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Publishing Insurance

Protecting publishers from under £55* per year

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Excellent 4.7 out of 5

What insurance do publishers need?


Our standard cover is:

  • £1 million cover for public and products liability (with an option to increase to £2 million, £5 million or £10 million)
  • £10,000 cover for any financial loss (£50K cover optional)
  • Worldwide liability cover for temporary work abroad for up to 14 days (excluding the USA and Canada)

Publishing insurance covers the profession that ships words at scale. Every title you release carries someone’s claims about the world, someone’s reputation in its pages and someone’s intellectual property in its margins, and when one of those someones objects, the claim lands on the publisher. Professional indemnity insurance leads the policy for exactly that reason.

Professional Saver insures publishers and publishing businesses from £55* a year, with public liability as standard and professional indemnity scaled to what you put into print. Quote online in five minutes; documents arrive the same day.

Professional indemnity insurance carries publishing’s defining risks: defamation and libel claims over what was written, breach of confidentiality over what shouldn’t have been, and intellectual property infringement over what was used without the right licence. Professional indemnity insurance pays the compensation and the legal defence, and in publishing the defence is the point: media claims are expensive to answer even when the words survive scrutiny. Claims arrive on the reader’s timetable, not the print run’s, so keep PI continuous.

Public liability insurance covers the physical side of a publishing business: visitors to your office, book launches and events, author signings with trailing cables. Public liability insurance comes as standard at £1 million, with options up to £10 million where venues and events demand more.

Products liability comes as standard too, and publishers use it more than most professionals: physical books, magazines and merchandise are products, and claims from faulty goods sit on that cover. Business contents and equipment cover protects the office and production kit (£100 excess), and employers’ liability is usually a legal requirement once you employ editors or staff. One honest note: we don’t sell standalone cyber insurance; PI can pick up some data-handling claims, and digital-first publishers with serious cyber exposure should say so at quote stage.

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Why choose Professional Saver publishing insurance?

Save £££ on your insurance Save on your insurance

Customers are always telling us how much they saved by switching

Trusted for over 40 years Trusted for over 40 years

We’ve been providing insurance to businesses since 1984

Financial Strength Financial Strength

Insurance provided by a Standard & Poor’s ‘AA- Stable’ rated insurer

Defaqto 5 Star rated

Our Professional Saver Insurance (Covea) has been independently rated 5 Stars by Defaqto – the highest possible rating, awarded to excellent products with a comprehensive range of features and benefits.

Learn more about our Optional Covers

* Due to the specialist nature of your profession, we’ll arrange a separate policy for your professional indemnity cover to complement your Professional Saver policy. Please get a quote online for the other covers you need and contact us to discuss your personalised professional indemnity quotation.

How our publishing insurance works

1 Apply online

Complete our simple quote form with basic details about your business.

2 Get a quote

Get an instant quote & choose any optional covers you may need.

3 You’re insured!

Instantly activate your Professional Saver policy and view your certificates online.

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Why do publishers need insurance?

Because publication is a legal act. The moment words are distributed, defamation, privacy and IP law all have opinions about them. Editorial care reduces the risk; nothing removes it, because the claim only needs one aggrieved subject and one solicitor.

Because you publish other people’s work. Authors warrant their manuscripts, but claims name the publisher anyway, and warranties are only as good as the author’s ability to stand behind them. The publisher’s own cover is the layer that actually pays for the defence.

Because contracts and distributors ask. Distribution agreements, serialisation deals and event venues increasingly expect proof of insurance for publishers at stated levels. The certificate is part of the commercial paperwork.

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What does our publishing policy cover?

Every policy includes public liability, products liability, legal expenses and £10,000 of financial loss cover as standard, from £55* a year. You then shape the publishing business’s real risks:

  • Professional indemnity for defamation, libel, confidentiality and IP claims, at the level your contracts require
  • Products liability for the physical goods you put into the world, automatic in every policy
  • Equipment cover for production and office kit
  • Employers’ liability as the imprint grows into a staffed business

Publishing insurance covers the business that publishes the work, not the person who wrote it: a writer insuring their own name wants author insurance, and a freelance commercial writer wants copywriter insurance.

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How much does publishing cover cost?

From £55* a year for the base policy, with professional indemnity the main variable: what you publish (memoir and investigative titles carry more libel surface than cookery), your print and digital reach, and your claims history. A small independent press sits at the affordable end; get a quote online and the covers are itemised in about five minutes, with monthly instalments available.

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Cover for everything you put your name to

A publisher’s colophon is a promise that someone checked, and insurance is what stands behind the promise when someone disagrees. Get a publishing insurance quote online from £55* a year, backed by an insurer rated AA- (Stable) by Standard & Poor’s, and publish with the defence already funded.

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Chosen by over 5000 businesses and counting*

Chosen by over 18761 businesses and counting

Online & Anywhere

We like to keep things simple. Your quote, purchase and documents are all available online, anytime.

Monthly Instalments

Cashflow is important to every business. Spread the cost by paying in easy monthly instalments.

Instant Cover

No need to wait for your documents. Our professional cover starts from the date you select.

Added Protection

Public liability, products liability, financial loss, legal expenses and accidental death cover as standard.

* Total number of live policies as of 31/10/2025

Who We Cover

Cover and Professions We Insure

Professional Indemnity Insurance
Professional Indemnity Insurance

Professional Indemnity Insurance

Protecting professionals and small businesses with tailored professional indemnity insurance
Author Insurance
Author Insurance From only£55per year

Author Insurance

Protecting authors with specialist insurance policies from as little as £55* per year
Creative Writing Insurance
Creative Writing Insurance From only£55per year

Creative Writing Insurance

Protecting creative writers with public liability insurance from less than £55* per year
Script Writing Insurance
Script Writing Insurance From only£55per year

Script Writing Insurance

Protecting script writers with specialist insurance from less than £55* per year
Journalism Insurance
Journalism Insurance From only£55per year

Journalism Insurance

Protecting journalists from under £55* per year
Will Writer Insurance
Will Writer Insurance From only£55per year

Will Writer Insurance

Protecting will writers from as little as £55* per year
Technical Author Insurance
Technical Author Insurance From only£55per year

Technical Author Insurance

Protecting technical authors from as little as £55* per year

FAQs

Publishing Insurance FAQs

In practice, yes: defamation, breach of confidentiality and IP infringement are the claims publishing generates natively, and each is expensive to defend without cover. If your list includes anything about living people or real companies, PI is the difference between an editorial dispute and an existential one.

Describe the model when you quote: traditional list publishing, paid author services and hybrid arrangements each shift where the liability sits. The covers flex to the business you actually run, and honesty at quote stage is what makes the certificate dependable at claim stage.

The claims that matter, defamation, IP, confidentiality, don’t care about the format; a defamatory sentence is actionable on paper and on screen alike. Digital-first publishers should also flag data and cyber exposure at quote stage, since our PI can pick up some data-handling claims but standalone cyber cover isn’t something we sell.

That’s the public liability side, and venues typically require proof at £1 million or £2 million before confirming. One policy covers the office, the events and the words, which keeps the paperwork down to one certificate.

What our customers say

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