Month: March 2019

09:33:54 GMT • 14 January 2025

What to Include in Your Dog Walking Service Agreement

By Steffi Cavaliere

28 March 2019

•

5 mins read

Contributors

Steffi Cavaliere

Steffi joined the business in July 2017 as Business Support Executive. Steffi completed her degree in Sports and ...

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As a dog walker it is important to know what your clients expect of you. While a written contract between your business and your clients is not a requirement, it can be of huge benefit to the running of your enterprise.

The thought of writing up a contract can be a daunting one. In truth though, you don’t need to be a legal expert to put together a dog walking agreement between you and your client.

When starting a dog walking business it’s important to draw up a dog walking service agreement and ask each client to complete it.

Here’s what we suggest you include in your agreement…

About Us

We’re one of the leading providers of insurance for pet businesses, and we offer a variety of tailored products such as Dog Walking, Pet Sitting insurance and Dog Grooming Insurance policies.

Service outline

In summary, this is where you will outline what the client is paying you to do. Have sections for the number of walks you are being asked to complete, how far they should be, and the times you are expected to carry them out.

It’s also wise to get the price that the client will be charged penned down in this section too. This avoids any unwanted confrontation if a client disagrees on the bill that they are presented with.

Dog specifics

Meeting a dog before agreeing to walk it is always advised. That way you, as a pet care professional, can get to know the animal and any of its likes and dislikes. While this is good, it always pays to have this information down on paper within the walking agreement beforehand.

In this section of the contract, document the name and breed of the dog plus any medical conditions it may have. Have in writing if it is taking any medication so you have this to hand in the event of an emergency.

As well as medical issues, asking the owner to note any behavioural traits is also wise too. Ask whether the dog is good with fellow canines, whether it will chase animals and whether the dog has good recall. This way you mitigate some of the risks of an incident occurring whilst walking.

Emergency protocol

Reducing the risk of an incident is one thing, but knowing how to react when something goes wrong on a walk is another. Ensure that on any contract you have with your client you document who to call if the animal is injured or injures another dog or person.

Also establish the protocol you and your client wish to take if the animal requires veterinary treatment. Do you wait until you’ve made contact with the owner before taking a dog to the vets, or is the decision based on your judgement?

Making a note of the dog’s microchip number is also a great idea too. In the event that the animal is lost whilst walking, having this might come in handy in identifying it if discovered at a later date.

Other rules to follow

You should also outline in your contract a few other house rules and regulations you or the owner wish to impose. For example, do you have permission to walk the dog off-lead? If anything were to happen when the dog was off-lead and it transpired the owner had not agreed to it, your dog walking business could be held liable.

Many professional dog walkers like to take photos or videos of their walk to share on social media. This is a great way to show clients the service that you can provide. And while it’s unlikely to be an issue, it’s worth obtaining the permission of the dog owner before posting on Facebook or Twitter.

And lastly, make sure you include some rules about cancellations in the contract. What happens if a client cancels your services at the last minute? It could leave you with empty time that might have been filled with other clients. Do you want to include some sort of cancellation fee in your agreement?

You don’t need to include legal jargon in your agreement, it’s just worth covering every base. If things were to go wrong that were covered in the contract it doesn’t necessarily mean you are absolved of any legal liability though. That’s why it’s always important to hold appropriate dog walking insurance policy. With cover in place you are protected if the dog were to be injured, lost, or caused injury to someone else or their dog.

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09:33:24 GMT • 14 January 2025

Can Personal Trainers Write Meal Plans for Their Clients?

28 March 2019

•

3 mins read

Contributors

Mandy has been with Starpeak Insurance Solutions since 2018, starting in sales in the consumer department and mov...

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As a personal trainer, helping clients to reach their health and fitness goals is the ultimate target. And while the exercise plans a PT puts together for their clients are a major part, the dietary habits of the individual cannot be discounted.

However, a question that is often ask is ‘can personal trainers write meal plans for their clients’?

