Disclaimer Template

A Disclaimer on your app or website is often the best way to address specific points of liability that could fall outside a Terms and Conditions agreement or a Privacy Policy agreement.

This article will discuss some of the most common and important disclaimers and what purposes they serve while showing examples from real businesses that use these disclaimers.

We've also put together a Sample Disclaimer Template that you can use to help write your own.

What is a Disclaimer

A Disclaimer is a statement aimed to address specific points regarding liability.

Disclaimers have a long legal history. They generally have two main purposes:

To warn
To limit liability

A warning sign is an example of a disclaimer that everyone would be familiar with.

"No trespassing" signs alert passing individuals that they are near a private land boundary and also excuse the landowner of some liability if people visit uninvited and get injured.

Sometimes the warning and limitation of liability are based on statutory law. For example, the state of Washington in the United States has a law that prevents people injured at equestrian facilities from pursuing legal damages.

Any business that boards, trains or allows the riding of horses has to have a specific sign to enjoy this protection from liability. This sign acts as a disclaimer much like a "No trespassing" sign in that it informs and specifies limits on facility responsibilities:

Disclaimer on Equestrian location

Another area where you would find disclaimers is books.

Storey Publishing places a general disclaimer in most of its works. A book by Allan Hamilton, M.D. titled Zen Mind, Zen Horse: The Science and Spirituality of Working with Horses, contains this disclaimer because Dr. Hamilton is a neurosurgeon and the book offers horse training advice along with explanations of equine neurology:

Example of disclaimer in book by Storey Publishing

Placing a disclaimer on websites and apps has the same purpose as those employed before the internet. While the warning element remains, the primary concern is about limiting legal liability and responsibility.

A common area where disclaimers arise is on websites offering alternative health or medical advice.

iHerb sells vitamin and herbal supplements online. It's also very careful on how it represents its information and adds this disclaimer:

iHerb disclaimer on healthcare advice

The detail in this medical disclaimer from iHerb is understandable. Supplement companies can make big claims and yet, these have to be discerned thoroughly. iHerb makes it clear that while the products are available for purchase, that does not mean they will always yield the intended benefits.

Intertek, a consulting company, has a legal disclaimer page that explains that the company provides the best information possible but will not be held liable if the user does not enjoy the intended results.

Intertek's disclaimer page is titled "Legal Disclaimer" but is really a catch-all of liability:

Intertek legal disclaimer

These are examples of disclaimers that are presented as separate documents. Sometimes, however, disclaimers are included in the Terms and Conditions agreements of a website or mobile app.

When to use a disclaimer from termsfeed

FAQs on Disclaimers or Disclosures

Here is a list of frequently asked questions that you may find useful.

1. Do I need to use disclaimers?

There are a few disclaimers that are regulated by law and mandatory in certain situations, but generally disclaimers are optional and used to benefit business owners.

For example, affiliate disclaimers are required by the FTC and by many third parties. Disclaimers like "Views Expressed" and "Errors and Omissions" disclaimers are not required, but having them will help limit your legal liability.

2. Why should I use disclaimers?

You should use disclaimers because they help limit your legal liability and keep your users informed. In some circumstances, you should use disclaimers because they're legally required.

For example, if you operate a blog that gives financial advice, having a "Use at Your Own Risk" disclaimer can help limit your liability in the event that someone takes your advice and loses a fortune. The disclaimer makes it clear that you aren't responsible for anyone who uses your advice and has adverse consequences.

If you engage in affiliate marketing, the FTC and many third parties require you to post a disclaimer informing the public that you use affiliate links. You should use a disclaimer here to avoid violating the law.

3. What type of disclaimer should I use?

This depends on the nature of your website, business or blog.

Here are some of the most common disclaimers and when each should be used:

Views Expressed: Used by experts or professionals when writing personal opinion content that's in the same field of study as their career. For example, a climate change scientist would use this disclaimer when writing an editorial or opinion piece that involves the topic of climate change. The disclaimer would say that the opinions are his own and not that of his employer.
No Responsibility/Disclaimer of Liability: Used mostly by ecommerce companies, software companies and others that offer products or services. This disclaimer limits liability for any damages that may arise by the use of the products or services.
Past Performance: Used mostly with products and services that seem to promise results. For example, a diet pill company or a financial planning company can disclaim that "past performances don't necessarily indicate future results."
Use at Your Own Risk: Used often with businesses that sell products that may be considered dangerous or risky to use. For example, a company selling chainsaws can disclaim that you're using their chainsaws at your own risk and if injury arises during the use, it isn't the company's fault.
Copyright Notice: Used almost universally to protect personal content, intellectual property, website designs and other proprietary creative content.
Errors and Omissions: Used universally to protect businesses in the event that the website content has an error or omission in content that a user may rely on to some detriment.
Affiliate Links: If you use affiliate links, the FTC and third parties such as Amazon require this to be disclosed.
No Professional Relationship: Used mostly with professional bloggers. For example, a lawyer who runs a personal blog dissecting legal cases and explaining laws would use this disclaimer to let her readers know that there is no professional relationship formed between her and her readers. Her blog is simply there for information and entertainment purposes, not professional purposes.

