What Insurance Covers You as an Independent Support Worker on CareVicinity

Working for yourself means the safety net an employer used to hold is now your responsibility to understand. Insurance is the part of that responsibility it's easy to put off, often because the answers online are either sales copy or so heavily qualified they say nothing.

Here's what's actually in place when you work through CareVicinity, and, just as importantly, the condition that determines when it applies.

The condition that determines everything

One sentence carries most of the weight:

Support workers are covered by CareVicinity's insurance for approved services booked and invoiced through the platform, subject to the Terms and Conditions.

Both halves of that matter. The service needs to be an approved one, and the work needs to be booked and invoiced through CareVicinity. That's the line between covered and not covered, and it's a more useful thing to understand than any list of policy features.

What CareVicinity's cover includes

Two types of cover:

• Group personal accident insurance

• Combined general liability insurance

In plain terms, the first relates to injury to you, and the second to liability arising from the work. The specifics of what each covers, and to what extent, are set out in the Terms and Conditions rather than summarised here, and that's where you should read them before you rely on them.

What "approved services booked and invoiced through the platform" actually means

This is the part worth being precise about, because it's where workers make assumptions.

Cover attached to a platform follows work done through that platform. If a shift is arranged in the app, delivered as an approved service and invoiced through CareVicinity, it sits inside that arrangement. If it doesn't run through the platform, it doesn't.

The practical implication: logging your shifts properly isn't just an admin habit that gets you paid. It's part of what keeps the work inside the arrangement in the first place.

Work you arrange privately

Some support workers build a mixed client base over time, working through a platform for some jobs and finding others directly. That's a normal and reasonable way to work.

It does mean holding two different situations in your head. Work booked and invoiced through CareVicinity sits under CareVicinity's cover on the terms above. Work you arrange privately, outside the platform, doesn't, and what protects you there is a separate question you need to answer for yourself.

Nobody can answer that one for you in an article, because it depends on the work you do, where you do it and what you already hold.

Questions worth asking before you rely on any cover

This section is practical advice rather than a statement of what CareVicinity's policies say. Whether you're looking at platform cover or a policy you buy yourself, these are the questions that tend to matter:

• What exactly triggers cover, and what falls outside it?

• Does it cover injury to me, damage to a client's property, or both?

• What happens if I use my own car to transport a client?

• Does it apply to every service I offer, or only some?

• What am I expected to do, and how quickly, if something goes wrong?

• What isn't covered at all?

Ask them of CareVicinity for platform cover, and of an insurer or broker for anything you hold yourself. A short conversation before you need the answer is worth considerably more than reading a policy document after an incident.

Where to get the actual detail

The Terms and Conditions are the source for what CareVicinity's cover does and doesn't extend to. If your situation is unusual, or you're not sure whether a particular service sits inside the arrangement, ask CareVicinity directly rather than working it out from a general description.

That isn't a brush-off. Insurance specifics are exactly the kind of thing that shouldn't be paraphrased.

FAQ

Do I need my own insurance as a support worker? That depends on your situation, particularly whether you also take work arranged outside the platform. It's a question for an insurer or broker who can look at what you actually do, not one with a general answer.

Am I an employee for insurance purposes? No. Support workers on CareVicinity are independent contractors. CareVicinity does not employ or assign them, and cover provided through the platform is not employer cover.

Getting set up

If you're organising the business side of independent support work, insurance sits alongside your ABN, screening and references as one of the things worth sorting before you start taking work rather than after.

You can see what's involved in delivering care through CareVicinity, including how cover applies to work booked through the platform.