The answer is slightly complicated. In short, fitness professionals should not be offering an explicit meal plan unless they are full qualified to do so.

Awareness of which foodstuffs are good for weight-loss, body building or whatever other target a client has is certainly on the up. That knowledge is just waiting to be passed on from trainer to client.

In order to help a client reach their goals, some pointers are able to be given. For example, a personal trainer could suggest eating more of something to provide a protein boost post-workout. Or they could suggest another food alternative for weight loss.

What they mustn’t do though is provide a detailed meal plan for their clients. If a personal trainer were to give a client a day-by-day schedule of what they should eat, they would be operating outside of their professional boundaries.

Qualifications are vital

In the UK, only those with the relevant qualification as overseen by the Health & Care Professionals Council, should give this kind of information.

For those who are qualified to not only provide personal training services but also give dietary advice, the rules are different.

Should someone be operating within their professional boundaries and under the relevant qualification, then nutritional advice is a great way to help clients achieve their goals.

Insurance cover

Being qualified isn’t fool-proof though, and doesn’t prohibit something going wrong. If a client was to suggest that a meal plan provided by their personal trainer (who was qualified to give nutritional advice) caused illness or failed to deliver the professional services they were paying for, they may choose to take legal action.

With Personal Trainer Insurance in place, a fitness professional can be protected in this instance. Our policies include Professional Indemnity which covers PTs for the advice they give.

Precisely, it covers “any breach of professional duty or wrongful or inadequate advice given for a fee.” Therefore, if you, as a personal trainer, are also qualified to give nutritional advice, and are deemed to have given inappropriate advice to a client who has paid for the service, you would have protection in place.

In summary, it’s important to remember as a fitness professional that you should not provide any services that you are not qualified to do so. This includes abstaining from providing nutritional advice and meal plans if you do not have the required certification.

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09:33:36 GMT • 14 January 2025

Do You Need Public Liability Insurance for a Charity Event?

26 March 2019

•

4 mins read

Contributors

Mandy has been with Starpeak Insurance Solutions since 2018, starting in sales in the consumer department and mov...

Get event insurance from Protectivity

When organising a charity fundraising event, paying out extra money for insurance can seem counter-intuitive. After all, the aim of your event is to raise money, rather than spending it. However, a fundraiser without insurance can do the charity efforts more harm than good if things go wrong.

Taking public liability insurance for a one off charity event doesn’t cost much and is well worth the expenditure. There are a number of things that could occur which means claims of thousands of pounds. Without event cancellation insurance in place for your fundraiser this can be devastating.

About us

Protectivity is a specialist in niche commercial, leisure, and lifestyle insurance. We cover thousands of individuals and small to medium size businesses across the UK, offering a range of tailored insurance products such as Event Insurance to protect our customers against unforeseen events.

What could lead to a claim?

There are two main aspects of public liability insurance anyone organising a charity event should be aware of.

Personal injury

The first is the protection it offers against personal injury caused to a third party attending your event. If you’re organising a table-top sale this could be something as seemingly minor as a visitor tripping over a table leg. But it could be as serious as part of the staging or lighting falling onto visitors if you are operating a larger-scale event.

In either of these instances, injuries caused to a visitor could lead to legal action. Despite the fact the event is a charity function, we are living in a no-win no-fee environment where individuals are more willing to put forward a claim.

If this were to happen, having public liability insurance in place for your event will protect you. You will be covered for the legal costs of defending you and your event. This includes any settlement should the accident be deemed your fault. It may also be a good idea to ask anyone selling or exhibiting at your event to have their own Stallholder Insurance in place too.

Property Damage

It’s likely that you’ll be hosting your charity fundraiser at a third-party venue. This could be a council-owned facility or one that is privately owned.

In either case it’s like that the venue owner will require you to hold public liability insurance for your event. As well as injury to attendees, this cover will protect you if property damage is caused on the day.

This could range from marks left on the walls of a village hall when setting up tables, to damage caused to a hired-out field if your event happens to be outside.

