How Much Does Public Liability Insurance Cost for Trades & Tradesmen?

Public liability insurance for trades and tradesman helps to protect businesses from legal action taken by the public, where a member of the public suffers an injury or damage to their property resulting from your business’s activity or where there is an allegation of negligence against them or their employees.

Even though it isn’t a legal requirement, it can be an essential cover that could keep your business above water in the event of a claim. However, how much does public liability insurance cost, can you get this price down, and why is it so important to cover your trade business?

Average cost of public liability insurance

There is not a one-size fits all answer as the amount you pay is based on a range of factors including your company’s type of business, activities, location worked at or on, size, level of coverage, past claims history, and turnover.

Factors influencing insurance costs

There are numerous things that can affect how much your public liability insurance costs, including:

Type of business

Depending on your industry, your business may have more or less risk associated with it for the public. For example, a construction firm is considered higher risk than a retail store due to the level of potentially hazardous nature of premises worked at or on. Particularly if they involve work using processes involving the application of heat, work at height or depth or where there are high accumulations of people. These all have an effect on the cost of premiums.

Business size and turnover

Accidents and damage can be more likely to affect bigger businesses. The amount of turnover is an indication of the amount of work undertaken. In simple terms the higher the amount of work increases the potential for accidents to occur. They will usually operate on a larger scale than smaller companies, so can have more opportunities for accidents to occur. Because of this, larger companies will pay higher premiums.

Level of coverage

The level of cover you want will affect how expensive the policy will be. The more coverage you have, the more your premium costs, but it’s important to have protection suitable for your needs. That includes appropriate extensions within your policy to cover your activities, processes and the property worked at, as well as the overall monetary value of your cover.

Types of premises

The cost of cover can be influenced by the type of premises you work at (for example sports stadia, cinemas, hotels and theatres). Work at ports and airports is particularly hazardous due to the accumulation of people and high values at risk e.g. terminals and aircraft. You will need specialist public liability cover to work at an airport.

Claims history

If your business has made a large claim before, or has a history of making frequent smaller claims, this can increase your premiums.

Ways to reduce insurance costs

There are a few things you can do to try and reduce your public liability insurance premiums.

• Risk management – Regularly review your work practices, carry out risk assessments and implement changes to eliminate, or to reduce, hazards
• Review policies: Regularly review and update policies to ensure you’re not overpaying for things you don’t need.
• Train your staff: If your staff make less mistakes, fewer accidents will happen and your insurance should benefit over time.
• Keep your claims down: The fewer claims you make, the less expensive your policy will be.
• Shop around: You can often save money by comparing quotes from a range of providers.
• Bundling policies: Some insurance providers offer package insurance which combine different policy types together. This can reduce premiums overall.

Importance of adequate coverage

It’s important that you insure your business with the right amount of public liability coverage, for a number of reasons:

• Protecting yourself against a significant claim that could severely harm your business
• Ensuring operational continuity in the event of a claim
• Maintaining customer and/or client trust and credibility
• Compliance with legal and contractual requirements
• Peace of mind that your business is protected from this type of claim

Not having the right level of coverage could open up your business to a potentially disastrous claim. If your business is underinsured, the consequences could prove terminal for your operation.

Public liability insurance from Towergate

While it’s not necessarily a legal requirement, making sure you have appropriate public liability coverage is a prudent financial move. Work out how much coverage your business needs before looking for quotes to see what kind of price you should expect.

You can get a quote for public liability insurance from us quickly and easily, either online or by calling us on 0330 818 9929.

About the author

Alison Wild BCom (Hons), FMAAT, MATT, Taxation Technician is a highly respected industry professional who has been working with and advising SMEs in areas including tax, pensions, insurance and marketing for over 25 years. She is a Fellow member of the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) and Association of Tax Technicians (ATT) and also has 20 years' experience as a residential landlord.

This is a marketing article by Towergate Insurance. Consistent with our policy when giving comment and advice on a non-specific basis, we cannot assume legal responsibility for the accuracy of any particular statement. In the case of specific problems we recommend that professional advice be sought.