Salon insurance uk buyers meet, on the prices insurers print

What insurers print for this trade

How to buy it without guessing

1. Separate public liability from treatment liability. Public liability answers for the client hurt on your premises. Treatment liability answers for harm done BY the service you sold, which is a different promise and is sometimes sold as an add-on rather than included. A salon policy that names only public liability leaves the claim you are most likely to face uninsured.
2. List every treatment, including the occasional one. Insurers rate a salon on its treatment list, not its trade name. A hair salon that also does lashes, a beauty room that also does microneedling, a shop that hires out a chair on Saturdays: each of those is a rating question, and a treatment you did not declare is normally a treatment the policy does not answer for.
3. Settle the employment question before you quote. Employers' liability is compulsory for almost every UK employer under the 1969 Act, and the way chair renters, apprentices and casual Saturday staff are treated is the single thing most likely to make a salon quote wrong. Decide who is employed, who is self-employed and who is renting space, then buy to that.
4. Read what the policy asks of you, not just what it pays. Salon policies carry conditions that do the real work: patch testing before colour or lash work, training records for machine-based treatments, an age policy, a written consultation form. A claim is refused on those conditions far more often than on the limit of cover.
5. Price the stock and the fit out separately. Liability and contents are different covers and are often quoted as one figure. Work out what it would cost to replace the chairs, basins, machines and retail stock, then look at whether the package you were quoted carries anything like that sum insured.

Common questions

Is salon insurance a legal requirement in the UK?

Employers' liability is, as soon as the salon has an employee, and the rules are set out in the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969. Public liability and treatment liability are not required by law, but a landlord, a shopping centre or a local authority licence will usually require them in writing before you can trade.

Does one policy cover both hair and beauty treatments?

Usually, but only for the treatments you declared. Insurers sell salon cover against a treatment list, and the common failure is a salon that added lashes, brows or skin treatments after it bought the policy and never told anybody. Tell the broker each time the list changes.

Do chair renters need their own cover?

A self-employed stylist renting a chair is running their own business and normally needs their own public and treatment liability. The salon's own policy answers for the salon, and a renter without cover leaves both of you exposed, which is why most salon leases now require the renter to produce a certificate.

Why will not every insurer print a price?

Because salon rating depends on treatments, turnover, staff and claims, and several of the insurers in the record here quote only through their own form. That is a real finding rather than a gap, so this record lists them with it instead of filling the cell with somebody else's number.

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