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Insurance for speech pathologists
As a health professional, you need to know that your insurance policy is always in fit form. Which is why we’ve made sure our policies are informed by health professionals to suit the unique needs of your profession.
You can keep thriving knowing you’re protected by an insurance company with your best interests as a health professional at heart.
Professional indemnity and public liability insurance
Cover that protects you for what you do everyday.
Business
insurance
Protects your business property, people and interruptions.
What you should know about insurance
Professional indemnity insurance covers you for your civil liability when a claim arises from a breach of your professional duty. Many professional policies at Guild Insurance combine professional indemnity, public liability, and product liability to cover more of your professional duties. Business insurance, on the other hand, is a broader category that encompasses various types of coverage designed to protect businesses from a wide range of risks. This can include property damage, theft, and liability claims from third parties.
For professionals providing advice or services:
- Assess your service risk: Evaluate the potential risks associated with your professional advice or services. Consider the possibility and implications of your advice or actions leading to a client's physical, psychological, or financial detriment. Reflect on the likelihood and consequences of a situation where an error or omission on your part could lead to legal action.
- Understand legal requirements: Familiarise yourself with the legal and regulatory landscape relevant to your profession. Is holding professional indemnity insurance a legal requirement or an industry standard in your field? For certain contract positions and many allied health professionals regulated under Ahpra, professional indemnity and/or public liability insurance is required.
- Consider your financial exposure: If faced with a legal claim, could you afford the legal defence and potential damages out of pocket?
For business owners protecting their operations:
- Identify your business assets: Determine which physical assets are crucial to your business operations, such as property, equipment, and inventory. Consider the consequences if these assets were damaged, stolen or lost.
- Evaluate liability risks: How likely is it that someone could be injured or their property damaged because of your business activities? This includes both public liability and product liability.
- Consider business interruptions: Think about the resilience of your business in the face of unforeseen events that might force temporary closure. How would such interruptions impact your financial stability?
If you are unsure of the cover you require, please contact us on 1800 810 213 to speak to an insurance specialist.
Why choose Guild Insurance as a speech pathologist?
Unlike many of our competitors, we are a 100% owned direct insurer. Which means not only do we work with your association (Speech Pathology Australia) with developing your policy, we work with them while administering it.
We partner with:
We don’t answer to an international head office, and your policy is secured right here in Australia. All decisions are made at Guild, by someone who has a relationship with industry experts and associations.
Endorsed by 10 out of 15
Ahpra regulated professions
24/7 Claim Support
Members have access to solicitors at Meridian Lawyers with over 100 years cumulative experience
Hear from other speech pathologists
01/03/2025
They provide regular information to support members in better understanding risks or ways to support them in the workplace. The information that they provide is clear and those of us who aren't legal trained can understand and know what we need to do to protect ourselves and business.
01/04/2025
The process was straightforward and anything I was unsure about was explained. I was pleased that that I could get the insurance cover sorted out quickly which allowed me to just get on with my work.
01/04/2025
Great experience, getting a quote was so straightforward that I recommended Guild to a colleague and she also signed up the day after me
Working with over 130 associations
Insuring Australians for over 60 years
100% Australian owned
Learn how speech pathologists avoid claims with RiskHQ
Ending a therapeutic relationship in Speech Pathology
There will be occasions when a speech pathologist needs or wants to end the therapeutic relationship with a client. However, this isn’t an easy thing to do. Knowing how to do this in a professional way that doesn’t cause any distress for either the speech pathologist or the client can be quite challenging.
Why do therapeutic relationships end?
There can be many reasons why a speech pathologist considers that the therapeutic relationship needs to end. It may be because the needs of the client won’t be met by that speech pathologist and they should be seeing someone else who has the knowledge and expertise they require. It may also occur because the relationship has become strained or difficult and therefore it’s no longer effective. A speech pathologist may inform a client that services are not able to continue if there are concerns relating to safety, or because the client has not complied with their obligations, such as payment of outstanding invoices, or other practice/organisational policies that the speech pathologist has provided to them.
Speech pathologists need to know they can end a therapeutic relationship. In some cases it may not just be that they’re able to end the relationship, it may be something they must do as it’s in the speech pathologist’s and/or the client’s best interests.
Provision of speech pathology services within consumer directed models of funding/care can be challenging. A client may have expectations that will never be met by any speech pathologist, they may not have had much contact with any allied health services in the past and have limited understanding of ‘how it works’. A speech pathologist has an ethical obligation to provide all the information a client will need to understand their communication, swallowing or mealtime support difficulties and how speech pathology may be able to assist them to improve their function or support them. This may mean that information needs to be provided in a variety of ways, with frequent checks of the client’s understanding and support to develop a positive therapeutic relationship.
