Home business insurance

Professional indemnity is useful if your business offers a service or requires you to give advice to clients. If you make a professional error or give advice that is deemed negligent, you could be taken to court.

Professional indemnity insurance covers any legal and compensation costs you are required to pay. Clients will often ask to see proof of professional indemnity insurance before agreeing to work with a new contractor.

Public liability insurance covers you if you cause injury to a member of the public or accidentally damage someone's property. An example of this could include a customer slipping on a wet floor in your shop or office and hurting themselves or causing damage while carrying out building work on a client's house. You'll be held liable for the claim if you have not taken adequate precautions to prevent any accidents or damage occurring.

This insurance also covers you if a customer or member of the public becomes ill or suffers an injury because of a product you have supplied. For example, if the heel snaps off a shoe someone has bought from you, causing them to fall over, or if a cupcake you sell at an event makes someone sick.

If the people in question pursued legal action against you, public and product liability insurance would cover the costs you are liable to pay. We can offer cover from £1 million to £10 million. Plus, we can cover costs to help you defend the claim.

Employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement if you have employees. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule. Find out more about employers' liability.

We'll cover you up to £10 million, as standard. This cover includes the legal and compensation costs you must pay if an employee gets injured or becomes ill because of the work they do for you.

Home buildings insurance covers the costs of repairing damage caused by an insured event, such as a flood or fire, helping you get back up and running. It applies to your home and areas designated for your business, and you can include any outbuildings as well.

As a standard feature, the policy includes equipment breakdown cover for items that are part of the building. This means it will cover the costs of repairing or replacing essential items like your broken boiler or fire and burglar alarms, provided that the damage is not due to wear and tear.

Our contents and stock cover is ideal for home-based businesses. We insure all types of professions, including:

• A seamstress/sewer and their sewing machine
• A web designer and their computer
• A hair and beauty professional and their salon-grade tools and cosmetics

Getting specialised home business cover could be important as some household insurance policies may not allow business activities at home.

Our contents and stock insurance offers the flexibility to include your home contents in the same policy, ensuring that your home and business contents are covered.

So, if the worst happens and your home gets damaged by an insured event, such as a fire or flood, you'll have peace of mind knowing that we can cover the costs of replacing your damaged home contents and personal belongings as well as your business contents, including items like your sofa, TV, valuable jewellery, and specific business equipment, such as your desk, office chair, or point of sale device.

Do you keep stock at home?

If you store business stock at home—raw materials or finished products—and it gets damaged, this can also be covered under the same policy.

Do you take your business on the move?

Whether you work at fairs, in clients' homes, or shared office spaces, we can also cover your business contents and stock in these locations.

Do you hold extra stock for busy periods?

If you insure your stock at your premises or home and hold extra stock for busy periods, you'll receive an additional 25% cover for your stock for two months of your choosing as standard. This is ideal for the busiest times if you're a retail, hair and beauty, or office and professional business. Excludes bed & breakfast and tradesperson businesses.

Business interruption insurance offers cover if your workplace is unusable after an insured event such as a fire, theft or flood. Whether you run your business from home, an office, a shop, a client's location, or a shared workspace, business interruption can help cover any loss of income until your business can operate at the same level as it previously did had the damage from the incident not occurred. If you need to temporarily relocate due to this damage, we may also pay for the relocation costs if it's economically viable.

If your main supplier or customer's premises get damaged due to an insured event and they can't trade, we'll cover any loss of turnover for your business. We can only do this once their insurer accepts the claim and manages the repairs to their premises. Similarly, if there's an incident, such as a fire, at a location where your business frequently trades, and you can't trade elsewhere, we'll cover the loss of turnover for the time the premises are unusable.

Business interruption will also cover you if key equipment that you use to run your business, like a laptop, is damaged or stolen, meaning you can't trade.

If you, an owner, partner, director, trustee, or other essential employee of your business die or become seriously disabled as a result of an injury caused by accident and violent means, and are unable to continue working, we'll cover the incurred costs, up to £25,000, to minimise any interruption to the business.

If you hold sensitive customer data, process payments online, or just want peace of mind, cyber cover could be a good option to help protect your business. Cyber criminals can catch you off-guard and trick you into doing something you shouldn't, like opening an attachment in a fake email or finding a way through your cyber security. If this happens and they get their hands on your data or access to your bank account, the impact on your business could be serious.

But, with our cyber cover, you can call the experts, 24/7. They'll help you to stay in business and recover in three ways following a cyber incident:

1. Recover financially

• Covering loss of business income
• Covering recovery costs, like fixing damage to your computer systems or data restoration
• Covering fines (where insurable by law) and compensation costs following a data breach

2. Recover your reputation

• You get access to public relations and crisis management experts to minimise damage to your brand and business.

3. Recover your systems and help prevent future incidents

• Technical experts will help fix your IT issues and provide advice on how to prevent future cyber incidents.

Find out more about cyber cover.

Available on new and renewal policies only. For Retail and Office & Professional customers only. Cover is up to the limit in your policy schedule for all claims made in the year. You must follow our requirements for data backup, firewalls and antivirus protection. You'll find these requirements and all other terms and conditions in your policy booklet.

Theft of Takings covers cash or cheques stolen:

• from your premises during business hours
• from your premises outside of business hours that aren't stored in a safe
• from your premises outside of business hours that are stored in a safe
• from you in transit
• from your home, any director or partners home, or authorised employees home
• while you're working at other premises, such as your clients' homes

Maximum limits conditions and exclusions apply.

This covers the legal costs of providing specialist lawyers and taking action against many common legal problems, for instance disputes with suppliers or clients. Legal expenses cover can only be used if there is at least a 51% chance that the claim will succeed.