Painter and decorator insurance

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10% of customers pay the equivalent of £4.74 a month*

Painter and decorator holding a tub of wallpaper paste and a brush

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What's on this page

Why do you need painter and decorator insurance?

It’s not just the finishing touches – painting and decorating is the first thing a customer sees, and the stage that makes their dreams a reality. With high expectations and common accidents to manage, insurance is an important consideration. Public liability protection will be a key part of your policy, plus other specific covers depending on your business type.

  • protection from big claims for accidental damage or injuries
  • help to keep going if something unexpected gets in the way
  • specific painting and decorating insurance for the risks your business faces

What does painter and decorator insurance cover?

Public liability insurance for painters and decorators will form a key part of your policy, plus employers’ liability if you’ve hired anyone (it’s usually a legal requirement). Once these are in place you can add specific cover for the things you need, from your laptop to your hand tools and other machinery.

  • Public liability insurance for painters and decorators

    In case you or your employee injure someone or damage their property.

  • Employers’ liability insurance

    In case an employee gets sick or injured while working for you.

  • Tools insurance

    In case your painting and decorating tools are lost, stolen or damaged.

  • Stock insurance

    In case something happens to the materials you keep in stock, like your paint.

  • Business and office equipment insurance

    In case things like laptops or office filing cabinets are lost, stolen, or damaged.

  • Own plant insurance

    In case plant machinery, like excavators, you own is lost, stolen, or damaged.

  • Contract works insurance

    In case your painting and decorating work in progress is damaged by something like a fire, flood or vandalism.

  • Legal expenses insurance

    In case you’re faced with legal costs from running your painting and decorating business.

  • Personal accident insurance

    In case anyone you’ve covered is accidentally injured, at or outside of work.

  • Public liability insurance for painters and decorators

    In case you or your employee injure someone or damage their property.

    What’s typically covered by public liability insurance for painters and decorators?

    Claims against your business for:

    • damage to someone’s property, because of your work
    • an injury caused by your business activities
    • accidental damage or injury caused by your employee, if you have one

    For example:

    • while painting a customer’s bedroom, you spill a pot of undercoat on a dressing table
    • you leave a ladder out and your customer’s child trips over it, breaking their arm

    Read more about public liability insurance

  • Employers’ liability insurance

    In case an employee gets sick or injured while working for you.

    What’s typically covered by employers’ liability insurance?

    Claims against your business for:

    • employee illness or injury caused by working for you
    • medical bills and legal fees due to employee illness or injury
    • some temporary or casual workers may be covered too

    **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 falls off a ladder, breaking their arm
    • a casual labourer claims that you encouraged unsafe working practices and takes you to court

  • Tools insurance

    In case your painting and decorating tools are lost, stolen or damaged.

    What’s typically covered by tools insurance for a decorator?

    • loss, damage or theft of your hand tools, power tools and equipment

    For example:

    • a leak in your customer’s roof causes damage to your rollers, brushes and sprayer
    • your tools are packed into your van incorrectly, and get damaged on the drive home

    Read more about tools insurance

  • Stock insurance

    In case something happens to the materials you keep in stock, like your paint.

    What’s typically covered by stock insurance?

    • loss, damage or theft of your work materials, or items you’re planning to sell

    For example:

    • you’re parked at the wholesalers and someone drives into the back of your van, causing damage to the client’s stock of paint
    • all of the paint for a commercial client gets stolen from your site unit

    Read more about stock insurance

  • Business and office equipment insurance

    In case things like laptops or office filing cabinets are lost, stolen, or damaged.

    What’s typically covered by business and office equipment insurance?

    • loss, damage or theft of the equipment you use to run your business (operational equipment, not your painting and decorating tools)

    For example:

    • your laptop, which holds your client invoices, gets stolen from your home office
    • you spill coffee on your work phone while driving between clients

    Read more about business and office equipment insurance

  • Own plant insurance

    In case plant machinery, like excavators, you own is lost, stolen, or damaged.

    What’s typically covered by own plant insurance?

    • a paint sprayer you’ve just bought is stolen while locked in your work unit overnight
    • your customer drives into your van, causing significant damage to your steamer

    For example:

    • plant machinery you’ve rented – you’ll need to add our specific hired-in plant cover for this

    Read more about own plant insurance

  • Contract works insurance

    In case your painting and decorating work in progress is damaged by something like a fire, flood or vandalism.

    What’s typically covered by contract works insurance for a decorator?

