The Importance of Insurance in Counselling
Nichola Hanson-Jones
The Importance of Insurance in Counselling
There are two main reasons that as a counsellor you will need to be insured and they are : first of all for the safety of the client both Physical and Psychologically. And secondly to protect you the counsellor from costly expense. You may think that there is little to no risk involved in counselling, and while for most part you would be right there are of course instances where things go wrong. It is for these times that you need to have the appropriate insurance in place, for example you have a client come to counselling and while entering the room they trip over fall and injure themselves requiring medical treatment? While this is fairly uncommon situation it could happen and that is something you as a counsellor need to be fully aware is are there any health and safety issue’s? While you can eliminate trip hazards and so on there is always risk of someone hurting themselves in the area you use, and in some cases a client might well make a claim and seek compensation for their injury. Insurance is vital when you are working in a helping profession not only for the reason's outlined above but also for if something goes wrong with the helping process and the client is harmed as a result of this. You should also be aware the a claim may be brought against you up-to 15years after the counselling has taken place and can be brought by a former client or even their family if they feel that your service had caused harm to a client. Legally the person responsible is you so therefore it will be you that they come to for compensation, it is therefore necessary for a counsellor to have sufficient public liability insurance, you should make sure you are covered for the worse case scenario of an accident happening for example someone falling and the result was permanent disability this would be a very substantial claim and there is also the risk that a
The Importance of Insurance in Counselling
There are two main reasons that as a counsellor you will need to be insured and they are : first of all for the safety of the client both Physical and Psychologically. And secondly to protect you the counsellor from costly expense. You may think that there is little to no risk involved in counselling, and while for most part you would be right there are of course instances where things go wrong. It is for these times that you need to have the appropriate insurance in place, for example you have a client come to counselling and while entering the room they trip over fall and injure themselves requiring medical treatment? While this is fairly uncommon situation it could happen and that is something you as a counsellor need to be fully aware is are there any health and safety issue’s? While you can eliminate trip hazards and so on there is always risk of someone hurting themselves in the area you use, and in some cases a client might well make a claim and seek compensation for their injury. Insurance is vital when you are working in a helping profession not only for the reason's outlined above but also for if something goes wrong with the helping process and the client is harmed as a result of this. You should also be aware the a claim may be brought against you up-to 15years after the counselling has taken place and can be brought by a former client or even their family if they feel that your service had caused harm to a client. Legally the person responsible is you so therefore it will be you that they come to for compensation, it is therefore necessary for a counsellor to have sufficient public liability insurance, you should make sure you are covered for the worse case scenario of an accident happening for example someone falling and the result was permanent disability this would be a very substantial claim and there is also the risk that a