Public liability claims could also materialise from damage to smaller items, belonging to both the venue owners and your visitors. From smashed windows, to broken personal items, if the event is deemed to be at fault, legal action could ensue. The only way to ensure that you are fully protected in this instance is by having Event Insurance to protect your fundraiser.

Having charity event insurance in place is more than just public liability cover, with other benefits available. But by making sure the basics are covered you can put your full effort into raising money for good causes.

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09:33:08 GMT • 14 January 2025

Which Treatments Does Holistic Therapy Insurance cover?

By Steffi Cavaliere

25 March 2019

•

4 mins read

Contributors

Steffi Cavaliere

Steffi joined the business in July 2017 as Business Support Executive. Steffi completed her degree in Sports and ...

Get therapist insurance from Protectivity

As a therapist it is important to understand what your therapy insurance policy covers. As well as including a range of differing benefits most policies will include coverage for a large number of therapy treatments.

These activities stretch far and wide and aim to deal with client’s issues and grievances with a variety of different techniques.

At Protectivity, our Therapist Insurance policy can provide cover for over 250 different treatments. These can generally be grouped together by treatment types, to best illustrate the cover we can provide.

Here are just some of the treatment types available with our cover:

Massage therapy

The most common type of massage practised by the therapists that we cover, with a wide range of varieties in itself. From Thai Massage to No Hands Massage, we can provide cover for massage therapists providing dozens of different services.

Each policy provides public liability cover in case of injury caused to a client, perhaps through a over-zealous massage or due to a negative reaction to the oils you choose to use.

Yoga therapy

The popularity of yoga in this country is growing. One source estimated that up to 460,000 people participate in the exercise on a regular basis in the UK, and it appears that the power of yoga is now being embraced by therapists.

Using yoga to help alleviate aches, pains and other ailments, yoga therapy practitioners are becoming commonplace.

Variants covered under Protectivity’s Therapy Insurance product include laughter yoga, baby yoga and Thai yoga, as well as the more traditional method.

Spiritual therapy

A huge group of therapy practices, therapists that focus on the spiritual side of things make up a large portion of Protectivity customers. Activities that fall into this therapy type include angel card reading, mediumship and treatment using chakra healing stones.

Under our policy, we provide cover for professional indemnity. This would protect a therapist should any of the advice they give lead to a client suffering an injury to themselves.

Counselling

When we say the word ‘therapy’, counselling may be the immediate practice that springs to mind. Talking through our problems is something that is being encouraged more and more prominently in everyday life, and those who provide these services should ensure they have adequate cover.

A range of different counselling techniques such as addiction counselling and psycho-therapeutic counselling can be covered by our counsellor insurance policy.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Another therapy type that is more focused on mental health is cognitive behavioural therapy. Like counselling, CBT can be implemented to help clients deal with a huge range of stresses in their day-to-day lives, through a variety of techniques and therapy treatments.

Activities such as mindfulness therapy, stress management and smoking cessation can all be covered under Protectivity’s Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Art therapy

The use of art therapy is another way that could help their clients. Implementing art based activities in a therapeutic environment, art therapists provide a safe space for individuals to express their problems and stresses in the form of art.

Other arts that can be used in a therapy environment include dance therapy and play therapy which helps people to express themselves in a way that helps their mental well-being.

With over 250 individual therapy treatments covered under Protectivity’s policy we haven’t listed them all in this blog. To see if your speciality can be covered, just visit our Therapy Insurance page and input your technique into the quote box. If we can cover the activity, we will provide you with an instant price.

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09:32:43 GMT • 14 January 2025

Wedding Marquee Insurance

22 March 2019

•

3 mins read

Contributors

Mandy has been with Starpeak Insurance Solutions since 2018, starting in sales in the consumer department and mov...

Every year thousands of couples up and down the country will opt to use a marquee at their wedding.