    • repair costs for the work you have in progress if it’s damaged or destroyed
    • labour, materials and tools to get the job back to the stage it was at before it was damaged or destroyed
    • damage caused by things like fire, flood, storm, vandalism or theft

    For example:

    • a fire on site causes damage to painting work you’ve already finished, as well as your tools and equipment
    • flooding causes water damage to the decorating work you’ve done over Christmas, delaying the job into the new year

    Read more about contract works insurance

  • Legal expenses insurance

    In case you’re faced with legal costs from running your painting and decorating business.

    What’s typically covered by legal expenses insurance?

    • legal expenses resulting from your day-to-day business activities, like disputes with employees
    • the cost of legal claims relating to property damage, nuisance or trespass
    • HMRC investigations, or tax and compliance issues
    • includes a tax advice helpline, a 24/7 confidential legal helpline, and crisis support to help you protect your reputation, as a trusted tradesperson

    For example:

    • your client raises a contractual dispute, claiming you’ve delayed their shop’s opening date and caused a financial loss
    • a paid apprentice sues you for unfair dismissal

    Read more about legal expenses insurance

  • Personal accident insurance

    In case anyone you’ve covered is accidentally injured, at or outside of work.

    What’s typically covered by personal accident insurance?

    • injury or death at work or elsewhere, for anyone covered on the policy
    • lost income, medical costs and hospitalisation benefit

    For example:

    • you fall off a ladder, breaking your wrist and delaying a job by a week
    • an employee runs over your foot while reversing the van, keeping you off site for three weeks

    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 decorator insurance 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

Get tailored quotes in 7 minutes – prices are guaranteed for 30 days.

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.

Example painter and decorator insurance quotes, real prices

£11.68 /month

£116.81 /year

A local painter and decorator who works alone

  • 3-4 years’ experience
  • Sole trader
  • No employees
  • Based in Huddersfield

Public liability

£1,000,000

Employers’ liability

Not included

Tools

Not included

£48.86 /month

£488.62 /year

A small painting and decorating limited company who occasionally use casual workers

  • 5+ years’ experience
  • Limited company
  • 2 casual workers
  • Based in Reading

Public liability

£2,000,000

Employers’ liability

£10,000,000

Tools

£5,000

How we work out example quotes These examples are real quotes from our online system (created 17/03/2025). They’re based on a range of factors, like employees and location. Your own quote will be based on what you tell us about your business. Prices may go up or down from day to day, so the prices you’re quoted may differ to the ones you see here.

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Find answers to common insurance questions

How do claims work?

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 any time, day or night. Call them on 0333 207 0560 or claim online. They’ll do their best to be fair and supportive.

£68 million in claims paid out in 2024

76% of claims were settled in 2024.

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 26/02/2025.

Example claim

Having insurance through Simply Business has saved painters and decorators thousands of pounds when the unexpected happened.

Kevin saved more than £19,300

Kevin (not his real name) was spraying cladding as part of a job. An overspray occurred, covering three cars at a second-hand car dealership next door. Kevin’s painting and decorating insurance covered the damage.

Insurance payout

£19,380.00

Covering the cost of accidental damage

Kevin’s costs

£100

Chosen by nearly a million small business and landlord customers

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

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Painting and decorating 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 painters and decorators. You can also check out our business insurance FAQs.

Despite best efforts and lots of experience, accidents do happen. Public liability insurance for painters and decorators is usually a key cover, and can protect you if someone is injured or property gets damaged because of your business.

If you’re using machinery or tools you own yourself, own plant and tools insurance can be important covers. Finally, employers’ liability insurance is a legal requirement if you employ anyone, even in your own home – failing to take out the right cover often results in heavy fines.

This depends on your business, and which insurer is providing your cover. Prices start from £6.56 a month for our painting insurance customers – we work this out by taking the highest price from the bottom 10 per cent of all our customers paying in monthly instalments (based on data from 1 July – 31 December 2020). Most customers pay more than this but some pay less.

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 043 8527 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.

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 picking the right cover to protect you properly. It’s important to know that if you have another trade or job, you’ll need additional cover. For example, do you need to consider handyman insurance or interior design insurance?

If you provide other services, make sure you’re covered:

Other types of insurance

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 coverLowest excessHighest excess
Public liability£100£2500
Employers’ liabilityNo excessNo excess
Tools£60£500
Business and office equipment£50£750
Professional indemnityNo excess£2500
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.

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