4. Where do I display my disclaimer?

Disclaimers should always be displayed somewhere conspicuous.

Some people choose to create a separate "Disclaimers" webpage and link it to their website footer alongside other important legal pages (such as a Terms and Conditions agreement and Privacy Policy).

Others choose to place the disclaimer text directly on webpages or directly in the website footer.

You can include disclaimers in your Terms and Conditions agreement.

Note that legally-required disclaimers like affiliate disclaimers must be displayed as close to the affiliate links as possible.

When to Use a Disclaimer

There are particular situations that require disclaimers more than others.

If your business would benefit from any of the following disclaimer types, consider posting a disclaimer in a conspicuous place on your website or through your mobile app to keep your users informed and yourself legally protected.

Disclaimer Examples

Medical Disclaimer

Medical disclaimers let users know that you are not giving medical advice, you are not to be held liable for anyone's medical issues and that you suggest they seek professional medical attention if needed.

The examples from WebMD and iHerb shown above emphasize that this is an important area for having disclaimers.

Here's another example:

Novartis Terms of Use: Medical information disclaimer

For example, people will often Google their symptoms before making a doctor's appointment, making disclaimers regarding the effectiveness of online medical information or supplements very important.

The last thing your company needs is to face a lawsuit due to misuse of your product or information that leads to someone becoming very ill or even dying.

Medical disclaimers are often very detailed, like with iHerb or WebMD.

However, if you merely provide a platform for doctors and other medical professionals to share information with the public, a disclaimer will be more simple.

You can include these and any other disclaimer within apps, as seen here:

Fitbit HRV screen with medical disclaimer highlighted

No Professional Relationship Disclaimer

This disclaimer makes it clear that there is no professional relationship created between the website owner and the reader/visitor.

People rely on professional advice and often do not make the distinction between hiring a professional and reading an expert's blog.

Attorneys especially face this ordeal.

Potential clients may interpret an attorney's blog as legal advice and pursue remedies if that fails to work for them.

Amy Porterfield helps entrepreneurs, educators and online experts build better online businesses, which clearly means she's going to be giving advice and recommendations. She has a blog and a podcast where she shares her thoughts, tips and informative content. Amongst her many disclaimers, she includes a "No Professional-Client Relationship" disclaimer:

Amy Porterfield no professional client relationship disclaimer

The disclaimer notes that simply using any of the resources made available does not create a professional relationship between the parties. This is important because certain rights come with such relationships. If Amy had a legal obligation as a professional in a contractual relationship to everyone who read a blog post of hers, you could see how that would get out of control, and fast.

Legal Advice Disclaimer

This disclaimer lets people know that the legal information your website offers is not to be taken as direct legal advice, and you are not to be held liable if someone takes your content as advice, implements it and has bad results.

Here's an example of a very standard, typical legal advice disclaimer:

Example of legal advice disclaimer on Amy Lynn blog

Note how it begins by stating that the website author is not a lawyer and should not be taken as offering legal advice. If you are a lawyer you can still include this clause (and very much should!), but can just leave out the part stating you aren't a lawyer. The rest of this clause will apply regardless.

If you provide a professional service consider a disclaimer if:

Your reader may be confused about duties you owe them and leave you vulnerable to liability (as with attorneys, legal advice and informative blogs)
You are advising in an area that is not necessarily within your expertise.
This allows the reader to have a clear understanding of your relationship to them and puts them on notice that your tips or advice should be verified by another professional before readers act on them. Otherwise, they assume the risk.

Blog Disclaimer

If you run a blog where you share your thoughts, opinions or personal content, you should consider a general blog disclaimer that makes note that your content is just your opinion and that you can't be held liable for anyone relying on it for more than just that.

Here's an example of a simple blog disclaimer that accomplishes this:

Guava Rose blog disclaimer

The disclaimer also notes that the content isn't intended to offend or insult anyone.

Content Disclaimer

If your blog allows others to post content, such as with blog post commenting, or if you provide links to third-party resources, consider a content disclaimer. This type of disclaimer will note that you aren't responsible or liable for anything anyone else posts, shares or transmits on your site, or anything on any other sites that you link to. It's a good catch-all way of disclaiming content created by anyone else, even if it's on your site or shared by you via a third-party link.

Here's an example of a content disclaimer from fitness and wellness coach, Coach Erik:

CoachErik content disclaimer

Here's an example of a similar disclaimer:

Ayush Herbs objectionable content disclaimer

You can have an additional content disclaimer that addresses accuracy of information, stating that your company can't be held responsible for things like incomplete or inaccurate information, typos or omissions. While the other content disclaimers address subjective content issues, this type of clause deals more with objective things, like unintentional mistakes or errors.