Whether hiring huge structures to hold hundreds of guests, or a smaller tipi or wigwam, it’s important to take out wedding marquee insurance.

The average marquee hire cost is often into four-figures. Therefore the cost of repairing a damaged tent or gazebo can therefore be expensive too. But with the correct wedding insurance in place, you can be covered from these costs.

Most policies designed to cover weddings won’t include your marquee as standard. Many providers, including here at Protectivity, allow you to add on a marquee insurance extension to all policies.

What is covered?

This additional benefit will protect you and your guests from being financially liable for any damage caused. Under our Wedding Insurance policy, we can provide an additional £25,000 of cover in this instance.

So for example, if high winds or storms caused damage to your marquee, you would be covered. Similarly if a guest tripped and fell into the structure causing damage, the repair costs are handled by your insurance.

Naturally, as not many of us own a marquee of our own, this extension includes marquees hired for your wedding. The cover is in place in the whole hired period, but there are some exceptions to be aware of.

Important exemptions

It’s important to ensure that the marquee is erected and dismantled correctly. Often the hire company will take care of this themselves, but if you are required to assemble the structure couples should be aware that damage will not covered during the put-up and take-down of the marquee. There is also an exclusion on our policy which says that any damage that is caused due to the defective erection, use or disablement will also be excluded.

Another thing to consider when choosing your wedding marquee is that there is suitable space for it. It may sound obvious, but couples should check with their venue that there is an area big enough and flat enough for your structure of choice.

You will also need to think about how you will obtain power inside your marquee. Many hire companies will supply a generator but you may be required to source your own. Most wedding insurance policies will exclude claims relating to the generators themselves so remember to be extra careful.

In summary, if you are considering wedding marquee hire, there isn’t much too it. Just ensure the logistics work for your venue, think about the safety of your guests and remember to take out wedding marquee insurance in good time ahead of your big day.

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09:32:23 GMT • 14 January 2025

Insurance Requirements for Event Organisers

11 March 2019

•

4 mins read

Contributors

Mandy has been with Starpeak Insurance Solutions since 2018, starting in sales in the consumer department and mov...

Get event insurance from Protectivity

As an event organiser there are sure to be plenty of things on your to-do list. From choosing the right venue, to selecting suppliers, to picking the best date, there is a lot to consider. One of those things that shouldn’t be forgot is cover for event cancellation.

But knowing exactly how insurance for event organisers protects you can be confusing. We’ve broken down the types of one off event cover and what makes up a typical policy.

Public Liability

This is the main aspect of many insurance policies designed to cover event planners. Public liability insurance for events is designed to cover you should a third-party suffer property damage or accidental injury.

Of course, most events should be set up to ensure the safety of its visitors, but accidents do happen. This could involve someone tripping on wiring and injuring themselves, or some unsecured stage design falling on a visitor.

If something of this kind occurred at your event, that third party may opt to sue you. Having event liability insurance in place will ensure that your defence costs are taken care of by your insurance policy. Should you and your event be found to be liable, the cover will handle the settlement that follows.

Employers’ Liability

As well as the event attendees it is also important to ensure the safety of those working on the day. Should a member of staff suffer an injury and blame it on the negligence of the event organiser, legal proceedings could ensue.

With employers’ liability in place not only will the costs associated with defending you as an organiser be covered, but so too will any compensation payout that is deemed necessary to the staff member.

It’s also important to remember that anyone working on the event, whether they are a paid employee or a volunteer, can take action and it is a legal requirement to have employers’ liability in place. The only exemption in this case is if the workers are bona-fide sub-contractors that hold their own public liability insurance.

Cancellation Cover

The most obvious thing that could see you suffering financial loss is if you have to cancel the day altogether. As organiser, it is likely that you will have paid deposits (or possibly even the full amount) to secure your event; and sometimes this money is non-refundable.

Thankfully, having event cancellation insurance in place will ensure that you are not left out of pocket if your event is cancelled, postponed or abandoned for adverse weather scenarios.

