Small business insurance

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.

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.

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.

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.

Contents and stock cover is for businesses that supply goods or rely on specific equipment to run their business.

A seamstress would not be able to work without a sewing machine, a web designer would not be able to code without a computer and you may not be able to run your business without your trusty tablet.

Other general items that you might rely on for your business, like your office furniture or your shop tills, are covered by contents and stock insurance. So, if your business contents are damaged by an insured event, such as fire or theft, your business can continue as normal.

If you sell goods, you can also insure them against damage or theft, whether they're raw materials or the finished article.

Our different cover options allow you to insure your business stock and equipment at your premises and when you're out and about. Whether you work at home, at fairs, in shared workspaces or visit lots of clients, we've got you covered. And when you insure stock at your premises or home (excluding bed and breakfast premises), you'll also get an extra 25% of stock covered for two months of your choice as standard, ideal for your busiest periods.

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.

If you experience a sudden and unexpected issue that causes damage to your home that makes it unsafe or uninhabitable, the home emergency 24-hour claims line is here to help. You'll have a certified contractor, such as a plumber, electrician, glazier, locksmith, or drainage engineer, at your home within four hours of registering your claim to secure the property or prevent further damage. You'll also have access to gas engineers, pest control services, and roofers. These services are excluded from the four-hour response time. Extreme weather and remote locations may extend the response time.

There is a limit of up to £1,500, including VAT, per claim for call-out charges, labour costs, and materials for insured emergencies, such as plumbing, heating, or pest infestations.

You don't have to pay any excess. There's no limit on how often you can claim.

If you run your business from home and have home buildings insurance, home contents insurance, or business contents insurance on your policy, you can add home emergency to a Direct Line business policy for an additional premium. This cover is available only on new and renewal policies, and you can't add it mid-term.

Home emergency cover isn't currently available on policies that include commercial premises.

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.

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.

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 and 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.

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.

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 damaged or stolen from:

• your locked vehicle overnight that's parked on your drive, the street, or away from home
• a locked building, like your garage or home, any time of day or night

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.

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
• 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
• 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

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.

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.

If you have commercial premises, you can extend your cover, for an additional premium, to include property damage as a result of an Act of Terrorism. We'll cover you up to the maximum sum insured on your policy for buildings, contents, and business interruption (depending on which covers you have taken).

This includes:

• the rebuild of buildings damaged beyond repair
• cover for damage or loss of your business contents, stock, and computer equipment, to help you get back up and running.

If you choose business interruption cover on your policy, terrorism cover will also include any interruption to or interference with the business, due to damage to your premises resulting from an Act of Terrorism. It will also cover you if you're unable to access your premises as a result of an Act of Terrorism within one mile of your business.

Acts of Terrorism are defined as damage caused by someone acting on behalf of, or in connection with, any organisation which uses force or violence to overthrow or influence the UK government.

Terrorism cover is only available for properties located in England, Wales and Scotland.

Terrorism insurance is optional, so an additional premium will apply.

You can include Terrorism cover on your policy by adding it online or by calling us on 0345 301 5066 when you take out your policy or at renewal, as it cannot be added to your policy mid-term.

Different businesses require different types of insurance, that's why we let you pick and choose the covers that go into your policy. So, whether you're a retailer or a dog groomer, an IT consultant or a photographer, you can choose the cover that's just right for your business.

You can include any of the following cover types in your small business insurance policy:

• Public liability insurance
• Product liability insurance
• Professional indemnity insurance
• Employers' liability insurance
• Buildings cover
• Contents and stock cover
• Theft of takings
• Business interruption
• Cyber insurance
• Legal expenses

Different businesses will need different levels of cover, so the cost of insuring a business will differ. We let you design your own Small Business Insurance, so you're in control of what aspects of your business you insure and how much you pay.

The cost of your business insurance quotes will be affected by: the size of your business, number of employees, type of trade and your history of insurance claims.

In most cases, business insurance is optional, but some clients and companies may require proof of insurance before agreeing to work with you.

Event organisers, for example, may need to see proof of public liability insurance before letting you trade at their craft fair. A business professional may require you to show proof of professional indemnity insurance before hiring you as a consultant.

If you hire employees, you are legally required to take out at least £5 million in employers' liability insurance. To understand your legal responsibilities and what the exceptions are, read more about employers' liability here.

A micro business is defined as an enterprise that employs nine people or fewer. As of 2017, micro businesses count for 96% of the UK's business landscape and, as you might expect, there are many different types of micro business.

If you can't find your trade using our online tool then you can chat to us online or call us on 0345 301 5066 and we'll see if we can provide cover for your trade.

Our online quote tool gives you the option to enter all your trades so that we have a clear idea of what type of cover you might need. It's important that we know everything that you do.

If you don't include something you do as a trade, then we might not be able to cover any claims. You have a duty to make a fair presentation of your business at all times, so if you are in any doubt about what information or changes you need to disclose then chat to us online or call us on 0345 301 5066.

Your quote is valid for up to 30 days from the day you receive it.