Museum insurance

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Insurance for museums – why is it important?

Your museum is open to the public, so you’ll want to consider insurance to help protect against accidents and mistakes. If a claim came up, would you have the funds to handle it? By combining covers, you can protect your business against the specific challenges you face.

  • liability insurance for museums, including public and employee risks
  • public and product liability between £1 million and £10 million
  • trusted by over 900,000 UK businesses for flexible, tailored cover

What do museum insurance policies?

Public liability insurance is usually a key cover for many businesses. It protects your business against compensation claims if a member of the public gets injured or loses out financially. Beyond that, tailor your policy to your needs as a muesum, adding covers as you need them.

  • Public liability insurance

    In case your business and products cause an injury or property damage.

  • Employers’ liability insurance

    In case anyone gets ill or injured while working for your museum

  • Buildings insurance

    In case something happens to your business premises.

  • Contents insurance

    In case something happens to your fixtures, fittings, or operational equipment.

  • Business legal insurance

    In case you’re hit with legal expenses connected to your museum

  • Personal accident insurance

    In case anyone you’ve covered is accidentally injured, at work or off-duty.

  • Public liability insurance

    In case your business and products cause an injury or property damage.

    What’s typically covered by public liability insurance for museums?

    Claims against your business for:

    • damage to someone’s property, caused by your work
    • an injury or illness caused by your business activities
    • certain accidental damage or injuries caused by your employees

    For example:

    • you accidentally knock a shelf of products onto the floor while working on a client’s premises, which break and need replacing
    • you leave a trailing cable outside your premises, causing someone to trip and injure their back
    • an accident happens at your premises and someone is injured because of your work

    **If you do employ anyone, you’re usually required by law to have employers’ liability insurance too.**

    Read more about public liability insurance

  • Employers’ liability insurance

    In case anyone gets ill or injured while working for your museum

    What’s typically covered by employers’ liability insurance?

    Claims against your business for:

    • an injury that happens as a result of working for you (including temps and casual workers)
    • an employee, including a contractor or casual labourer, suing you after falling ill because of working for you

    **Employers’ liability insurance is required by law if you have people working for you. Without it, you could be fined up to £2,500 a day for each employee.**

    For example:

    • your employee injures their lower back while moving furniture at your premises and holds you responsible
    • an employee cuts their hand on a damaged countertop and sues you for operating an unsafe workspace
    • a member of staff trips over while unloading business equipment, injuring their knee

  • Buildings insurance

    In case something happens to your business premises.

    What’s typically covered by business building insurance?

    Claims against your business for:

    • repair and rebuild costs after damage caused by a storm, fire, or vandalism
    • fittings and fixtures that get damaged
    • underground pipes and cables, if you’re responsible for them

    For example:

    • someone tries to force entry into your shop, damaging the door, which needs replacing
    • a burst pipe causes water damage to floorboards and walls – they need to be replaced
    • equipment catches fire and damages your building, which will need to be completely rebuilt

    Read more about business buildings insurance

  • Contents insurance

    In case something happens to your fixtures, fittings, or operational equipment.

    What’s typically covered by business contents insurance?

    Claims against your business for:

    For example:

    • a faulty toaster causes a fire in your office kitchen, badly damaging the oven and microwave
    • a three-piece sofa suite is ripped by vandals and needs replacing
    • thieves break into your office and steal three tablets used by your sales team

    Read more about business contents insurance

  • Business legal insurance

    In case you’re hit with legal expenses connected to your museum

    What’s typically covered by business legal insurance?

    Claims against your business for:

    • VAT disputes
    • theft of your company’s identity illegally
    • compensation under data protection legislation

    For example:

    • HMRC is investigating your VAT affairs, triggered by seemingly incorrect figures on your return
    • a fraudster steals your company’s bank details and buys goods to set up a new line of credit with banks or retailers
    • a client is claiming you didn’t process their data in accordance with GDPR, and is seeking compensation

    Read more about business legal insurance

  • Personal accident insurance

    In case anyone you’ve covered is accidentally injured, at work or off-duty.

    What’s typically covered by personal accident insurance?

    Claims against your business for:

    • accidental death or injury, whether it happens at work or elsewhere, for anyone you’ve chosen to cover on your policy
    • lost income, plus medical costs and hospitalisation benefit

    For example:

    • an employee you’ve covered on the policy slips on ice while commuting to the office, injuring their lower back
    • you’re tidying the office and an old printer falls onto your shoulder, causing a serious injury
    • your business partner bumps their head after a fall, causing ongoing health complications which stop them from working

    Read more about personal accident insurance

This content has been created for general information purposes. Make sure you have the right level of business insurance by checking your policy documentation for details. Read our full Terms and Conditions

How much does insurance for a museum cost?

