By Tara Duncan, with Host Haley Hinson Ishmael
For many interior designers, insurance falls into the category of business tasks they know they need to handle but would rather not spend much time thinking about. Leah Check understands why.
As national sales lead for the program at Villanova Insurance Partners, Check works with designers and other creative professionals to make a complicated subject feel a little less intimidating. Through the company’s partnership with the Designer Society of America, that work includes DSAinsure, an insurance and risk-management program created specifically for DSA members.
And while Check spends her days talking about policies, liability and risk, her larger message to designers is much simpler: Put the right protections in place so you can spend more time doing the work you actually love.
“If you make the effort to actually learn about the items that your business needs in order to successfully run, you’ll be able to focus on the fun stuff, which is the design,” she says.
Insurance Built With Designers in Mind
DSAinsure grew out of a larger program-based insurance model serving professionals in the staging, interior design and professional organizing industries. The DSA-specific program is exclusive to DSA members and combines insurance discounts with risk-management resources.
That DSA connection matters, Check says, because membership signals something important to an insurer: education.
Designers who have invested in professional education and operate according to industry standards can represent a better insurance risk. That, she says, is part of the reason DSAinsure can offer its maximum program discounts to qualified DSA members.
More importantly, specialization means designers are working with people who understand what they actually do.
Check says insurance terminology can vary from one provider to another, making it especially important to work with an agent who understands a designer’s scope of work and can match coverage to the risks that come with it.
General liability, for example, can protect against certain property damage or third-party injuries connected to a designer’s work. Professional liability, also known as errors and omissions (E&O), addresses professional mistakes, such as providing incorrect measurements or ordering an incorrect item.
Those distinctions matter because being a designer doesn’t mean being removed from liability.
“Where Is My Exposure?”
Designers may not be the ones physically taking down a wall or performing construction, but Check cautions against assuming that means they cannot be pulled into a claim.
If a designer provides incorrect information that contributes to a construction mistake, for instance, that advice could become part of a dispute. Liability can also arise from something much less dramatic: A visitor could trip over a designer’s bag in a client’s home and suffer an injury.
Check encourages designers to periodically look at their daily work through a different lens.
“Take a look at the work you’re doing every day and be like, ‘Where is my exposure?’” she says.
The goal isn’t to make designers afraid of every decision. It’s to recognize where risks exist so they can prepare for them.
DSAinsure’s own educational materials take a similar approach, identifying client miscommunication, project delays and budget overruns, accidents, property damage and intellectual property concerns among the risks designers should consider as they build their businesses.
A Contract Is Part of the Protection — Not All of It
Check also wants designers to reconsider another common assumption: that having a signed contract automatically protects them from liability.
A good contract is important, but it works alongside insurance and sound business practices.
“The contract isn’t a guarantee that you aren’t responsible for anything,” Check says.
And not just any contract will do.
Check says one of the mistakes she increasingly sees is business owners relying on AI-generated language as a substitute for legal review. While AI can be useful for many everyday tasks, she cautions against trusting it to create a legally binding document without review from a qualified professional.
Designers also shouldn’t assume that a contract borrowed from a colleague will necessarily protect their own business. Laws and exposures can differ from state to state, particularly for designers who work across state lines.
That is one area where DSAinsure’s services extend beyond simply selling a policy. Its resources include attorney-approved contracts, and its educational materials encourage designers to use written agreements with subcontractors and have service agreements reviewed by an attorney.
When a Small Mistake Becomes a Big Expense
Sometimes the value of that preparation doesn’t become apparent until something goes wrong.
Check says one of the more common claims involving interior designers stems from incorrect measurements or incorrectly ordered items.
She recalls a recent case involving custom chairs that arrived in the wrong finish. The client refused to accept or pay for them, leaving the designer facing a loss of roughly $10,000. The designer filed an insurance claim, and the matter was covered; Check says the designer also managed to sell the chairs afterward to recoup some of the loss.
This example is an important reminder that a claim doesn’t have to involve a catastrophic accident or massive construction failure. Sometimes it’s a measurement, a finish, or a simple miscommunication.
“Mistakes are part of life,” Check says.
The question for a business owner is what happens after one occurs.
Three Investments in a Stronger Design Business
If a designer has limited resources and wants to make the biggest impact on protecting the business, Check recommends focusing on three areas: professional education, appropriate insurance, and qualified legal guidance.
Education comes first because knowing the standards of the profession can help designers operate more effectively from the beginning. Check points specifically to organizations such as DSA, which provide education while also connecting members with partners who specialize in their industry.
Second is insurance — but not simply buying a policy and filing it away.
“Make sure you’re having a conversation with your agent and asking them specifically, ‘What is this covering? What does this actually do?’” she says.
Third, she recommends consulting an attorney who understands the interior design industry. A lawyer specializing in an unrelated area may be an excellent attorney, she points out, but may not understand the particular issues that need to be addressed in a designer’s client agreement.
Together, those investments create something designers may value as much as the financial protection itself: confidence.
Protect the Business, Then Get Back to Creating
Check’s advice ultimately comes back to patience.
At least annually, or even quarterly, she encourages designers to examine how their businesses are operating. Look at the wins, but also look carefully at the losses. Where did something go wrong? What could prevent it from happening again? Does the solution require different insurance, stronger contract language, better documentation, or a change in how the team operates?
That process doesn’t have to take designers away from their creativity. Done correctly, it can protect it.
The same idea runs through DSAinsure’s broader resources for designers: use clear agreements, document client decisions, work with properly insured subcontractors and maintain coverage appropriate to the work you’re actually performing.
Once those structures are in place, Check says, designers can turn their attention back to why they built their businesses in the first place.
“Remember the insurance, take the notes, but then go out there and do what you were meant to do,” she says.
It is a philosophy that echoes the larger idea behind DSA’s professional resources: the business side of design should support creativity rather than consume it. Much like Andrea Liebross’ advice to designers to build simple structures that protect their “creative bandwidth,” the right business safeguards can give designers room to lead and create.
For DSA members who aren’t sure whether their current insurance provides the protection they need, Check says DSAinsure can also review an existing policy and offer a side-by-side look at potential coverage gaps — even if DSAinsure ultimately isn’t the best option for that particular designer.
“We’re always going to be a resource for our DSA members,” Check says. “But if you already have an outside agent that you trust, make sure you have those conversations. Just fully understand what your policy covers.”
