Copywriter struggles. You craft thousands of words for a variety of clients across different sectors. Despite best practices to write, edit and review, you’re human. Copy blindness is a real thing and sometimes a mistake will slip through the cracks.
Because of the variety of subjects copywriters cover, there is always the risk of publishing factually incorrect information or inconsistencies that reduce credibility. But the type of issues we mostly see copywriters struggle with are typos in the copy.
If a mistake is spotted too late it can incur a cost to fix (like reprinting charges) or can result in a loss for the client—say, down to a pricing error.
We’ve been arranging insurance for copywriters for 8 years and have seen:
- 20,000 product units being reprinted
- 5,000 marketing flyers flushed down the drain
- website copy with the wrong product price
If anything lead to a loss of business for the client, or the client incurring additional charges to fix an oversight, they may try to recover this cost from you.
That’s where professional indemnity insurance comes in. Depending on the context of the claim, professional indemnity can either cover compensation that needs to be paid, legal fees in the defence of a claim… or both!
Let’s look at the features of the professional indemnity policy that copywriters are commonly supported by.
Negligence
The negligence clause in your professional indemnity policy is intentionally broad so that it captures lots of situations. The gist is; if you make a mistake in your work and your client tries to recover damages from you, your insurance can help. For example, if you design packaging for a client and a typo is only discovered once the product has went to print, your client can look to recover the costs to fix the mistake from you.
Emergency correction problems
This feature is ideal for copywriters and will put your mind at ease in the event of a tight deadline. The insurer will pay the reasonable costs in correcting mistakes in advertising or marketing material to enable the content to be published inline with the client’s original expectations.
Unintentional copyright infringement
Some copywriters are responsible for sourcing third-party assets for clients, like images or video. This means you need a good understanding of copyright law. We’ve covered the misuse of third-party assets in great detail and the claims we’ve encountered as a result. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re pursued for copyright infringement damages, your professional indemnity insurance can assist.
Breach of contract
This is less common with copywriters but it’s still something that pops up occasionally—usually due to a missed deadline. If you breach any terms in your contract and the client suffers a loss as a result, they could look to recover the cost from you. This could be down to work that isn’t delivered to the agreed timescale or to spec, which can leave you vulnerable to claims of breach of contract.
One of our customers was hired to write the copy for a new food company. It was a big job spanning the marketing website, socials and food packaging itself.
Human error is inevitable, but can be costly
A typo on the food packaging had only been spotted after the initial batch had been printed. Tens of thousands of units were already on a plane ready for delivery around the world.
A common misunderstanding from freelancers is that their risk is limited to the fee they were paid for a job—and sometimes that is the case. But in this scenario there were costs with reprinting the packaging, additional shipment costs and a delay to the product being available, which the client could argue has caused loss of income.
It was an expensive job to fix the mistake and the client pinned the blame on the freelance copywriter.
Luckily the copywriter had insurance
Yes, the freelancer had written the copy and was responsible for editing and proofreading. But the argument the insurer made was that the client had signed-off on the copy before it went to print therefore the freelancer shouldn’t be liable for 100% of the cost.
Both had played a part in missing the mistake. (And on that note, this is why it’s so important to get sign-off on work before it’s published!)
Without insurance, the freelancer could have been forced to:
- hire independent legal counsel
- pay 100% of the costs to rectify the error
With insurance, the cost of their legal representation was included in their policy. Any damages that had to be paid were covered by the insurer, minus the excess.
The insurer also handled negotiations with the client, which removed even more stress from the copywriter.
By now you should have a better understanding of what insurance is and how it can help you, but how much is it going to cost?
With Jack can arrange £1,000,000 of professional indemnity insurance for copywriters from £168 per year. Payments are interest free so this works out to just £14 per month.
You can customise your package by adding additional products to your policy, like public liability, contents insurance and legal expenses cover.
What products you need will depend on your contractual requirements, risks you face, worries you have about your business and your budget.
Most of the copywriters using With Jack to arrange their insurance have professional indemnity and legal expenses insurance. Contents insurance doesn’t seem to be as popular amongst copywriters, but it’s worth asking if you have the capital to replace your computer should it computer suffer accidental damage or be stolen. If the answer is no, it’s worth considering contents insurance.
As a freelance copywriter your reputation is everything and is the key to booking your next project. You’re responsible for
- delivering work on time
- meeting client expectations
- providing factually correct content, free of mistakes
- sourcing third-party assets like images inline with copyright law
Being insured not only puts you in a better position to fix a wrong, but it gives clients confidence that they’re working with a trusted professional.
We’ve talked about what features insurance has that can help you, real stories from copywriters that have had to use their insurance and how much it costs. You can take the next step and get a quote.
