Offering your services in the recruitment industry means you get the pleasure of working with multiple businesses in varying sectors, often concurrently. Insurance for recruitment consultants or agencies can assist in protecting you from key risks that you may encounter as you work with clients.
Common risks that recruiters experience include being exposed to sensitive information, both from candidates and the companies you work with. We would recommend when handling sensitive information that you integrate cyber insurance into your recruitment agency insurance cover.
Your judgment and service are also required to follow your client’s expectations, and breaching their trust can lead to a claim against you, even if a mistake or misinformation was not intentional. It’s for this reason that professional indemnity insurance for recruitment agencies is so essential for anyone looking to minimise risk.
Protect your recruitment agency and its staff with the correct level of protection. Even operating as a self-employed head hunter exposes you to risk, so creating an appropriate recruitment consultants insurance package is essential no matter your agency’s size.
If you’re unsure about what the ideal insurance for your recruitment agency looks like then get in touch with our team today. As experts in providing a wide range of insurance solutions, our brokers assess the options available to our client and identify the best risk management in a policy.
As a Feefo Platinum Award Winning insurance broker we are proud to carry an outstanding relationship with all clients.
What Does A Recruitment Consultant Insurance Policy Typically Include?
Our broker team can assist you in creating recruitment agency insurance that suits your business. The level of cover will vary greatly based on your size, client base and other factors.
When we consult with recruiters we often recommend:
1. Professional indemnity insurance
Professional indemnity insurance for your recruitment agency covers the costs of defending your consultancy against any claims of negligence. This relates to misplaced or incorrect advice to another business that causes significant financial damage.
An example where your recruitment consultants may experience is when conducting background checks on candidates. If you fail to conduct the necessary checks and something emerges against your candidate following placement, such as an existing criminal record, then you could be liable. Without the necessary professional indemnity insurance, you would have to cover the expenses from a legal claim of damages from your client.
From a wider perspective, professional indemnity insurance for the recruitment industry may also cover for:
Defamation of a client
Intellectual property infringement
Loss of vital documents or data
Negligent misrepresentation or misstatements
Employee dishonesty
Computer virus transmission
Breach of confidentiality or trust
A provider can vary in terms of what they cover as default within professional indemnity insurance within a business insurance package. We can offer advice on which insurers would best align to your requirements when you configure your cover.
2. Employer’s liability insurance
If you run a recruitment agency then you will have employees, regardless of if they are full time, part time or contractors you require employers liability. As a legal requirement in the UK your recruitment insurance will integrate this if you do not already have this protection at the necessary level.
Employers liability can cover a range of scenarios in which a staff member is injured while working for you. For example something as innocuous as slipping on a wet floor while at work can lead to claims for which you would likely be liable to pay the resulting legal and settlement fees.
This form of cover is only necessary if you have an employed team within your business. If you operate as self-employed within your recruitment consultancy then it’s not compulsory cover. If in doubt, discuss your situation with our broker team and we can support you in getting the correct tailored solution for your industry.
3. Public liability insurance
As a recruitment consultant, you will have plenty of eager and enthusiastic candidates coming through your office doors to be interviewed, or clients visiting. Public liability covers incidents if they were to have an accident, such as falling over a cable when arriving into your office and damaging their laptop or injuring themselves as they fell.
4. Office insurance
When operating your recruitment agency from an office building then covering your essential equipment is something we highly recommended. This type of cover can protect items that are accidentally lost, damaged or stolen.
Business contents insurance is a must if you have furniture, computers, phones and other office equipment. It might also include:
Cover for personal items belonging to employees or visitors
Protection for promotional merchandise
Replacement of broken glass
5. Cyber insurance
Technology is at the centre of many industries now, and recruitment agencies are one of many companies that underestimate the impact that a data breach or hacking issues can present to them. With the correct cyber coverage, your recruitment agency can operate with the knowledge that incidents are protected.
A comprehensive cyber policy will provide cover for first party and third party claims.
Third party cover is when a customer brings a claim against you for the loss of their data.
First party losses provide cover for you to proactively inform your clients that you’ve been subject to a data breach and the policy will provide cover for all associated costs.
Social Engineering cover and e-crime is another important level of cover to consider and can offer assurances where you may experience business downtime as a result of a hack, as well as support when you experience online extortion or ransomware demands that require a payment to the hacker.
Cyber liability protection is well suited to all business sizes, from self-employed to employers with a larger team of specialist consultants.
6. Directors and Officers Liability Insurance
Directors and officers insurance gives your business protection from claims made against the heads of your company. A claim that your recruitment agency is not being run correctly can be devastating, and these types of legal challenges can come from a range of positions.
Claims that may be protected include challenges from stakeholders all the way to management accused of negligence. Even if you successfully defend these, the resulting legal costs to defend your business from negligence claims can be considerable.
If you’re interested in recruitment insurance for agencies and professionals, please fill in the form below with your contact details and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can and help create a tailored solution. Alternatively, feel free to give our team a call.