How Much Does Tool Insurance Cost in the UK?
Published quotes put tool cover at £13.43 a month for £2,500 of kit, £26.86 for £5,000 and £80.56 for £10,000. The sum insured is the main driver, with your trade, your van security and your excess filling in the rest.
Tools are the one thing a trade business cannot work without, which is why the cover sits in almost every tradesman insurance package rather than being sold on its own.
The premium is small next to a stripped van. This guide sets out what the published quotes say, what moves them and where the cover stops.
The sum you insure your tools for is what sets the price, so value your kit properly rather than guessing, and review it whenever you buy new gear. Van security matters too: a locked, alarmed van with tools out of sight overnight will usually price lower than one left on a street with kit visible. Keep receipts and serial numbers, because an insurer will ask for proof of ownership and value at claim stage.
Compare tool insurance quotes and protect the kit your work depends on.
- What do published tool insurance quotes actually show?
- Why does the sum insured drive the price?
- What else changes what you pay?
- Is tool theft common enough to justify the premium?
- Where does tool cover stop?
- Does paying monthly cost you more?
- Is tool insurance a deductible business expense?
- Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
What do published tool insurance quotes actually show?
Money.co.uk publishes worked quotes using Superscript data from October to December 2024, running from £13.43 a month at £2,500 of cover to £80.56 a month at £10,000.
The quotes by cover level
The pattern is worth reading carefully. Cover quadruples between the first and last row while the premium rises by roughly six times, because the bigger example is also a bigger business.
| Cover level | Example business | Published monthly quote |
| £2,500 of tools | 1 employee, £50,000 turnover | £13.43 |
| £5,000 of tools | 1 employee, £100,000 turnover | £26.86 |
| £10,000 of tools | 3 employees, £250,000 turnover | £80.56 |
| Cheapest tenth of quotes | Smallest risks on the panel | £3.52 or less |
Source: money.co.uk tool insurance, using Superscript quote data from October to December 2024.
The cheapest end of the market
That £3.52 figure is the tenth percentile, not a typical price. It describes the smallest risks on the panel rather than the trade average.
A window cleaner carrying poles and a reel sits nearer that end than a first-fix crew with three vans of power tools.
Why does the sum insured drive the price?
Because it is the most the insurer can be asked to pay. Every other rating factor adjusts a number that starts with the value you declare.
Replacement cost rather than what you paid
Declare what it would cost to buy the lot again today. Original purchase prices understate a kit built up over ten years, and that shortfall lands on you at the claim.
Under-insurance is usually dealt with proportionally. Declare half of what you own and the insurer may settle half of what you lost.
Review the figure whenever you buy something substantial. A sum insured set when you went self-employed rarely matches the van three years later.
Single-item limits
Most policies cap what they will pay for any one item, whatever the total sum insured. An electrician with a multifunction tester or a thermal camera often has to specify it by name.
Check that limit before you assume the total covers you. It is one of the details a trade policy schedule states plainly and almost nobody reads.
What else changes what you pay?
Your trade, the security on your van and the excess you accept all move the figure. None of them outweighs the sum insured, but together they explain most of the gap between two quotes.
Trade and the kit you carry
Insurers look at what your tools are worth to a thief as well as to you. A gardener with mowers and strimmers presents a different theft profile from a plumber with press tooling.
Site work adds exposure that domestic work does not. Construction projects leave kit in containers and lock-ups that you do not control.
Where the van sleeps
A van on a driveway behind a gate is rated differently from one on a street. Your postcode and your overnight parking both feed into the tools section, and into your van insurance separately.
Deadlocks, a bolted tool safe, an alarm and a tracker all help. Some insurers make them a condition rather than a discount.
Excess and security
A higher excess lowers the premium by moving small losses onto you. Theft from a vehicle often carries its own, higher excess.
Read the two figures separately. The headline excess on the schedule is rarely the one that applies to a van break-in.
Raising the excess is a trade rather than a saving. You are paying less now in exchange for funding more of any claim later.
Is tool theft common enough to justify the premium?
There is no official government statistic on tool theft. The best available figure comes from a Simply Business survey of 645 tradespeople in March 2026, which found 51% had been affected and put the average claim at £2,646.
What the simply business survey found
That survey is the source worth quoting, and it is worth quoting as a survey. It samples 645 tradespeople rather than counting reported crimes.
Dramatic theft statistics circulate widely without a named survey or dataset behind them. There is no official count of tool theft in the UK to check them against.
The £99 million total that often gets repeated alongside it is the insurer’s own extrapolation from that sample. Treat it as an estimate rather than a national figure, in the same way you would read ABI survey data.
| Finding | Figure | How to read it |
| Tradespeople affected by tool theft | 51% | Survey sample of 645 tradespeople, March 2026 |
| Average claim value | £2,646 | Claims made by that sample, not a national average |
| Headline annual total | £99 million | The insurer’s own extrapolation from the sample |
Source: Simply Business tool theft survey, March 2026.
