Dog Walkers, UX Designers, and Pickleball Coaches: Who Really Needs Business Insurance?

It's a fair question to ask yourself: I'm just me, do I need business insurance, or is that overkill for one small gig? The honest answer is that it depends on what you do, not how big you are. If you earn income, you have something to lose. Injure someone, damage their property, or make a mistake in your work, and someone can file a claim against you.

Why does being small not make the risk go away?

When you work for yourself with no LLC, your business and your personal life are the same thing in the eyes of the law. A claim against the business is a claim against you. Your home, your savings, your car are on the table.

Lawsuits against small operators are more common than most people think. In one poll, 43% of small-business owners said they had been threatened with or pulled into a civil lawsuit. And you don't have to lose to get hurt. Defending a single claim for a small business can run anywhere from $3,000 to $150,000.

So being a business of one doesn't remove the exposure. It concentrates it on you.

Two questions that tell you what you actually need

Forget the long list of coverage types for a minute. Most of what a solo earner needs comes down to two questions about your real risk.

1. Does your work put you near other people or their property?

If yes, your real risk is a third-party injury or property-damage claim, and the coverage for that is general liability (also called commercial general liability, or GL). It pays for someone else's injury or property damage that your work causes, including your legal defense.

This is the picture for a dog walker, a pickleball coach, a photographer, anyone who works around people or inside their space. A customer trips on something at your setup. A dog you're walking bites a passerby. You leave water running at a client's home and it floods the floor.

These claims aren't rare or small. The average dog-related injury claim was $65,450 in 2025. One incident is enough to wipe out a year of a solo earner's income.

2. Does someone pay you for advice, a deliverable, or a judgment call?

If yes, your real risk is a "your work cost me money" claim, and the coverage for that is professional liability (also called errors and omissions, or E&O). It pays when a client says your work or advice caused them a financial loss.

This is the picture for a UX designer, a consultant, a marketer, a developer. You advise a client on a strategy, they follow it, and they lose money. A client says your deliverable missed what they hired you for. The accident here isn't physical. It's a mistake, or a claim of one.

General liability won't cover this, and E&O won't cover a dog bite. They cover two different kinds of accident, so plenty of people need a bit of each. A pickleball coach who also sells a training program touches both.

When is insurance genuinely optional for you?

Here is the honest version. If you never go near a client's space, never touch their property, and nobody pays you for advice or a deliverable they could later blame for a loss, your liability exposure may genuinely be low.

A blogger writing personal essays who takes no sponsorships and gives no advice is a reasonable example. The risk is there, but it's thin, and it's fine to decide it isn't worth covering yet. Just make that an honest call about your actual work, not a default because thinking about insurance is unpleasant.

"But I have an LLC. Isn't that enough?"

An LLC and an insurance policy do two different jobs. An LLC protects your personal assets, your house and your car, by keeping the business separate from you. But that protection has limits, and courts can set it aside when the line between you and the business blurs.

More to the point, an LLC doesn't pay anyone. If a client gets hurt or claims your work cost them money, the LLC doesn't cover the injury bill or your legal defense. Insurance does. So the LLC covers your personal assets, and insurance pays when the business gets sued.

A contract clause works the same way. It can shift responsibility on paper, but it won't pay for your defense or the other side's bill.

"Doesn't my homeowner's insurance cover this?"

Generally, no. Personal policies are built for personal life and usually exclude or sharply limit business activity. A client injured during a session you ran, or a mistake in paid work, typically isn't covered. General liability and E&O fill that gap. Your personal policy won't.

What's next?

If you're still wondering, do I need business insurance? Yes. Do you need everything? No. You need the one or two coverages that match what you actually do. That's the whole reason we built Olli for businesses of one — answer a few questions about your work and we'll tell you which coverage fits, what it costs, and what you can skip.

Our editorial content is intended for informational purposes only and is not written by a licensed insurance agent. Terms and conditions for rate and coverage may vary by state, class of business or the individual.

Sources

• U.S. Small Business Administration — Get business insurance
• Insurance Information Institute — Commercial general liability insurance
• Insurance Information Institute — Professional liability insurance
• SCORE — Business insurance for sole proprietors
• SCORE — Is your small business prepared for a lawsuit?
• Insurance Information Institute — Spotlight on dog bite liability