Why do painters and decorators need insurance?
Paint spills
Being a professional means providing an accurate and quality service. But accidents can be unavoidable, especially when you’re working in unfamiliar environments. While decorating a private house, you lay dust sheets and do all the prep work. However, when you miss a step holding a freshly opened tin of paint, you miss the sheets and spill across the client’s carpet.
Decorators’ public liability insurance can help with compensation or legal costs if a client says your work has damaged their property or caused them injury.
Employee accident
When painting a ceiling at height, one of your employees falls off a ladder and breaks their leg. Their injury puts them in hospital and leaves them unable to work for a number of weeks. The employee accuses you of failing to take appropriate safety precautions and launches legal action.
Employers’ liability insurance could offer protection in such cases. This type of cover may assist with handling your legal and compensation expenses.
Specialist equipment
When you sign a new commercial contract, you need all your equipment to get started. However, when moving between jobs with your painters and apprentices, things can become busy and items can be misplaced. A kit box full of essential rollers, trays, extension poles and brushes gets lost. Without sourcing quick replacements, you could be set back from hitting deadlines.
Property away and in transit insurance can be a helpful product for a painter and decorator. Sometimes called tool insurance, it could assist with quickly replacing kit that’s lost, stolen or damaged when you’re out and about.
What insurance is available for painters and decorators?
Public liability insurance
Whether you’re painting a public building or decorating someone’s dining room, your role involves working with and around people. With public liability insurance, decorators can be covered if someone’s been injured or claims their property was damaged because of you, your employees or the work you do for them. It might be a spillage, or someone could slip on a tray.
Insurance for painters and decorators tailored with public liability can help to pay compensation on your behalf. It can also step in to help cover the legal costs of defending claims brought against you.
Employers' liability insurance
You may become too busy to fulfil jobs alone. If you employ other people, it will likely be a legal requirement (external link) to have employers’ liability cover. This isn’t just for permanent employees – contractors, volunteers or even a weekend helper could suffer illness or injury. If this has a long-lasting impact, or means they lose wages through missed work, they may take legal action against you for compensation.
If they make a claim, employers’ liability insurance for decorators could help with the cost of defending yourself and paying settlements.
Portable equipment insurance
Painting your way to gaining a reputation as a reliable decorator depends on your specialist skills and experience. But equipment is important in your trade too. Depending on the job, you might use your own angled cutting-in brushes, rollers and masking tape and store them in your van, or you may hire a mixing trolley especially.
If something breaks, gets lost or you experience tool theft, portable equipment insurance can help to cover you for repairs or replacements as part of your painter and decorator business policy from Hiscox.
Painters and decorators may choose to add other types of cover to their business policy too, such as cyber and data cover and legal protection insurance.
If you’re not sure what you need, tell us a bit more about your work as a painter and decorator. We’ll help you to build your quote and explore any other insurance needs.
Build my coverInsurance for painters and decorators: FAQs
How much is insurance for a painter?
How much insurance costs for a painter and decorator will depend on several factors. These will include the size of your business – whether you’re self-employed or have a team of decorators.
The overall cost of your policy will also depend on where you work and how many types of business insurance you add. Having a suitable level of cover and setting appropriate cover limits can be key, as underinsurance can leave you needing to foot the bill in the event of a claim.
At Hiscox, insurance for painters and decorators starts at £8.40*.
*Figures based on an average of all business insurance policies sold to at least 10% of our customer base between February 2024 and February 2025
Do I need insurance if I’m a self-employed painter and decorator?
While insurance isn’t legally required for a self-employed painter and decorator, you may find a need for it. For instance, decorators working alone may find the financial impact of a public liability claim difficult to cover, or recover from, without insurance.
Cover for tools can prove helpful too. Meanwhile, if you take bookings and communicate with clients digitally, protecting your business with cyber and data cover could also help you bounce back from unexpected breaches.
Will tools insurance cover all my equipment?
Tools insurance can help you with the cost of repairs or replacements of your essential decorating equipment if it’s lost, stolen or damaged.
However, tool insurance doesn’t account for mechanical or electrical failure. So if your electric paint sprayer or heat gun experiences an electrical malfunction, equipment breakdown insurance can step in.
Is there a law for house painters to have public liability insurance?
While there isn’t a legal requirement for house painters and decorators to purchase public liability insurance, many tradespeople choose to take it out. If while painting you damage property or injure a member of the public, public liability insurance could provide financial support should you have to pay compensation and/or legal costs.
Also, before appointing a business for a job, your client may require a minimum level of public liability insurance as a condition of the contract.
Related articles and guides
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If you’re looking to add further services to your repertoire, follow this step-by-step guide from the Hiscox experts on how to become a handyman.
Claims stories: False allegation
Discover why decorators and other public-facing professions might choose to take out public liability insurance by reading this real claims story regarding a false allegation.
What is public liability insurance?
Learn what public liability insurance is and read more about how it may be able to protect painters and decorators with this helpful Hiscox guide.