs.