- Home
-
Professions We Cover
-
- Professional Insights
- My Account
- Payments
Comprehensive public liability insurance cover for less than £55* per year
Not on comparison sites — save money by coming direct to us
Get a QuoteIncludes four more Professional Saver covers as standard
Our liability insurance cover includes:
Public liability insurance covers the compensation and legal fees you’d have to pay if a client, supplier or member of the public was injured, or their property damaged, because of your work. Professionals need it more often than they expect: a claim can start with something as small as a visitor tripping over your laptop bag, and end with a solicitor’s letter asking for tens of thousands of pounds.
Professional Saver has been arranging cover for small businesses since 1984. Public liability comes as standard with every policy we sell, starting from £55* a year, with limits from £1 million to £10 million. Get an instant quote online, choose any optional covers you need, and you’re insured the same day.
Public liability insurance, sometimes called general liability insurance, protects your business when your work injures someone outside it or damages their property. If a claim is made against your business, the policy pays the compensation awarded and the cost of defending you, up to your chosen limit.
Don’t let the word “public” mislead you. Most claims don’t come from strangers in the street; they come from clients you meet, offices you visit, venues you hire and suppliers who call in. Negligence is the usual trigger, meaning something you did (or didn’t do) fell short of reasonable care.
Typical incidents that lead to public liability claims include:
None of these need you to have done anything reckless. They just need a bad five seconds and an injured party with a good solicitor.
Save on your insurance Customers are always telling us how much they saved by switching
Trusted for over 40 years We’ve been providing insurance to businesses since 1984
Financial Strength Insurance provided by a Standard & Poor’s ‘AA- Stable’ rated insurer
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.
Because desk-based work doesn’t remove the risk; it just changes where it shows up. Client meetings, co-working spaces, home offices with visitors, exhibitions, training rooms: anywhere your work and other people share a space, a claim is possible. And if you’re self-employed, there’s no employer’s policy standing behind you, which is why public liability cover for the self-employed is usually the first policy a new business buys.
There’s a commercial reason too. Public liability insurance isn’t a legal requirement for most UK professions, but plenty of clients treat it as one. Councils, agencies, corporate procurement teams and venues routinely ask for proof of cover, often at a specified limit, before they’ll sign a contract or let you through the door. No certificate, no booking.
The maths is the final argument. A policy costs from £55* a year. If you don’t have public liability insurance, a single personal injury claim, with compensation and both sides’ legal fees, can cost more than most professionals earn in a year. Insuring against that is not caution; it’s pricing.
The cost of your public liability insurance will depend on a number of different factors such as:
With Professional Saver, our public liability policy includes lots of extra covers as standard including products liability, legal expenses, financial loss and accidental death cover. This gives you some of the widest coverage available at a price that you’ll find hard to beat elsewhere.
Get a Quote
£54.88 / year £36.95 / month £419.92 / year The above quote examples were taken from our online system on 10/11/25 and include insurance premium tax but exclude our £10 admin charge. These are real quotes but your own personal quote will vary dependent upon your circumstances and the level of cover you require.
Most insurance policies will be subject to an excess. This is the amount you will be expected to pay in the event of a claim. Detailed below are the standard excesses under a Professional Saver policy but you should check your own quotation to see exactly what excesses apply to your policy as these may vary dependent upon the type of work you do.
| Insurance cover | Excess |
|---|---|
| Public Liability | £250 |
| Products Liability | £250 |
| Employers Liability | No Excess |
| Financial Loss | 10% of claim value(£2,500 minimum) |
| Professional Indemnity | £250 |
| Business Contents & Equipment | £100 |
| Legal Expenses | No Excess |
* Total number of live policies as of 31/10/2025
Any professional whose work puts them in the same room, building or field as other people. In practice, that’s most of the hundreds of professions we cover, and working for yourself makes it more pressing rather than less, which is why insurance for the self-employed starts from the same place. Three groups feel the risk most sharply:
Client-facing professionals. Consultants, advisors, coaches and mentors spend their working lives in other people’s offices and meeting rooms. Damage a client’s property, or leave a visitor injured after a workshop, and the claim comes to you.
Home-based professionals. Tutors, therapists, counsellors and bookkeepers who see clients at home carry a risk their home insurance wasn’t built for. One loose stair carpet is all it takes.
Professionals on location. Photographers, personal trainers, event organisers and inspectors work in studios, gyms, halls and other hired spaces, and venue owners usually demand proof of public liability cover before handing over the keys.
If your profession isn’t an obvious fit for any of those, that’s not the same as having no exposure. A quick quote will tell you what cover costs for your specific line of work.
Every Professional Saver policy includes public liability cover of £1 million as standard, with the option to increase it to £2 million, £5 million or £10 million. If a claim is made against your business, we cover:
Public liability never travels alone in our policies. It sits alongside products liability, legal expenses cover, financial loss cover of £10,000 and accidental death cover, all automatic, all in one adjustable policy. You choose the limits; the quote takes about five minutes.
