Who Needs Tradesman Insurance in the UK?
Anyone who is paid to work on somebody else’s property needs it, whether they are a sole trader, a one-person limited company, a subcontractor or a firm with a crew. The only people who do not are employees, who are covered by whoever employs them.
The useful question is not whether you need tradesman insurance but which parts of it apply to your set-up. A sole trader with no staff and a limited company with three vans have very different duties.
This guide works through the answer by who you are, then by what you do and where you do it. Find your own situation and the shopping list falls out of it.
If you’re paid to work on someone else’s property, you need cover, whether you trade as a sole trader, a limited company director or a subcontractor — only direct employees are covered under someone else’s policy. Main contractors and site managers often ask subcontractors to prove their own public liability before letting them on site, so don’t assume someone else’s policy covers you too. Employers’ liability becomes compulsory the moment you take on staff, with only a narrow family-employee exemption.
Find tradesman insurance quotes that match how you work.
- Which four questions decide whether you need cover?
- Do sole traders and self-employed tradespeople need it?
- Does a limited company director need it too?
- Who needs employers' liability, and who is exempt?
- Do subcontractors need their own insurance?
- Which trades need tradesman insurance most?
- Do part-time and weekend tradespeople need it?
- Does where you work change what you need?
- Who does not need tradesman insurance?
- Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Which four questions decide whether you need cover?
Do you work on property you do not own, do you employ anybody, do you drive for work, and do you give advice as well as labour? Those four answers build almost every trade policy sold in the UK.
Your answers map straight onto sections
Working on other people’s property points at public liability. Employing anybody points at employers’ liability, driving points at the right motor use class, and advising points at professional indemnity.
Only one of those four is a legal duty in the trade package itself. The rest are decided by contracts, clients and how much of a loss you could absorb on your own.
Turnover and trade only change the price
Nothing about the legal position shifts with size. A first-year sole trader and a firm turning over £400,000 face the same rules and buy the same sections at different prices.
Size decides what you pay, not whether you need it. A handyman doing two days a week faces the same kind of claim as a full-time one, just less often.
Do sole traders and self-employed tradespeople need it?
Yes, in practice, though no statute forces it. A sole trader has no legal separation between the business and their own money, so an uninsured claim reaches the house, the van and the savings.
Unlimited personal liability is the whole argument
There is no company standing between you and a judgment. That is why public liability for sole traders does more work than it does for an incorporated business.
The ABI found in January 2026 that 28% of UK sole traders hold no insurance at all, with median spend among those who do running at £250 to £499 a year.
Clients decide it before you do
Most commercial clients, letting agents and housing providers will not let an uninsured trade start. Self-employed public liability is checked at the quoting stage, not after something goes wrong.
Does a limited company director need it too?
Yes. Incorporation protects your personal assets from company debts, but it does nothing about the company’s own liabilities, and directors are treated as employees for employers’ liability purposes unless a narrow exemption applies.
The company is the one being sued
Incorporating limits what creditors can take from you personally. It does not stop a claimant suing the company that carried out the work, and an uninsured judgment can wipe out its assets.
A claim lands on the company, and an uninsured claim can end it. Public liability for a limited company is what keeps a working business trading through a bad month.
Where the employers’ liability exemption sits
A company with a single employee who owns 50% or more of the share capital is exempt from compulsory employers’ liability. HSE guidance sets that out, along with the family business exemption, which does not apply to limited companies at all.
Take on one apprentice and the exemption goes. Many main contractors also insist on employers’ liability as a contract term even where the law would let you skip it.
| Your set-up | Employers’ liability | Public liability | What usually forces the decision |
| Sole trader, no staff | Not required | Not legally required | Clients, schemes and personal exposure |
| Sole trader with an apprentice | Required, £5m minimum | Not legally required | The 1969 Act from day one |
| Partnership with employees | Required | Not legally required | The 1969 Act and contract terms |
| Limited company, sole director owning 50%+ | Exempt while that holds | Not legally required | Contracts often ask anyway |
| Limited company with staff | Required, certificate displayed | Not legally required | The 1969 Act and main contractors |
| Using labour-only subcontractors | Usually required | Not legally required | How the working relationship really runs |
Who needs employers’ liability, and who is exempt?
Anyone who employs, from the first day and the first person, with a statutory minimum of £5 million under the Employers’ Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969. The exemptions are narrow and easy to fall out of.
Who counts as an employee
Full-time and part-time staff, apprentices whether paid or not, trainees, casual help and work experience placements. Labour-only subcontractors working under your direction usually count as well.
Payment is not the test, control is. If you set the hours, supply the materials and direct the work, an employers’ liability policy is what the arrangement calls for.
The penalty for trading without cover is £2,500 for every uninsured day, plus £1,000 for failing to display or produce the certificate. Electronic display has been allowed since October 2008.
The two exemptions worth knowing
Both exemptions are narrower than people assume, and both can end without you noticing. Hiring one person or issuing shares to a second director is enough.
A family business where every employee is closely related to the employer is exempt, unless the business is a limited company. A company with a single employee who owns half the shares or more is also exempt.
| Situation | Employers’ liability needed? | Note |
| You work entirely alone | No | Nobody is employed, so the duty never starts |
| You take on a paid apprentice | Yes | Cover from day one, £5m minimum |
| You take on an unpaid work placement | Yes | Payment is not what triggers the duty |
| Family-only staff in an unincorporated business | No | The family exemption applies |
| Family-only staff in a limited company | Yes | The family exemption does not reach companies |
| Sole director owning 50% or more of the shares | No | Exempt while that remains true |
| Bona fide subcontractor with their own cover | No | They carry their own employers’ liability |
| Labour-only subcontractor using your materials | Usually yes | Treated as an employee for insurance |
Do subcontractors need their own insurance?
