Insurance for charities

Property insurance can help to protect your charity, whether your organisation owns or rents its office buildings or support centres. Buildings insurance  can provide reassurance if you own the premises, while a contents insurance policy can help if you rent.  

Your workplace could be vulnerable to damage resulting from extreme weather, fire, or a break-in. In the event of such an incident, buildings cover can fund repairs to the fabric of the building and contents cover protects your physical assets inside, such as furniture and computers.

Events are often an important part of fundraising and can be crucial to a charity’s income. But charity event insurance can help to protect you if one of your events doesn’t go to plan, for example, if an attendee suffers an injury.

The liability a charity and its trustees hold depends on the structure (external link)used to set up the organisation. For example, trustees of both charitable incorporated organisations (CIOs) and charitable companies have limited or no liability for the organisation’s debts or liabilities.  

According to the NCVO, the limited liability charity trustees can face include:  

• Liabilities to third parties with whom they have a legal relationship.
• Legal action by the Charity Commission or Attorney General over a breach of trust.
• Criminal liabilities (only in a small number of specific situations).

If you have employees at your charity, you may be legally required (external link) to purchase employers’ liability insurance. Charity volunteers are classed as employees under UK law (external link). 

While trustees and individual liability insurance isn’t a legal requirement for a charity, trustees do have responsibilities to uphold. For instance, if a trustee is accused of deliberate wrongdoing or illegal activity, they may be investigated by the Charity Commission. Trustees and individual liability insurance can help to cover legal defence costs and awards of damages.

Hiscox cyber insurance can help protect your charity against an illegal threat. This can include a threat from a third party to damage, destroy, or corrupt your computer system, or to carry out a cyber attack.