Whether you spend your time blogging about food, gaming on YouTube, or posting about fashion trends on Instagram, your job as an influencer is to create content that seems engaging and effortless. However, making it look easy online is often hard work in real life.
It takes a lot of research and an awful lot of admin to keep on top of things so it’s easy to imagine how a simple slip up could impact your reputation. Perhaps you posted someone else’s photo without consent or breached a contract with one of your sponsors? If they decide to claim for damages, you could find your power to influence waning, along with your finances.
Taking out indemnity insurance is one way to protect your business, helping you defend against claims of professional negligence, defamation, or copyright infringement. For a full breakdown of the different types of insurance you might need, here’s our influencer’s guide to making sure you’re covered.
WHO NEEDS INFLUENCER INSURANCE?
Marketing through social media is big business. In fact, influencers have become one of the most effective forms of marketing over the past decade with bloggers working hard to attract, entertain and enlighten their audience about all kinds of products, brands, and experiences.
Despite it being a relatively new field, change is already afoot with the rise and fall of various platforms. TikTok is now the most popular influencer marketing channel, jumping ahead of Instagram and well ahead of Facebook and YouTube.
Yet whichever medium you choose, you’ll want to protect your business and retain your hard-won followers. If something goes amiss and someone claims that they have experienced loss or damages as a result of your work, you’ll need help to defend against the claim.
So, if you are a social media influencer, a paid content creator, a vlogger, or a podcaster, then our influencer insurance is for you.
HOW MUCH DOES INFLUENCER’S INSURANCE COST?
In some cases, the size of your audience and the type of companies you work with or advertise can impact the cost of your insurance. That’s because the bigger your audience, the greater the potential for a mistake to go viral.
Likewise, if you’re working with bigger brands, or even if you have a niche audience but your efforts don’t produce the desired number of ‘likes’, the potential for damage claims could be expensive.
To help establish your situation, influencers can be divided into three main categories.
Macro Influencer – these influencers have a notable online presence with anywhere from 100,000 to 1 million followers. They likely cover a range of topics and work with well-known names or brands.
Micro influencers – with between 1,000 and 100,000 followers, micro influencers typically create content around a particular topic making them sometimes experts in their field.
Nano influencers – with less than 1,000 followers, nano influencers have the smallest audience but often generate the most engagement. They have built an active community around their niche topic. They might work with brands for little to no pay and instead receive products in exchange for endorsements.
WHAT DOES INFLUENCER’S INSURANCE COVER?
As a basic requirement, you should look to take out a policy that provides professional liability insurance – covering you against claims of loss or damage as a result of negligence in the course of your work.
Take time to discuss your policy with your broker and establish whether it includes the following, all of which can be included under influencer’s insurance:
- Defamation
- Breach of contract
- Intellectual property infringement and unfair competition
- Reputation and Public Relations
- User Generated Content
WHY MIGHT I NEED BLOGGER’S INSURANCE?
Without blogger’s insurance, if a claim is brought against you, you will need to fund a legal defence, as well as paying any compensation costs incurred, from your own pocket. In many cases, these costs could be enough to significantly dent your finances, drain your savings, or even cause you to file for bankruptcy.
Influencer insurance therefore provides peace of mind and reassurance in all manner of situations that you may encounter.
For example, if you create sponsored content featuring a sport’s product but forget to include #ad, you could be investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland. Should they rule against the brand, you could be sued by the equipment manufacturer for breach of contract and reputational damage.
Or maybe you create original content such as videos for YouTube, animations, or music. Influencer insurance can protect you against intellectual property disputes where an artist claims you used their music without permission, or posted an image without their consent.
If you would like to discuss how influencer insurance could protect your work, speak to our insurance experts today.
With over 50 years’ experience in providing specialist insurance cover, OBF has been at the heart of it all since 1973. Technology may have changed a lot since then, but the peace of mind that insurance provides always remains the same.
