When you’re starting a new business from home, or doing remote work there are many questions that need answers if you want to help establish cost-effective insurance to work from home.
Working from home can affect your home insurance package – and, depending on your business, it may be worth taking out a suitable policy of insurance to work from home that covers any products, stock or even equipment that you may store at home.
This guide will offer the best insights into the insurance to work from home you must acquire to ensure you are properly covered.
How will working from home affect my home insurance?
With more people choosing to work from home or set up remote businesses, many questions are arising surrounding their home insurance. Relaxed working standards and the digitalisation of our businesses have made it easier than ever to work remotely, with statistics suggesting that around 8 million people in the US worked from home in 2017.
Your home will always be your home and your own place of comfort, but it’s vitally important that you inform your insurance provider about any changes that could affect your policy. Working from home can mean added liability across office equipment as well as business products which can increase your home insurance premiums. Failure to inform your insurance providers could mean that your insurance is invalidated in the event of a claim being made.
What sort of insurance to work from home do I need?
There are various pathways to look down when searching for affordable and suitable business insurance to work from home. Be Wiser Business Insurance offers all of the best packages to cover your equipment and products, as well as any employees that you may have working from your home office.
Professional indemnity insurance covers yourself and the work you complete for customers or clients. If a claim takes issue with the services you’ve provided, specifically the quality of the service or the advice given to a customer, the claimant may look to you for compensation for any financial loss or damages. Indemnity insurance will protect you from any such claim, saving you from any financial expense that could put your business under threat.
Public liability insurance is another business insurance plan that’s worth considering. Although this sort of insurance cover may seem like something only necessary for the type of businesses that work outdoors amongst the public, it’s also a good idea for home workers.
Do you often have customers or clients visiting you at your home office? What happens if they are injured or an accident occurs? Public liability insurance will have you covered.
There are many different nuanced approaches to acquiring business insurance to work from home when you’re setting up a business from home or doing remote work. For expert advice surrounding your business insurance, contact Be Wiser Business Insurance, which can provide appealing quotes and a hassle-free insurance service.
Insurance issues for remote workers
Employers who really practice flexibility, rather than just talking about it, offer their employees the opportunity to work from home. Teleworking, now better known as home office, is attractive to many employees because it is sometimes more efficient to work at home than in the office. But with flexibility, you as an employee have more responsibility. For example, you should ask yourself: who is actually liable in the event of an accident at work within their own four walls? Will my employer cover every issue, or do I need insurance to work from home?
While our neighbors in some other countries have had a legal right to work from home for some years (Holland since 2015, for example), in our country we are dependent on the willingness of our employer. According to the legal trade regulations, he/she has the right to determine the employee’s place of work and thus also decides whether he gives him the opportunity to work from home. However, he cannot oblige his employees to work from home.
If you as an employee would like more flexibility and, for example, would like to work from home now and then or even on set working days, speak to your boss about it. For commuters in particular, the resulting time savings could be a huge benefit.
Ensure you are legally protected
Anyone who works in the approved home office is generally subject to statutory occupational health and safety . That means: It is not allowed to work longer than eight or – with adequate time compensation – ten hours at your home desk. The employer must also ensure that the necessary work equipment is available to you in the home office. As a rule, a notebook with appropriate access to company servers and programs is sufficient.
The same applies to accident protection : the homeworker, like the employee in the office, is legally insured against accidents. In the event of an industrial accident at your private desk or on the way from home office to your employer, you are protected with the company’s insurance to work from home. But be careful: In the home office, in contrast to the office, only those activities that are directly related to work are covered. Business interruptions are not insured.
Pitfalls in the home office
What exactly does the legislation understand by issues here? Let’s take going to the toilet as an example. Make your way to the toilet in the office, take a break from your work at the company factory: If you stumble or buckle in the meantime, this is a classic industrial accident. However, the same scenario in the home office does not represent a work accident by law!
How come? Such actions and ways in the home office can be seen as personal activity. This includes routes to the kitchen to get coffee, the walk to the neighboring bakery – and the walk to the toilet. The explanation is very simple: the employer simply has no influence on the security of the private institution. Experts therefore recommend taking out private accident insurance to work from home.
Just like in the office, things can go wrong at home too – if you trip over the power cord, the company laptop falls to the floor or the water glass falls on the keyboard … It’s not the end of the world, but the question quickly arises of who is liable for the damage? If your boss has expressly instructed you to work from home, the damage is usually covered by the employer’s liability insurance. It is different if you do your own work on the company laptop at home: Then you would normally have to pay for the damage yourself – unless you have taken out private liability insurance to work from home.
Your insurance to work from home may cover damage for which the employer is not liable. If in doubt, however, a conversation with the boss should be your first step, because it is usually difficult to tell whether the work was ordered professionally or voluntarily – your superior will also see it that way.