Overview
When you work as a professional tour guide, you might have thoughts about getting an insurance policy to cover your professional work, in case something terrible happens while on tour. Tour Guide Insurance policies can be an affordable way to protect your activity, however there are not many options, and the protection is limited.
We’ll outline three options that are right for you, depending on what kind of guiding services you do.
Do you need tour guide insurance?
The answer is probably no. The overwhelming majority of tour guides do not purchase their own tour guide insurance. You might chose not to buy a guide insurance package for a number of reasons:
- you don’t work often enough to justify the cost
- there aren’t that many options for guide insurance out there, and it doesn’t suit how you work as a guide
- the company you work for has insurance, and as long as as you’re working within the parameters of the job requirements, you’re not at significant risk.
Reasons why you might consider covering yourself:
- you work significantly as a guide and/or tour director in a multitude of situations for several companies
- you’re concerned about the level of protection your company might provide for you
- you’re concerned about the risks involved in the kinds of guiding you do
- you’d like the psychological satisfaction of feeling “covered.”
If you feel you’d like to get coverage, here are three options.
Option 1: Guide Association Policy
If you’re a member of a local tour guide association, they may offer a policy that protects you while leading a tour.
In the United States, these policies are very affordable, however they only protect you when you’re working for someone else, i.e. when you’re contracted by another tour company. They do not protect you when you’ve taken payment from a client to render a service. If you’re taking payment directly, then you are working as a tour operator.
In the United States, some local associations like the Washington D.C. Guild of Professional Guides offer their own policy. Other associations work with the NFTGA (National Federation of Tour Guide Associations) to provide a policy.
If you do not have a local association near you, you can purchase protection through the NFTGA directly.
Option 2: A Tour Operator Policy
You might consider yourself to be a tour guide, but that doesn’t mean an insurance company does. A specific guide-only policy is rare (in the U.S. your choice is basically an association policy, or the specific policy of AON).
If you’re offering and receiving payment for leading your own tours, or on a website or through a third party like Viator, you are essentially working as a tour operator. You’re taking payment for a service provided, and as such you could be held liable for something that happens.
Before we talk about insurance, you should know that your best basic level of protection is to register yourself as an LLC (limited liability company). This puts up a first shield between your client and yourself. Get a business bank account, and get payment made to the LLC, not to you personally.
Beyond that, as an LLC, you should consider getting tour operator insurance. There are many more options out there for operators than for guides.
There are two main tour operator insurance companies in the United States:
These policies cover you as a business (Errors & Omissions) in addition to simply your behavior as a guide. This is especially important when you receive payment for your services directly, since guide policies generally do not cover that.
Option 3: AON’s new tour guide & tour director insurance policy
Over the covid-19 Pandemic, AON announced a new insurance program for Independent Standard Tour Guides. This product offers professional liability insurance for both tour guides and tour directors.
(Note: TripSchool does not receive any sort of commission from AON. You’ll want to connect with them directly for more detailed information.)
According to AON, their new program largely mirrors their Tour Operator liability insurance, but applies specifically to the role of the “Independent Standard Tour Guide.”
Who does the program apply to?
AON states that this policy is for “any individual, whether or not incorporated, or the sole member of an LLC, while acting as a tour guide, tour director, or tour escort under contract with a third-party tour operator.”
What kind of situations might this apply to?
- The injury or death of a tour participant.
- A missed or delayed arrival at a destination, or a deviation from the planned itinerary that results in additional costs for the tour participants or tour operator.
- Alleged failure and negligence in performing your services.
What kind of coverage is offered?
In-depth details aren’t yet available. We’ll update this article when they do. But, according to AON, this policy offers both General Liability coverage aimed at protecting against participant injuries, etc., and Errors and Omissions coverage, covering mistakes that might result in monetary damages. Their materials state that this is worldwide coverage, offering protection against bodily injury and property damage claims, as well as associated attorneys fees for defense.
Note that AON has expressly excluded riskier activities associated with adventure tours, like “bungee jumping, canoeing, hang gliding, helicopter touring, horseback riding, hot air ballooning, mountain climbing, snorkeling, water skiing.”
What does it cost?
They’re offering two rates:
- $450 annually: $500,000 per occurrence/ aggregate ($500 deductible)
- $595 annually: $1,000,000 per occurrence/aggregate ($500 deductible)
What is TripSchool’s takeaway?
Certainly a lot more information and a detailed policy is needed for review, but we’re really excited by the potential here. This has long been on the wishlist of freelancers, since guides and tour directors have long lived in a murky gray area of being “covered” through their employer, the tour operator, but not being insured independently with a robust policy that protects them in the event that that company coverage doesn’t go far enough, or if the two parties enter into dispute. Often the employer couldn’t give the guide or TD detailed information about coverage, because it was untested and they didn’t know. Tour guides don’t get sued that often. But in a world transformed by covid-19, risks have multiplied for everyone, especially those on the front lines of travel experiences.
Again, while U.S.-based local day guides have had coverage options through their associations, this is a game changer for multi-day tour directors who travel internationally. We’ll keep you updated as more policy details are announced!
How to sign up?
We’ve linked below to their application and brochure. Currently they don’t have anything on their website, but you can pick up the phone and give them a call at 1.800.803.1213.
Again, TripSchool is not affiliated with AON, we do not receive a commission of any sort, this information is just being provided to help the community of tour guides and tour directors!