With many events taking place in the notoriously untrustworthy British summertime we can include adverse weather protection in the cancellation section of your policy.

Equipment Cover

The value of equipment used a different events will vary wildly. For example, a local craft fair will usually not need to protect as much equipment as a small music festival. Regardless of the type of event you are organising it is always worth taking out protection for it.

Most insurance policies will protect you against accidental damage, loss and theft of the equipment that is vital to the smooth operation of your event.

And with many events hiring equipment such as sound systems, marquees and other expensive items, having event equipment cover that includes hired equipment is also advised.

Whenever insuring equipment it is vital that event organisers do not under insure their equipment. In the event of loss this could mean you are not able to recoup the full value of your equipment.

How can you get event insurance?

Protectivity’s One Off Event Insurance can include cover for all of the above and is available with instant, competitive quotes. If you’re not the event organiser, but someone selling at an event, then our Stallholder Insurance might be more suitable.

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09:32:05 GMT • 14 January 2025

Dog Walking Safety and Protecting Yourself

By Steffi Cavaliere

8 March 2019

•

4 mins read

Contributors

Steffi Cavaliere

Steffi joined the business in July 2017 as Business Support Executive. Steffi completed her degree in Sports and ...

Get dog walking insurance from Protectivity

As a pet business professional the well-being of the animals entrusted to you should be number one priority. However, that doesn’t mean you should neglect your own safety when dog walking.

It’s important to take a number of steps to give yourself the best possible chance of not suffering an injury whilst carrying out your business activities.

Safety starts at home

Dog walking safety starts before you’ve even left home. Good preparation is the foundation of avoiding accidents when caring for your canine clients.

A recent guide introduced by the Pet Industry Federation includes the following advice:

“The dog walker should meet with the dog prior to taking them for a walk so that the walker can become familiar with the dog’s needs and that a pre-assessment can be made to evaluate their personality and behavioural characteristics.”

Not only will a pre-walk meeting allow you as a professional dog walker to make a judgement of how best to protect the dog, it will also allow you to protect yourself.

For example, a on-lead only walk for an animal that has a history of chasing other animals will reduce the chances of running away and causing itself an injury. On the other hand, if on a pre-walk assessment you discover that certain situations triggers an aggressive response in the dog you can either decline to walk that dog or ensure you avoid putting yourself in such a situation.

Other dog walking injuries

It’s not just aggressive dogs that can see dog walking injuries occur. A study in the USA discovered that between 2004 and 2017 injuries to dog walkers over the age of 65 had more than doubled. The most common injury cited in the report was a broken hip, with injuries to an upper limb following in second.

However, being younger than 65 obviously doesn’t preclude dog walkers from suffering an injury.

Protectivity’s Dog Walking Insurance has an additional Personal Accident benefit which can provide a lump sum payout should a walker suffer an injury whilst carrying out professional dog walking activities.

Under that benefit, we have seen a number of claims from our protected walkers. These have ranged from broken legs after being knocked down by runaway dogs (the most common injury), to thumb injuries caused by a lead, to trapped nerves.

Taking out suitable pet business insurance can ensure that if you were to suffer a serious injury whilst walking, you wouldn’t face serious financial implications of not being able to run your business.

Walking precautions

There are other things that dog walkers can do to ensure their own safety whilst on walks.

Firstly, and perhaps most obvious, is to ensure that you always carry a fully-charged mobile phone on you at all times. That way, if you come into any trouble whilst out on a walk, particularly if you are in a more rural location, you can phone for help.

Dog walking apps are becoming more and more common and are another great way to ensure your safety whilst dog walking. Not only will you be able to manage your business via these apps but you can also set a tracker. That way your clients will know exactly where you are when walking their dogs, and therefore will have an insight to your location should you get lost or injured.

In conclusion, ensuring your own safety whilst walking dogs is as important as protecting the dog’s. By undertaking these simple steps you can ensure you put yourself at as little risk as is possible when running your pet business.

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