Covers for Your Tanning Salon's Insurance?

These days, someone longing for a sun-kissed look right through the year doesn’t have to keep booking new visits to Hawaii or the Costa del Sol. Instead, they can just make repeat visits to their local tanning salon – and that establishment could well be yours, at least in the future.

Whether you act on your initiative to set up a tanning salon or buy it from another person or company, your thoughts could soon turn to the matter of insurance. Tanning is an inescapably risky business; the treatment could too easily inconvenience a client, such as through damaging their skin.

For tanning salon owners, there’s quite a catalogue of risks that we could list right here. However, some risks could be much more applicable than others to your particular business. Hence, you should source the right insurance to make sure the only bronze you provide is on your clients’ skin, not in money you need to spend on compensation payments or buying damaged or stolen items.

Public liability insurance

It undoubtedly pays to be diligent when running a tanning salon. Of course, we trust that you probably already are so careful; for example, you are probably in the habit of regularly disinfecting your tools and equipment with the right cleaning products.

Similarly, once you have retrieved used items such as towels and protective gowns from customers, you probably clean those items in a washing machine and tumble dryer as a matter of course. However, none of this would justify you forgoing taking out public liability insurance for your salon.

We even include it as an automatic cover with all of our tanning salon insurance policies. With this type of cover, you can rest assured that, if a client or member of the public suffers bodily injury or property damage due to an accident by your staff, you can put money towards compensation.

Products liability insurance

Naturally, you don’t just want your customers to be delighted when they see the initial results of their treatment; you also want their satisfaction to last long after they have left your salon. To ensure this, you could sell a range of tanning products which those customers could use at home.

With many sunbed users fond of buying tanning accelerators, you could be reassured to learn of the huge mark-up on those items; it’s between 80% and 100%. Therefore, be sure to diversify accelerators you offer – with budget sachets, high-end bottles and more possibly thrown in.

You also shouldn’t neglect to stock after-sun products and moisturisers, as these will sell reliably well. However, accessorising your business offering with such products could run the risk of one of them turning out to be faulty – and, worse, injuring a customer or damaging their property.

If either injury or property damage happens, the customer might sue you. It wouldn’t matter if you simply supplied, rather than manufactured, the product and you aren’t guilty of negligence; you could still need to pay compensation, the cost of which could be met with products liability cover.

Employer’s liability insurance

This type of insurance works much like public liability cover, except that it is meant to cater for your workers rather than your clients or members of the public. Furthermore, you would legally require it if you hire staff, as explained to every employer gov.uk website – and you are indeed likely to hire staff if you run a salon.

It makes sense to have employer’s liability cover in place anyway, as your staff could be exposed to various risks while carrying out their responsibilities under your salon’s roof. If they pick up an illness or injury at this workplace, they could seek compensation from you.

Treatment liability insurance

There’s no getting away from the fact that the reputation of the tanning business in general has been sullied over the years. With many people now deeming tanning dangerous, as BusinessesForSale.com contributor Nicky Tatley warns, you need to reassure potential customers.

While openly admitting to the facts concerning exposure to UV rays, you can also draw attention to benefits of tanning. Those include light’s ability to promote wellbeing and spur vitamin D production; it can even reduce symptoms of conditions including acne and psoriasis.

However, even as you keep your customers well-informed on both the merits and drawbacks of tanning, some clients could still react with dissatisfaction to your treatment. They might complain that it inflicted damage to their skin or that you denied them the full treatment pledged.

It’s due to possibilities like these that we include treatment liability cover in insurance policies for tanning salons. Remember that, even if you are in the right with the treatment, you might still need insurance to pay the legal fees of fighting a compensation claim.

Stock and equipment cover

When running a tanning salon, you will rely on various pieces of equipment that, nonetheless, could become lost, stolen or damaged at an inopportune moment.

There are quite a few pieces of specialist equipment which you would need to source for your salon. Startups.co.uk lists various examples – including tanning beds, reception desks, seating and changing booths.

Meanwhile, your firm could need to regularly replenish its supply of tanning liquid, which your staff could handle with gloves also potentially needing to be replaced at some point. Also, set aside some of your budget for disposable underwear and shoes to be worn by your clients as they are treated.

All of that would be on top of other essential equipment relevant to all salons; think wheeled trolleys for transporting tools and products, and seating for those clients made to wait. Stock and equipment cover from Salon Gold can help you to replace any of these items.

Stock and equipment cover is one of our optional covers, but what else does our tanning salon insurance entail? You can find out by phoning 020 8655 0444.