Communication is key to maintaining positive therapeutic relationships. A speech pathologist has an obligation to ensure they have provided information in a way the client can understand and has discussed any questions or addressed concerns in a professional and respectful manner. Sometimes however, this still does not result in the development of a positive and beneficial relationship and the speech pathologist must consider how to proceed.
Tips for ending a therapeutic relationship
- If there’s tension or conflict arising within the therapeutic relationship, discuss these with the client early. Not doing this allows problems to escalate which makes them harder to manage and de-escalate later. Managing these problems early also allows the speech pathologist and the client to potentially improve the relationship, meaning it may not need to end.
- Records should be made of any discussions with the client (this includes phone calls and emails) about difficulties within the therapeutic relationship and suggestions to end the relationship. Unfortunately, there will be occasions when the client is unhappy with ending the relationship and they may feel they’ve been treated unfairly. The speech pathologist should keep of record of all conversations had as evidence they’ve addressed all concerns respectfully and professionally.
- Reasons for ending the relationship should be provided to the client so they understand why this action is being taken. Understanding the reason is most likely going to lead to them being accepting of the decision. However, what information is provided is at the discretion of the speech pathologist. For example, if a parent is non-compliant with home practice, the speech pathologist should provide sufficient information for the parent to understand why home practice is important and the lack of progress if none is completed, however, stating that the parent is very difficult to work with may not assist that understanding.
- Provide the client with information regarding other speech pathology services available in their area, keeping in mind specific requirements or limitations the client may have, e.g. other practices that offer school/home/residential facility visits etc.
- If a referral to another speech pathologist is made, the specific reasons why this speech pathologist is being recommended should be explained, such as this person has specific skills which would better meet the needs of the client. When recommending that a client see a colleague for their specific knowledge and skill, the speech pathologist must have personal knowledge of the colleague’s expertise. Speech pathologists should refer to information about referrals in Speech Pathology Australia’s (SPA) Policy and Procedure Manual found on the SPA website. Speech pathologists are reminded that they will breach client confidentiality if they share reasons for ending the therapeutic relationship with the new treating speech pathologist. If there are specific concerns regarding the behaviour of a client or family members, speech pathologists should seek independent legal advice about what can or cannot be provided to the next clinician.
Support and assistance can be sought from Speech Pathology Australia, they can be contacted on 1300 368 835.
- Speech Pathologists
- Business
More frequently asked questions for speech pathologists
The law governs that any professional exercise the required skill to an appropriate level expected by that profession. A professional may be liable for financial loss, injury or damage arising from an act, error or omission of fault if the professional has not acted to the required level of skill deemed in that profession. Failure through this may result in the claimant (person who suffered the loss) be awarded for that loss, damage or injury.
Many professions require you to hold a professional indemnity insurance policy by law, such as Ahpra registered professions, but can be for other industries such as financial institutions also. Please check with your registration body or associations of your profession to know if it is required by law to have professional indemnity insurance. It is often also required by companies who take on contract workers that are not governed under the companies own insurance policy. It is acceptable for a company to ask you as the professional contractor to provide evidence of cover for professional indemnity before starting the contract period.
As stated above professional indemnity insurance covers you for breaches in relation to your professional duty. Liability insurance covers you for activity that results in personal injury or property damage as a result of your business activities that do not relate to your specific profession. An example may be someone who trips and is injured from spilled water within your office may be covered under liability, because it is your duty of care as business person to provide a safe environment. Whereas a person who suffers a loss or injury because of your professional treatment in relation to your job has caused it would usually be consider as an indemnity breach.
Generally business insurance is to cover the physical assets of your business for material damage loss and options for theft cover. It can also include cover for financial loss due to business interruption. Usually basic insurance does not cover breach of duty or flood cover, but if you speak to an insurance specialist it can often be added to your policy for a nominal fee.
Depending on the policy you are taking out, covers will often vary. At Guild insurance we specialise in making a policy to suit your business so that you are not over paying for covers you wouldn't normally need. The best thing to do is call 1800 810 213 to speak to an insurance specialist, they can find out what activities and structure your business is in to then provide you with adequate cover for you.
A certificate of currency (or COC for short) is a written document that confirms that your insurance policy is current and valid at a specific date and time. At Guild we provide easy access to your COC at any time within a few clicks of our online portal PolicyHub. If you are a new customer we can provide you with one post purchase.
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