How a claim compares with a premium
Set that £2,646 average claim against £13.43 a month and the arithmetic answers itself. One theft costs more than a decade of cover at the lower end of the published quotes.
The ABI reported in January 2026 that 28% of UK sole traders hold no insurance at all, with median spend among those who do at £250 to £499 a year.
Where does tool cover stop?
Overnight theft from a vehicle, theft without forced entry, and wear and tear are the three limits that catch tradesmen out. The conditions attached to the cover matter as much as the sum insured.
The overnight vehicle condition
Many policies restrict or exclude theft from a van between set hours, or apply a much higher excess. Whether tradesmen need commercial van insurance is a separate question, because a motor policy rarely fills the gap either.
Where overnight cover exists it usually comes with conditions. Empty the van, or check that yours explicitly says tools may stay in it.
Photograph the kit and keep serial numbers somewhere other than the van. It speeds a claim up and stops the settlement resting on your memory of what was in there.
New for old or indemnity
New for old replaces the tool with an equivalent new one. An indemnity basis deducts for age and wear, which on a five-year-old kit is a large deduction.
| Situation | Usually covered? | The condition attached |
| Theft from a locked van in daylight | Yes | Visible signs of forced entry are normally required |
| Theft from a van overnight | Often restricted or excluded | Check for an explicit overnight extension |
| Theft with no sign of forced entry | No | Applies even if the van was locked |
| Theft from a site container | Sometimes | Usually needs stated security and a separate limit |
| Accidental damage in use | Often | Frequently an add-on rather than standard |
| Wear, tear and breakdown | No | Treated as a running cost, not a loss |
Does paying monthly cost you more?
Monthly instalments are a credit agreement, so on most policies they cost more than paying in full. On a premium this small the difference is a few pounds, but the rules still require it to be shown.
What your insurer has to show you
Under FCA rule ICOBS 6A.5.2R, a firm must set out the cost of paying in full, the cost of paying monthly and the difference between them, alongside each other.
It must also state plainly that monthly payment costs more than paying the premium in full.
Which? research on car and home insurance put typical APRs for monthly payment at around 21 to 23%.
That research covers general insurance rather than trade cover. No trade insurer publishes an APR of its own, which makes the total-cost comparison the only number worth reading.
Why twelve times the monthly price is not the annual price
Multiply £13.43 by twelve and you get the credit-inclusive figure, not the annual premium. The same applies across a whole trade package quoted monthly.
Insurance Premium Tax at 12% is already inside both figures. Unlike VAT, a business cannot reclaim it.
Is tool insurance a deductible business expense?
Insurance taken out wholly and exclusively for the business is an allowable expense against your profits, and tool cover for trade kit qualifies. Personal policies do not.
What hmrc allows
HMRC’s expenses guidance for the self-employed names business insurance such as public liability among allowable costs. The test is whether the policy exists for the trade.
Keep the schedule and the payment record. It is the same evidence you would want behind any public liability premium you claim.
Why Insurance Premium Tax is not reclaimable
IPT is part of the premium rather than a tax charged on top of it. There is no mechanism to reclaim it the way a VAT-registered business reclaims input VAT.
The whole premium, tax included, is what you claim as an expense. Your own life, health or home contents cover is outside that entirely.
The private-use share of a vehicle policy is also carved out. Only the business proportion belongs in the accounts, which is a common trip-up on a van used at weekends.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Published quotes run from £13.43 a month for £2,500 of cover to £80.56 for £10,000. The cheapest tenth of quotes came in at £3.52 a month or less.
No. A motor policy insures the vehicle, and any contents limit it carries is usually far below the value of a working kit.
Use what it would cost to replace everything today rather than what you paid. Check the single-item limit as well, because expensive test gear often has to be named.
Only if the policy says so. Many restrict or exclude overnight theft from a vehicle, or apply a much higher excess to it.
Usually not. Most policies require visible evidence of forced entry before a theft claim from a vehicle is considered.
It can, and some insurers make deadlocks, alarms or a tool safe a condition rather than a discount. Either way it reduces the claim that insurers see most often.
There is no official statistic. A Simply Business survey of 645 tradespeople in March 2026 found 51% had been affected, with an average claim of £2,646.
It usually is on a kit that has been in use for years. An indemnity settlement deducts for age and wear, which can leave a real gap on replacement day.
Many insurers let you specify a high-value item within the policy. That is how laser levels, analysers and specialist testers are usually handled.
Yes, where the policy is taken out wholly and exclusively for the business. The Insurance Premium Tax inside the premium is part of that cost and cannot be reclaimed separately.