Private tutor insurance: what is it?
Contents
Overview
You might be thinking of taking out private tutor insurance if embarking on a new tuition role outside of school.
Edapt currently supports teachers and school staff in England and Wales who are employed by a school, LA, trust or other body rather than self-employed tutors.
We may decide to provide professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance for private tutors in the future and will provide an update to our subscribers when we do.
In this support article, we look at the differences between professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance and link to organisations which provide it.
Professional indemnity insurance: what is it?
Hiscox insurance explains if clients claim they’re unhappy with your work, or say you’ve been negligent, you’ll need to defend yourself and your reputation – whether the claims seem justified or not.
This could come from a student, a school or an education authority claiming you haven’t covered parts of the maths syllabus or that you’ve failed to help achieve expected history grades. Professional indemnity insurance protects you in these circumstances by helping to deal with the legal costs of defending or settling a claim.
Public liability insurance: what is it?
Markel Direct explains that public liability insurance covers against allegations of injury to a third party as a result of your negligence – for example, if a student or accompanying parent slipped, tripped or fell over and injured themselves on your premises. You would be covered against the legal costs, as well as any compensation payable to them, should they bring a claim against you for their injuries.
Public liability insurance also covers against accidental damage to third party property. Let’s assume that, during a lesson, you accidentally knock a glass of water over your student’s laptop, and the parents bring a claim against you for the cost to repair it. Public liability insurance would cover you in such an instance.
Professional indemnity and public liability insurance: what options are available?
The following organisations provide different insurance types for self-employed tutors. It is not a comprehensive list, and we do not have any links with these organisations so are unable to provide any recommendations:
The information contained within this article is not a complete or final statement of the law.
While Edapt has sought to ensure that the information is accurate and up-to-date, it is not responsible and will not be held liable for any inaccuracies and their consequences, including any loss arising from relying on this information. This article may contain information sourced from public sector bodies and licensed under the Open Government Licence. If you are an Edapt subscriber with an employment-related issue, please contact us and we will be able to refer you to one of our caseworkers.