Here's an example of this:

Ayush Herbs accuracy of information disclaimer

Affiliate Disclaimer

This type of disclaimer discloses that you promote affiliate links and may get compensation from purchases via your links.

Affiliate relationships enter the sticky territory, especially if you are paid for reviewing products.

In 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the U.S. passed rules requiring the disclosure payments received for endorsing products. That requires disclaimers if you have a commercial relationship with another entity where you advance their product or service. These types of disclaimers are less about avoiding liability and more about informing users.

Sewing.org offers a blog with craft tips and reviews products. It offers this disclaimer regarding reviewed products and specifically mentions the FTC in the disclaimer:

Excerpt of affiliate disclaimer from Sewing Org

Here's a Reviews disclaimer from Amy Porterfield. The disclaimer notes that sometimes incentives might be provided to the site in exchange for reviews. Amy makes sure to let readers know that all reviews are always good-faith, honest opinions regardless of whether a discount or incentive was offered in exchange for the review:

Amy Porterfield reviews disclaimer

It's not only fair, but it's legally required that you inform your readers about any commissions, compensation or payments you receive by reviewing or endorsing products.

Earnings Disclaimer

If your site deals with information that's intended to help others boost income, you should have an earnings disclaimer. This disclaimer will be relevant for websites that offer things such as stock market and investing advice, professional life-coaching, career advice, gambling tips and other content that someone can reasonably rely on to boost income or earnings.

Include a disclaimer that states that past successes or successes of others are not a guarantee that everyone will have such successes. This is a type of "results may vary" disclaimer. This will limit your liability in case someone relies on your advice and doesn't have an increase in earnings.

Here's an example from Amy Porterfield:

Amy Porterfield Earnings Disclaimer updated

Results Not Typical Disclaimer

This disclaimer simply states that whatever results are discussed or disclosed on a website are not typical. So, users should not necessarily expect to have the same or even similar results.

This is very common with diet and weightloss companies. Here's an example from the Atkins diet website:

Atkins results not typical disclaimer

Disclaimers offer good legal protection when you identify specific legal risks.

Medical, professional, and affiliate circumstances definitely require a disclaimer. If your product, service or content falls under a different category, a disclaimer will merely act as reassurance.

Identify your risks and then decide if you require this extra content in your legal agreements or on your website and/or through your mobile app.

In sum, using a disclaimer is a solid, simple way to keep your readers and customers informed. You can create one (or many, if needed) in just a few minutes and add them to your website as easily as you'd add other important content.

Should You Display Disclaimers in Your Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy?

Yes, a standard place to display your disclaimers is within your Terms and Conditions agreement or your Privacy Policy.

Many businesses choose not to have disclaimers because they believe the topics are covered in the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy agreements of their websites or apps.

In some cases, this is true. Both agreements will likely contain disclaimer-type language that can act as protection against liability.

The Terms and Conditions agreement acts as a set of rules for using the online service and the Privacy Policy explains how you handle personal data.

There can be standards of behavior for users in the Terms and Conditions and limits to the personal data collected in the Privacy Policy. As long as conduct proceeds as addressed in these agreements, you are protected.

However, there are differences which make disclaimers essential.

If there's a specific risk involved with the use or misuse of your service, a disclaimer addresses that much better and much more clearly.

Outlining these risks directly and making the disclaimer easy to locate is a better way to get information to your users than just burying content in a Terms and Conditions or Privacy Policy, which may not serve as enough warning to your users.

Even then, there are businesses that dabble in higher risk transactions but do not have a disclaimer. Instead, they opt to include disclaimers in other legal agreements.

One example is the general disclaimer of warranties, seen here in Amazon's Conditions of Use page. Notice the all-caps easy-to read font and clear language rejecting warranties and limiting liability:

Disclaimer of warranties from Amazon Conditions of Use

Likely due to the fact that it only trades in information, WebMD also keeps its disclaimer in its Terms and Conditions page. However, it's very conspicuous and located in the introductory content of that document:

WebMD medical advice disclaimer

Summary of What a Disclaimer Is

Disclaimers work the same way as your other legal agreements. They give users a heads-up on what to expect and make the limitations of your content, product or services known.

If your disclaimer is easy to find or part of an accessible FAQ, legal agreement or page of its own, it is likely for a court to agree that the liability is on your user rather than your company for anything disclaimed, within legal limits.

Developers, bloggers, and writers use them because they do more to hurt than help. If there's a high risk of misuse, err on the side of providing disclaimers. However, less risky industries can likely proceed fine without them.