Bona fide subcontractors do, and the main contractor will check it before they set foot on site. Labour-only subcontractors are usually insured under the hirer’s employers’ liability instead.
Labour-only versus bona fide
A labour-only subbie turns up with hands and a van, works to your instructions and uses your materials. A bona fide one brings their own tools, methods, pricing and insurance.
Getting that line wrong is the most common way a trade business ends up uninsured without knowing it. If in doubt, describe the working arrangement to the insurer rather than the invoice.
What cis does and does not change
Deductions are taken from labour only. VAT, materials, consumables, fuel, plant hire and prefabricated materials come out of the figure first.
The Construction Industry Scheme deducts 20% for registered subcontractors, 30% for unregistered and nothing with gross payment status, on labour only.
CIS is a tax mechanism, not an insurance one. Being paid under CIS says nothing about who carries the liability cover for the work.
Which trades need tradesman insurance most?
Every trade that works in occupied buildings, at height, with water, with heat or with machinery. That is most of them, and the difference between trades is which sections they add rather than whether they need cover at all.
High-exposure trades
Height, heat, water and machinery are what insurers actually rate. The trade name is shorthand for some combination of those four.
Roofers, scaffolders, groundworkers and builders carry the heaviest exposure, which shows in the price. SimplyQuote’s cost guide puts scaffolders at £700 to £1,800 a year against decorators at £200 to £400.
Lower-risk trades still get claims
Low risk means fewer claims, not smaller ones. The bill for water damage in a first-floor flat looks the same whoever caused it.
A gardener putting a stone through a conservatory and a cleaning business flooding an office both produce ordinary public liability claims.
| Trade | Core cover | The section they most often add |
| Electrician | Public liability | Professional indemnity for design work |
| Plumber or heating engineer | Public liability | Tools, and hot work terms for soldering |
| Roofer | Public liability at a higher limit | Contract works and height terms |
| Builder | Public liability and employers’ liability | Contract works and hired plant |
| Carpenter or joiner | Public liability | Tools, with high-value items specified |
| Gardener or landscaper | Public liability | Goods in transit and plant |
| Painter and decorator | Public liability | Stock and materials |
| Cleaner | Public liability | Treatment of keys and damage to contents |
Do part-time and weekend tradespeople need it?
Yes. A claim does not care whether the job was your main income or a Saturday favour you invoiced for, and a side business is still a business in the eyes of a claimant.
Side work creates the same exposure
Insurers price occasional work on declared turnover, so a small side business is usually cheap to cover. What it is not is free of risk.
One weekend rewire can cause the same fire as a weekday one. An electrician moonlighting outside their employment is outside their employer’s cover entirely.
Short-term and seasonal options
Seasonal trades face the same choice. A gardener flat out from March to October may still want cover running all year, because claims arrive after the work finishes.
Where the work is genuinely occasional, short-term public liability covers a single job or a short run of them rather than a full year.
Does where you work change what you need?
It changes the limit far more than the sections. Domestic work runs comfortably on £1 million or £2 million, while local authority, NHS, school and social housing contracts commonly specify £5 million.
Domestic, commercial and site work
Householders rarely name a figure, they just ask whether you are insured. Everyone above them in the chain names one, and they will not move on it.
Main contractors, councils and NHS trusts set their own minimum limits and check public liability cover before granting site access. Rail, utilities and large venue work pushes the requirement to £10 million.
Working from home or a yard
A home contents policy will not pay for business tools kept in the garage. A yard or lock-up needs its own stock and contents cover as well.
Running the admin, storing materials or keeping tools at home changes your household position as well as your business one. Business insurance when you work from home covers where the two meet.
Who does not need tradesman insurance?
Employed tradespeople, apprentices on somebody’s payroll, and anyone working only on their own property. Everyone else is closer to needing it than they think.
Employees are covered by their employer
This is the one genuine exemption in the whole article. Everybody else on a site who is paid to be there is carrying their own risk, whether they realise it or not.
If you are on a payroll, your employer’s public liability answers for your work and their employers’ liability answers if you are hurt. You do not need your own policy for that work.
The moment you take a private job at the weekend, that stops being true. Employer cover does not follow you off the clock.
Your own property, and stopping work
Doing up a property you own to sell it is a different case again. Once it is a trading activity, a buyer or a neighbour can become the third party you needed cover for.
Work on your own home has no third party in it, so public liability has nothing to respond to. Doing the same work for somebody else is a different matter entirely.
If you stop trading, remember that public and employers’ liability respond to the policy in force when the incident happened. Old certificates are still worth keeping for long-tail disease claims.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
If you are self-employed, yes. Working for a single client does not make you their employee, and their policy is written around their own people.
No, while they are employed. Their employer’s employers’ liability covers them, and they need their own policy only once they set up on their own.
Yes. The duty starts with the first person you employ, whatever their hours, and the statutory minimum is £5 million.
In an unincorporated family business, usually yes. In a limited company the family exemption does not apply, so the cover is required.
Legally no, for public liability. Practically yes, because one flooded flat costs more than several years of premium.
Not if they are genuinely independent, but you should see their certificates before they start. Labour-only subbies working under your direction usually need to sit under your own cover.
No, because there is no third party to claim against you. Doing the same work for a neighbour for money is a different situation.
You still need cover for those jobs. Short-term policies exist precisely for occasional work rather than a full annual premium.
You can cancel it, and any refund is pro rata for the cover you did not use. Bear in mind past incidents are still handled by the policy that was in force at the time.
Commercial clients, councils, housing providers and main contractors nearly always do. Trade schemes such as Gas Safe, NICEIC, TrustMark and CHAS check it as a membership condition.
No. CIS is a tax deduction scheme for construction payments and has nothing to do with liability cover.