Salon and Spa Insurance in Texas

What salon and spa insurance covers in Texas

Salon and spa insurance is two liability policies plus property: general liability for what happens in the room, professional liability for what happens in the chair, and a property policy for the stations, the equipment and the fit-out.

What each one answers for a Texas salon:

• General liability: the client who catches a heel on a mat, the child who pulls a shelf over, water the salon sends into the suite next door
• Professional liability, often called malpractice on a salon form: the chemical burn, the color correction that had to be redone, the reaction to a lash adhesive
• Commercial property: chairs, dryers, wax pots, shampoo bowls, retail stock, and the build-out the owner paid for in a leased space

Business income belongs in the package too, because a salon that closes for repairs stops earning the day it closes.

Why a Texas salon needs professional liability and not just general liability

General liability excludes the rendering of professional services, which is the half of a salon’s exposure a general liability policy alone will not pay.

The line between the two is the service itself:

• A client trips over a cord in the waiting area. General liability.
• A relaxer is left on too long and the client loses hair. Professional liability.
• A microblading pigment reacts and the client needs treatment. Professional liability.

Texas Occupations Code ch. 1603 puts barbering and cosmetology under the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation: §1603.2101 licenses the individual practitioner, §1603.2201 licenses the establishment. An underwriter asks which of those licensed services are performed on site, so answer by service and not by job title. The service list is what the professional liability form is rated and written against.

Booth renters, employees and product sales

A salon owner’s policy covers the salon’s own operations, and a booth renter running an independent business is not automatically inside that.

The chair and the shelf are two different exposures:

• A service performed by a booth renter belongs to that renter’s own general and professional liability, which is why the salon keeps a current certificate for each chair it rents
• A service performed by a stylist on W-2 payroll sits on the salon’s policies, and that payroll is what workers compensation rates on
• A product sold off the shelf brings products liability in, because the salon is reselling shampoo and color it did not manufacture

Private-label retail removes the manufacturer the claimant would otherwise reach, so a spa with its own label carries more of the product exposure than one that resells.

What Aulona Insurance Group can place for a Texas salon or spa

Aulona Insurance Group places personal care accounts statewide, through insurers the agency holds appointments with. Barbers, hair salons, nail salons, day spas and wellness studios are all classes the agency places.

Lines available:

• General liability, standalone or inside a business owners policy
• Professional liability for the licensed services performed
• Commercial property, including tenant improvements
• Workers compensation
• Umbrella and excess liability
• Commercial auto

Inside the small-business program: annual gross revenue under $5 million, total W-2 payroll under $5 million, loss history under $20,000 with no more than two incidents in three years, and no prior cancellation or bankruptcy filing. Workers compensation runs through its own market and is not limited by those figures.

Where Aulona Insurance Group is not the right fit

Aulona Insurance Group cannot place every Texas personal care business, and the service list is usually what decides it.

Where a salon or spa account stops:

• Hospitals and physician practices, which is where a medical spa under a physician’s supervision usually lands
• Injectables, lasers and any treatment performed under medical direction, for the same reason
• Marijuana and cannabis businesses, including CBD topicals sold as a retail line
• Anything that has to go to surplus lines

Revenue, payroll, loss history, a prior cancellation and a bankruptcy filing are the size tests stated in the section above. Life, health, Medicare and disability are not written at all.

What moves the price of a Texas salon or spa policy

The premium on a Texas salon policy is set by the insurer, from rates it has filed with the Texas Department of Insurance, and never by Aulona Insurance Group.

What a salon file is rated on:

• The services performed, since chemical services, waxing, lash work and permanent makeup each rate differently
• The number of licensed operators, and how many are employees rather than booth renters
• Annual gross receipts, split between services and retail product
• The building and the fit-out: square footage, age, construction and the value of the equipment inside
• Claim history, where the size of a past loss matters more than the count

Aulona Insurance Group publishes no premium on this site and does not rank insurers by price. The number comes from the insurer, on a recorded call with Luka Cenaj, in English or Albanian.