Knowing the edges of the policy matters as much as the middle. Public liability won’t cover:
If some of those risks sound like yours, they can be added to the same policy as optional covers rather than bought separately.
Professional Saver policies start from £55* a year, and that figure isn’t a teaser rate: a real quote from our online system for a sole-trader business advisory service with no employees and no claims came out at £55* a year, including insurance premium tax (plus our £10 admin charge). Monthly instalments are available if that suits your cash flow better.
The cost of public liability insurance depends on the type of business you run and how much contact it has with the public, where you work (from home, on your own business premises or at client sites), the level of cover you choose, and your claims history. A tutor teaching from home and an event organiser filling exhibition halls carry different risks, and their premiums reflect that.
If you compare public liability insurance quotes, check what each one includes before judging on price alone; ours arrives with products liability, legal expenses and financial loss cover already in the package. The quickest way to find your own figure is to run the quote. Five minutes, no phone call, and the price you see is the price you pay.
Start with your contracts, not your instincts. Many clients specify a minimum limit, and it’s the most common reason professionals upgrade:
If you’re unsure, check the paperwork for the biggest contract you want to win and buy to that level. Some clients also care who stands behind the policy, and many will only accept insurance providers rated ‘A’ or better, which Professional Saver policies satisfy comfortably. You can adjust your limit when circumstances change.
Public liability protects people outside your business; employers’ liability insurance protects the people inside it. The difference has teeth: employers’ liability is required by law for most UK businesses with staff, while public liability is your choice. Take on your first employee, even part-time, and you’ll usually need both.
This is the distinction that matters most for professionals. Public liability answers for accidents: injury and property damage. Professional indemnity insurance answers for advice: a client who acts on your work and loses money. A consultant who trips a visitor needs the first; a consultant whose report costs a client a contract needs the second. Most of the professions we insure benefit from carrying both.
Public liability covers what you do; products liability insurance, which many insurers call product liability, covers what you supply, sell or install. If a product you provided causes injury or damage after you’ve handed it over, products liability responds. With Professional Saver you don’t have to weigh this one up, because both come automatically with every policy.
Most public liability policies carry an excess: the part of any claim you pay yourself. Standard excesses under Professional Saver insurance policies are:
| Insurance cover | Excess |
| — | — |
| Public liability | £250 |
| Products liability | £250 |
| Employers’ liability | No excess |
| Financial loss | 10% of claim value (£2,500 minimum) |
| Professional indemnity | £250 |
| Business contents & equipment | £100 |
| Legal expenses | No excess |
Excesses can vary with the type of work you do, so check your own quotation for the exact figures that apply to your policy.
More than 18,761 businesses hold a live Professional Saver policy, and every one is underwritten by Covéa Insurance, which carries an AA- (Stable) financial strength rating from Standard & Poor’s. We’re not on the comparison sites; coming direct is how we keep premiums down. Run a public liability insurance quote for your profession, pick your limit, and you can be carrying proof of cover before the kettle’s boiled.
From only£55per year From only£55per year 
From only£55per year From only£55per year No, not for most UK professions; that’s a common mix-up with employers’ liability insurance, which is compulsory once you employ people. But “not legally required” isn’t the same as optional in practice. Many contracts, venues and local authorities won’t work with you without proof of cover at a stated limit.
If clients, students, models or couriers ever set foot in your workspace, yes, it’s worth having. Home insurance typically won’t cover business activities, so a client who trips on your stairs is your liability, not your home insurer’s. Home-based professionals are often exactly the businesses that £1 million of cover suits, and premiums tend to sit at the lower end of the range.
Professional Saver policies start from £55* a year, with a real quoted example at £55* for a sole-trader advisory business. Low-risk, low-footfall professions usually pay towards the bottom of the range. Set against the cost of defending even a failed claim yourself, it’s one of the cheapest pieces of financial protection a small business can buy.
Usually, yes. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) treats business insurance premiums as an allowable business expense, so the cost of your policy can normally be deducted from your taxable profits. Your accountant can confirm how this applies to your particular setup.
No. If an employee is injured or falls ill because of their work, that claim falls under employers’ liability insurance, which the law requires you to hold in most cases anyway. Public liability picks up claims from everyone else: clients, visitors, suppliers and the public.
Your cover follows your work, not your postcode: client offices, hired venues and event spaces are all included. Temporary work abroad is covered for up to 14 days, excluding the USA and Canada. If your work takes you further or for longer, talk to us before you travel.
They cover different failures, but with Professional Saver it’s a question you don’t have to settle: both are automatic covers in every policy. Public liability responds when your activities cause harm; products liability responds when something you supplied does, even after you’ve handed it over.
Straight away, near enough. Your documents appear in our secure online portal shortly after purchase, so you can download proof of cover the same day, which matters when a client is holding a contract open waiting for your certificate.
