Apologies if I miss anything off, this is my first post!

My question is about insurance/legal cover for private piano teaching. I?m about to do my ABRSM performance Diploma and I?ve been teaching a student who is a family friend, so the worry of cover etc has never really come up. Recently they passed my details on to a couple of people who now want their children to have lessons. I?ve got some advice from a friend who is an experienced teacher and they recommended I take out public liability insurance as the lessons will be at my house and some legal protection in case of a false claim.

As I?ll only be doing a small amount of teaching, where should I get these from so that it?s not too expensive? I?m in the UK and have looked at the Musician?s Union but it?s almost ?200 a year and most of the things that are included in that I have no use for!

Please help

Absolutely, you need insurance! You also need to make sure that your household and contents insurance allows for you to work from home. If it doesn't then you need to change insurers as soon as possible. I know the chances of anything going wrong are remote, but you need to remember that by working from home you could be invalidating your current insurance. Whilst we all hope we never have to claim, in any shape or form, there is absolutely no point in running the risk of not being properly covered.

Also consider joining EPTA, who will provide you with public liability insurance, both inside and outside the home, as if you take on work outside the home, even if it is just taking or accompanying students to exams, this could be helpful.

If you have the insurance in place, fingers crossed you never need it, you will have peace of mind.

Ditto for the ISM.

There really doesn't seem to be a viable solution for part time teaching.
I have MU membership which covers it but it's somewhere in the region of 10% of my earnings.
They used to have a tiered system but now the only lower fees are for students. For those of us teaching part time it's really high. It's a high cost when I can't take on more than 4 hours teaching a week and if you only have two or three students (and only want that many) you are paying for the privilege of teaching.

Great replies, thanks for being so quick!

The EPTA membership benefits look good (and cheaper than ISM!) and it requires only Grade 8 so would be OK. The only thing is it asks for teaching qualifications and/or experience. I'm guessing my previous experience of only one pupil for a couple of years (as a favour) is not really going to cut it? Would doing a short course with ABRSM help (eg one of these?

http://www.abrsm.org/fileadmin/user_upload...ses20112012.pdf

@sbhoa it seems to be that way! My teacher suggested doing it as it will help with my playing but the costs seem to be adding up faster than the benefits!

I don't usually recommend going to student's houses. But if you did, you wouldn't need to worry about house insurance. Although you'd probably still want some Public Liability Insurance and membership of these bodies is quite useful.

I am not an EPTA member but I would think it would bring more piano and teaching specific benefits like their publications etc. I am an MU member and most of the stuff we get is general industry stuff not tailored to teaching or piano.

I have taken out public liability insurance as a separate policy rather than join one of ISM, MU or EPTA. My reasons for doing so were that I couldn't justify the additional expense when all I really wanted was the insurance aspect!

My renewal is currently sat on my desk and is for the princely sum of ?45.79 - slightly up on last year. This covers not only my teaching commitments but also my baby music groups.

The prices quoted elsewhere in this thread where someone only wants the insurance aspect are incredible!

I will happily pass on the details of my broker to anyone who wants to follow this up - they also sorted out my house insurance to ensure that I was covered even though teaching at home.

Cheers

Catherine x

I have always used the NFU. They have various different policies for working from home. It is just tagged on to our normal house buildings and contents insurance - off the top of my head I think it's an extra 40ish pounds. Last time I mentioned this on this forum someone else said that the NFU had refused to insure them, but perhaps their circumstances differed from mine. Insurers use all sorts of factors to assess risk.

A word of warning. When I started working from home I rang the insurers to sort out appropriate cover. They couldn't provide that sort of cover, and then informed me that my phone call had just invalidated the insurance we had! It was a tense few hours ringing around to find someone who would cover us. So make sure you sort it out before you actually start teaching.

NFU?!

NFU = National Farmers Union. They provide my cover, both household and contents. They aren't the only ones who provide cover for people who work from home, but they are very good.

The danger of working from home, without being honest with your insurers, is that you risk invalidating your policies. So although it is a pain, it is really worth investigating and taking out adequate insurance. I don't know if you could do a basic household and contents policy or policies, and just top up for the appropriate number of students you have visiting, which a poster seems to be saying they are already doing?

It is one of those things, I think there are loads of people who work from home, without bothering to take out insurance cover, but personally, I just don't think it is worth the risk, especially as people are particularly litigious these days if they so much as break a finger nail!

We're with the Woolwich Cooperative Insurance because they let me be a piano teacher at home. Also not too expensive.

Im with the MU, but I do gig aswell so it covers me when I'm out too. They do give a lot of other benefits too, free general business and legal advice, instrument and various other insurances. I pay it monthly on direct debit so I don't really notice it. My household insurers are fine with it provided I don't teach over 10 (or it might have been 20!) students a day - I should be so lucky - don't even do that in a week!

www.homeprotect.co.uk is who I'm currently with - the online application asks you various questions about the typical number of visitors per day, if they're accompanied on entering the premises, whether you have paying guests (for Bed and Breakfasts) etc., so I feel reassured that they couldn't claim I've hidden anything from them!