Tradesperson insurance

Public liability insurance covers you if a customer or member of the public is unexpectedly injured or their property is accidentally damaged, which leads to a claim against your business.

In most cases, if you've taken all reasonable precautions to prevent such incidents but still face a claim for injury or damage, we can defend you. This includes covering any compensation payments and legal costs if necessary. However, even if you're found to not have taken reasonable precautions and are held liable for damage or injury, we'll still arrange for the claim to be paid.

With Direct Line's public liability insurance, you can choose different levels of cover to suit your business needs. From £1 million to £10 million.

Here are some examples of what public liability insurance would cover:

• You're mowing a customer's lawn but forgot to check for stones, and a stray stone accidentally smashes a window in their home
• You're decorating someone's house and accidentally spill paint on their carpet
• You're installing a new shower system in a customer's home, but you didn't tighten a fitting enough, which resulted in water damage

Like most insurers, if the claim is for third party property damage such as a carpet, laminate flooring, TV, or kitchen hobs, any settlement considers the age and condition of the item.

You need public liability insurance if you:

• Interact with customers, clients and members of the public face-to-face
• Carry out work on client sites, for example, a construction site, or your client's home or office

Read more about public liability insurance

Employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement if you have employees. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, which you can find out more about on our employers' liability page.

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.

If you take out public liability or employers' liability insurance with us, you'll automatically get cover for temporary employees, if you use them.

The maximum number of days we cover temporary employees for will vary depending on the number of manual workers in your business.

• 1 - 5 manual workers - 60 days
• 6 - 10 manual workers - 100 days
• 11 - 15 manual workers - 150 days

Please note that the maximum number of days reflects the total number of days worked by all of your temporary employees. So, if you have seven manual workers in your business, we will provide cover for 100 days worked by all temporary employees in total.

Tools and Business Equipment cover

You're covered if your tools and business equipment are damaged or stolen from:

• a securely locked vehicle during the day
• a locked building, like your garage or home, any time of day or night

Policy limits and excesses apply.

Overnight Tools optional add-on (for an extra premium)

With this you're covered if your tools are stolen from your securely locked vehicle overnight that's parked on your drive, the street, or away from home.

If you are a UK resident, we'll cover you wherever you are in the EU.

What we cover

We cover power tools such as drills, hammers, screwdrivers, chisels, spanners, saws, pliers, trowels and blow torches. And equipment like ladders, steps, cleaning supplies, lawnmowers, paint trays, brushes, workbenches, and spirit levels.

Cover conditions: your vehicle must be secured at all points of entry and any alarms or immobilisers must be set. Tools must be hidden from view and removed when the vehicle is not being used for business purposes for more than five consecutive days. Cover excludes electrical items such as laptops, cameras, mobile phones, removable satellite navigation systems, handheld survey equipment and more. Please check the policy booklet for a full list of items that aren't covered. Vehicles with keyless entry must keep their key fobs in a Faraday pouch.

Cover limit: there is a limit of £10,000 per claim and a single item limit of £1,500.

You will be liable for 10% of each claim, with a minimum contribution of £100 and a maximum contribution of £500.

Read more about Tools, Business Equipment and Overnight Tools.

If you're concerned about your tools getting stolen overnight, you can upgrade your tools and business equipment cover by adding overnight tools cover for an additional premium.

Our 24-hour tools insurance covers your tools at home or in the van, wherever you are in the EU, as long as you are a UK resident.

To add overnight cover to your quote online, you'll need to answer 'Yes' to the following question:

'Our standard cover excludes theft from a vehicle overnight. Would you like to add cover for overnight theft of your tools and business equipment from a vehicle?'

Cover conditions: your vehicle must be secured at all points of entry and any alarms or immobilisers must be set. Tools must be hidden from view and removed when the vehicle is not being used for business purposes for more than five consecutive days. Cover excludes electrical items such as laptops, cameras, mobile phones, removable satellite navigation systems, handheld survey equipment and more. Please check the policy booklet for a full list of items that aren't covered. Vehicles with keyless entry must keep their key fobs in a Faraday pouch.

Cover limit: there is a limit of £10,000 per claim and a single item limit of £1,500.

You will be liable for 10% of each claim, with a minimum contribution of £100 and a maximum contribution of £500.

Read more about 24 hour tools cover

If there is an insured event such as flood or fire at your work premises, buildings insurance will cover the costs of repairing the damage, helping you get back up and running.

Equipment breakdown cover (for items forming part of the building) is included as standard. This will cover the costs of replacing or repairing things like your broken boiler and fire/burglar alarms, as long as the damage is not due to wear and tear.

Find out more about buildings insurance

We can also cover your stock and materials, such as pipes, bricks, and paints. We can cover items that are being temporarily stored between jobs, items in transit and items on-site (until they are installed).

If these items are stolen or damaged, we'll pay the cost of replacing the items so you can continue running your business.

Cover limits:

• Maximum sum insured £25,000

Excess per claim - £100

Own plant covers larger items of machinery owned by the business, such as cement mixers, diggers, mini-diggers, dumpers, excavators, generators, trailers and temporary site huts and caravans. This does not include regular items in your toolkit, like a hammer.

We can cover this machinery for theft and damage due to an insured event e.g. fire. We do not cover machinery that has been damaged due to wear and tear.

Cover limits:

• Maximum £100,000 for any one claim
• There is a single article limit of £50,000.

Excess per claim - £250

Hired in plant refers to machinery that you have hired from a third party, either for a short period or permanently. The types of machinery we cover include cement mixers, diggers, mini-diggers, dumpers, excavators, generators, trailers, temporary site huts, and caravans.

For example, if a digger is stolen or accidentally damaged while on hire with you, we can cover the costs you're responsible for under the hire agreement.

Cover limits:

• Maximum £100,000 for any one claim
• There is a single article limit of £50,000.

Excess per claim - £250

This covers work in progress damaged by an insured event such as a fire, flood, act of vandalism or theft. If any of these things happen, we'll cover the cost to repair or redo the work.

For example, if you're a builder working on a new extension at a client's house and a fire destroys what you've built five months into a six-month contract, we can help you by:

• covering the costs required to rebuild the parts destroyed by fire including the costs of any materials. This includes cement, bricks, plasterboard etc that had been used for the extension but were destroyed by the fire and need to be repurchased to redo the work up to the standard it was before the fire.
• covering any labour costs to repair the damage.

Cover limits:

• Contract value is £1,000,000 (based on the maximum value for any one contract anywhere within the UK)
• Turnover limit is £1,500,000

Excess per claim - £500

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.

Personal accident cover provides payment if anyone in your business between the ages 16-75 is unable to work because they've been injured in an accident, whether in a business or personal capacity. Including temporary or permanent hearing loss and loss of speech for tradespeople.

We'll pay a lump sum of £50,000 if there is an accidental death, accidental loss of limbs or sight, or if someone in your business becomes permanently disabled following an accident.

If someone in your business is unable to work due to a temporary injury, then after 7 days we'll pay their normal net weekly earnings up to £500 for up to 104 weeks.

You can choose Personal Accident as an add-on once you've completed your quote.

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.