Cleaning business insurance

Cleaning company insurance

As a professional cleaner, you keep your clients’ homes, offices and business premises sparkling. But all it takes is for someone to slip and fall while mopping to find your cleaning business facing a claim.

And without insurance for your cleaning service, it’s not just your reputation you’re risking. You’ll have to find the money for medical bills, legal fees, and damages too, if you’re liable. The cost of a claim like that might just clean you out.

Cleaning insurance can take care of these costs for you. It means if something goes wrong, your cleaning company liability insurance keeps your business safe. And your reputation spotless.

Think of cleaning business insurance as protection -- like the gloves you wear when you’re handling hazardous material. When you know you’re protected, you don’t have to worry. You can focus on doing your job.

• Why do cleaning professionals need general liability insurance?

  Property damage and slip and fall claims are by far the most common in the cleaning industry.

  So, as a cleaning professional, because you visit a client’s home, or business premises, you want a general liability policy. It can protect your business from the cost of claims for:

  • Bodily injury - a customer trips over your cleaning supplies when you’re cleaning their home and hurts their back, making you liable for the injury.
  • Property damage - if it's not related to your professional services. Like if you break a client's priceless vase while cleaning their office.
  • Slander/libel - you make some not-so-nice remarks about a customer while out for lunch with friends. They later find out about this and sue for slander.

  Without cleaners' general liability insurance you’ll have to cover the cost of a claim yourself. And they can cost. A lot.

  Read more about why cleaning businesses need general liability insurance. and what other types of insurance house cleaners need

  Or find out exactly what cleaners' general liability insurance covers

  Loss or damage to your own property, or property in your care, custody and control, is not covered. You’ll want to add property insurance to your cleaning services insurance package to cover that.

  Download our fact sheet to find out how to minimize the risk of claims being made against your cleaning or janitorial business today.

• Who needs cleaning business insurance?

  The short answer is, anyone who owns a business that cleans professionally. Here are some examples of the kinds of businesses that should have cleaning business insurance in place:

  • Cleaning contractors
  • Self-employed cleaners
  • House cleaning
  • Janitorial
  • Window cleaning
  • Carpet cleaning
  • Floor cleaning
  • Housekeeper & maid services

• How much is insurance for a cleaning business?

  The amount you’ll pay for cleaning business insurance depends on a few different things. For example, if you have employees, how many clients you have, the size of your contracts, and more.

  Our guide on cleaning insurance costs goes into more detail. It’ll give you all the information you need on what goes into the price, the differences between commercial and domestic cleaner costs, and more.

  Due to that, it’s difficult to say how much it’ll cost. The quickest and easiest way to found out is to get an online quote. It only takes a few minutes and will give you a much better idea of how much your insurance will cost.

• What type of insurance does a cleaning company need?

  There are various types of cleaning insurance worth considering. Exactly which ones you’ll need depends on the way your cleaning business is structured, the equipment you use and if you have employees.

  Workers’ compensation insurance protects your cleaning business from the cost of workplace injuries to staff. Most states require you to have workers’ comp the minute you hire your first employee. And that’s a good thing. Because if someone has an accident while they’re working for you, your insurance can cover their medical bills, lost wages and legal costs. It can protect you from a lawsuit, too – whoever’s at fault.

  Employment practices liability insurance can cover the cost of claims brought by employees of your cleaning company for employment-related issues. Including: unfair dismissal, sexual harassment and discrimination. It’s a good policy to have, because nowadays workers know their rights.

  Cyber insurance – you might think you don’t need this coverage. But if you store client data, your small cleaning company is just as likely to be targeted by cybercriminals as a big corporate. Size doesn’t matter to hackers. They go for the soft targets. And without tough cyber defenses, that’s you.

  So step up your cyber security and protect your cleaning business with a cyber policy. Because it’s not the attack that’ll wipe you out, its the huge cost of recovering from one. Cyber liability insurance can take care of these costs, so your cleaning service survives.

What other kinds of insurance do cleaning professionals need?