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Insurance for cleaning business

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What's on this page

  • Why is insurance important?
  • What does it cover?
  • How much does it cost?
  • How do claims work?
  • FAQs
  • Helpful articles

Insurance for cleaning business – why is it important?

Wet floors, tripping hazards, and strong chemicals are common in cleaning jobs, meaning accidents happen – it's important to protect your business against potential risks. The good news? Whether you use expensive equipment or employ staff, business insurance is there to protect you against unexpected costs.

  • liability insurance for a cleaning business, including public and employee risks
  • compare cover from expert UK brands and protect your business
  • optional personal accident cover for your own injuries, or anyone on the policy

Start your quote

What are the cleaning business insurance requirements?

The first cover to consider is usually public liability insurance, which covers you if a member of the public gets injured or loses out financially and blames your business. Then you can add other covers to a policy that protect against the different risks that your cleaning business face.

Public liability insurance

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

What’s typically covered by public liability insurance for a cleaning business?

Claims against your business for:

  • damage to someone else’s property while you’re working, or because of your work
  • injury to someone as a result of your work
  • accidental injuries caused by your employees at work

For example:

  • you’re with a client and you accidentally spill coffee onto their designer handbag, causing a permanent stain
  • your client trips over your laptop charger cable while you’re setting up for an appointment, breaking their wrist
  • <span style='font-size: undefined;'>your employee damages a neighbouring business’s property while bringing equipment into your premises</span>

**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 cleaning business

What’s typically covered by employers’ liability insurance?

Claims against your business for:

  • an injury to someone you employ, including contractors and temps, that happens as a result of working for you
  • a member of staff (including casual workers) falling ill due to your business

**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:

  • one of your employees falls down some stairs in your business premises, and makes a claim against you for chronic shoulder pain
  • a temporary employee traps their hand in a door at your premises, causing several fractures
  • a member of staff trips on a ledge on their way to a meeting, injuring their hip

Contents insurance

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

What’s typically covered by business equipment insurance?

Claims against your business for:

  • accidental damage to your contents, or the equipment you use to run the business
  • theft, flood, and fire damage

For example:

  • someone breaks into your business premises and steals three company laptops, as well as two sets of headphones
  • a faulty dishwasher floods your office kitchen, causing damage to several appliances
  • your business equipment is damaged by vandals during a break-in

Read more about business equipment insurance

Business legal insurance

In case you’re hit with legal expenses connected to your cleaning business.

Claims against your business for:

  • a dispute relating to debt recovery, including judgement enforcements
  • an investigation into your tax affairs
  • someone using your company’s identity illegally

For example:

  • one of your clients has informed you that they believe you haven’t met the contractual requirements of their purchase agreement, and they’re refusing to pay an outstanding invoice
  • HMRC investigates your recent tax return, triggered by a fluctuation in your business income
  • someone gets hold of your company bank details and uses them to buy goods and services

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

For example:

  • you twist your ankle while exercising and can’t work for over a week
  • one of your employees, who’s named on the policy, traps their hand in a car door and needs to rest it for two weeks
  • you’re working near a building site and an extremely loud noise results in sudden hearing loss

Read more about personal accident insurance

Stock insurance

In case something happens to your products and consumables.

What’s typically covered by stock insurance?

Claims against your business for:

  • loss of stock, and theft or malicious damage to your stock
  • damage or destruction to stock caused by fire or flood
  • the essentials you keep as stock – the items you need to sell to operate

For example :

  • your equipment is faulty, causing fresh produce that you keep as stock to go off
  • water from a flood destroys stock and you have to throw it away
  • a thief clears out your stockroom – you have to replace stock quickly to operate

Read more about stock insurance

Tool insurance

In case your tools are lost, stolen or damaged.

What’s typically covered by tool insurance?

Claims against your business for:

  • accidental damage to specialist business equipment
  • theft of the tools you use to do your job
  • loss of your cleaning tools and equipment

For example:

  • a thief steals your business equipment and you miss out on a job
  • you accidentally leave some specialist equipment out in the rain, damaging it beyond repair
  • you lose your tools on a work trip

LINK:

Read more about tool insurance

Excess insurance

In case you need to make a claim on your insurance policy.

What's typically covered by excess insurance?

Claims made by you for:

  • when you make a claim on a cover included in your business insurance policy, you won’t need to pay excess

For example :

  • strong winds cause severe damage to the roof of your property – you don’t have to pay the £250 excess thanks to your excess insurance
  • a guest accidentally breaks a television during their stay at your property and thanks to your excess insurance, you don’t need to pay excess on the claim
  • a guest’s child trips on a loose carpet and breaks their arm – they claim compensation and you don’t pay excess due to your excess 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 cleaning business 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 £3.49 per month

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

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*The price is for £1 million of public liability insurance - 10% of customers paid £41.87 or less annually between 1st Oct 2023 - 31st Mar 2024. Equivalent to £3.49/month (and excludes the extra costs for paying monthly). 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

Stock

£200

£4,000

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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  • Get prices from a range of insurers

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How do insurance claims work for cleaning businesses?

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 900,000 small businesses and landlords

We started out as a team of 5 back in 2005. We’ve grown since then with 900,000 customers across 1,500 trades now trusting us to provide their insurance.

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Insurance for cleaning business 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.

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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