Download Sample Disclaimer Template

Generate a Disclaimer in just a few minutes

The Sample Disclaimer Template is available for download, for free, and it includes these sections:

General information
Fitness information disclaimer
Affiliate links disclaimer
External links disclaimer
Fair Use disclaimer
Views Expressed disclaimer
No Responsibility disclaimer
"Use at Your Own Risk" disclaimer

Sample Disclaimer Template (HTML Text Download)

You can download the Sample Disclaimer Template as HTML code below. Copy it from the box field below (right-click > Select All and then Copy-paste) and then paste it on your website pages.

Disclaimer
Our Disclaimer was last updated on [___DATE___]
Interpretation and Definitions
Interpretation
The words of which the initial letter is capitalized have meanings defined under the following conditions. The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural.
Definitions
For the purposes of this Disclaimer:
<ul>
<li>"Company" (referred to as either "the Company", "We", "Us" or "Our" in this Disclaimer) refers to [___COMPANY_INFORMATION___]</li>
<li>"Service" refers to the Website.</li>
<li>"You" means the individual accessing the Service, or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable.</li>
<li>"Website" refers to [___WEBSITE_NAME___], accessible from [___WEBSITE_URL___]</li>
</ul>
Disclaimer
The information contained on the Service is for general information purposes only.
The Company assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in the contents of the Service.
In no event shall the Company be liable for any special, direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages or any damages whatsoever, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tort, arising out of or in connection with the use of the Service or the contents of the Service. The Company reserves the right to make additions, deletions, or modifications to the contents on the Service at any time without prior notice.
The Company does not warrant that the Service is free of viruses or other harmful components. This Disclaimer was generated by <a href="https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/sample-disclaimer-template/">TermsFeed Disclaimer Template</a>.
Fitness & Nutritional Information Disclaimer
The Service can offer health, fitness and nutritional information including, without limitation, advice and recommendation, that is provided solely as general education and informational purposes.
Use of the advice and information contained herein is at your sole choice and risk. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace, professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or healthcare provider before beginning any nutrition or exercise program.
If You choose to use this information without prior consent of your physician, You are agreeing to accept full responsibility for your decisions and agreeing to hold harmless the Company.
FTC Affiliate Disclaimer
The disclosure that follows is intended to fully comply with the Federal Trade Commission's policy of the United States that requires the Company to be transparent about any and all affiliate relations the Company may have on the Service.
You should assume that some of the links are "affiliate links", a link with a special tracking code.
This means that if You click on an affiliate link and purchase the item, the Company may receive an affiliate commission. This is a legitimate way to monetize and pay for the operation of the Service and the Company gladly reveal its affiliate relationships to You.
The price of the item is the same whether it is an affiliate link or not. Regardless, the Company only recommends products or services the Company believes will add value to users.
Affiliate advertising programs that the Service uses are:
[___LIST___]
External Links Disclaimer
The Service may contain links to external websites that are not provided or maintained by or in any way affiliated with the Company.
Please note that the Company does not guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any information on these external websites.
Fair Use Disclaimer
The Company may use copyrighted material which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The Company is making such material available for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.
The Company believes this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the United States Copyright law.
If You wish to use copyrighted material from the Service for your own purposes that go beyond fair use, You must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Views Expressed Disclaimer
The Service may contain views and opinions which are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other author, agency, organization, employer or company, including the Company.
Comments published by users are their sole responsibility and the users will take full responsibility, liability and blame for any libel or litigation that results from something written in or as a direct result of something written in a comment. The Company is not liable for any comment published by users and reserves the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever.
No Responsibility Disclaimer
The information on the Service is provided with the understanding that the Company is not herein engaged in rendering legal, accounting, tax, or other professional advice and services. As such, it should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional accounting, tax, legal or other competent advisers.
In no event shall the Company or its suppliers be liable for any special, incidental, indirect, or consequential damages whatsoever arising out of or in connection with your access or use or inability to access or use the Service.
"Use at Your Own Risk" Disclaimer
All information in the Service is provided "as is", with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness or of the results obtained from the use of this information, and without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including, but not limited to warranties of performance, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.
The Company will not be liable to You or anyone else for any decision made or action taken in reliance on the information given by the Service or for any consequential, special or similar damages, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Disclaimer, You can contact Us:
<ul>
<li>By visiting this page on our website: [___WEBSITE_CONTACT_PAGE_URL___]</li>
<li>By sending us an email: [___WEBSITE_CONTACT_EMAIL___]</li>
</ul>

Screenshot of the Sample Disclaimer Template

More Disclaimer Templates

More specific Disclaimer Templates are available on our blog, including the following:

Sample App Disclaimer Template	A Disclaimer for mobile apps.
Testimonial Disclaimer Sample	A Disclaimer for testimonials.
Sample Fair Use Disclaimer Template	A Disclaimer for fair use.
Sample Warranty Disclaimer Template	A Disclaimer of warranties.