Find out how much you’ll pay by comparing prices from a range of trusted insurers. You choose what goes into your policy, so you only pay for what you need.

Prices start from £4.74 per month

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The price is for up to £2 million of public liability insurance – 10% of customers paid £56.82 or less annually between 1st Jan – 31st May 2024. Equivalent to £4.74 a month (and excludes the extra costs for paying monthly). 76% of customers have a £1 million limit and 24% £2 million. If you complete a quote, more types of cover will be available. These all have additional costs.

What kind of excess should I expect?

An excess is an amount you pay towards any claim you make on your insurance. For example, if your excess is £250 and you make a claim worth £1000, your payout will be a maximum of £750.

Insurance cover

Lowest excess

Highest excess

Public liability

No excess

£750

Employers’ liability

No excess

No excess

Contents

£200

£4,000

Main building

£200

£400

The figures above are for guidance only and any excess applying to your quote may differ. You’ll get a breakdown of the excesses for each quote when you compare with us.

How it works

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Our team of UK-based insurance experts are here to help, Mon 09.00am – 05.30pm, Tues 09.00am – 05.30pm, Weds 09.00am – 05.30pm, Thurs 09.30am – 05.30pm, Fri 09.00am – 05.30pm, Sat 09.00am – 02.00pm

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Find answers to common insurance questions

How do insurance claims work for a museum?

Unlike price comparison websites, we take the hassle out of claims for you. We know how important it is to get your business back on track quickly – and with a minimum of fuss. That’s why you get access to your dedicated claims team any time, day or night. Call them on 0333 207 0560 or claim online. They’ll do their best to be fair and supportive.

£51 million in claims paid out in 2023

83% of claims were settled in 2023

The figure above is rounded across our range of products. “Settled” covers paid, declined or withdrawn. Our claims process may vary for different products and operates on a ‘claim by claim’ basis. Our specialist partner Sedgwick will pay the claims on behalf of the insurer. Reviewed on 24/04/2024.

Chosen by nearly 1 million small businesses and landlords

We started out as a team of five back in 2005. We’ve grown since then, with nearly 1 million customers across 1,500 trades now trusting us to provide their business insurance.

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Museum insurance FAQs

Whether you’re new to buying business insurance or you’ve been trading for a while, here are the answers to some commonly asked questions about insurance for off licences. You can also check out our business insurance FAQs.

Yes. You may start offering additional services that require you to use different skills or carry out different tasks. If you find yourself in this situation, it’s important to give us a call on 0333 0146 683 to update your policy before you take on this new work.

If you don’t have the correct type of cover in place for the work you do, you may be unable to claim on your policy if something goes wrong.

Each insurer looks at CCJs and IVAs differently – some apply stricter rules than others, but having a CCJ or IVA doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t be able to buy insurance.

You can choose the payment type that suits your business and cash flow best. Some customers prefer to pay in one go, while others prefer to pay a regular monthly amount, like you do with lots of other bills. Simply Business offer three ways to pay for your policy:

  • one-off credit or debit card payment
  • BACS payment
  • Direct Debit

If you choose to pay by Direct Debit, our credit provider, Premium Credit, pays Simply Business the full amount for your policy up front. You then repay Premium Credit in 10 monthly installments.

This will depend on whether you have employers’ liability insurance in place. Public liability insurance is designed to protect your business against the consequences of legal action brought by members of the public for injuries or damage to their belongings. But when it comes to your employees causing injury or damage, this protection only activates if you also have employers’ liability insurance.

If you employ people, you’re required by law to have employers’ liability insurance.

There’s one exception here. Family businesses that aren’t incorporated as a limited company are not legally required to have employers’ liability insurance. The government defines a “family business” as one where all your employees are closely related to you (as a spouse, civil partner, sibling, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, step-parent, stepchild or half-sibling). So if you run an unincorporated family business and you choose not to get employers’ liability insurance, it’s important to know that your public liability insurance wouldn’t cover you against damage or injury caused by your team.

Make sure you’re covered for the services you provide:

The types of businesses we insure:

We create this content for general information purposes and it should not be taken as advice. Always check policy documentation for details and seek professional advice. Read our full Terms and Conditions

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