Health and safety insurance
Join over 900,000 customers like you with professional indemnity cover from £1.90 per month*
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Rated 4.7/5
Based on 39,768 reviews
Claims paid in 24 hours
For 80% of settled claims
Insurance for health and safety consultants – why is it important?
Risk and caution define the work you do. But even the professionals value a safety net, and health and safety professional indemnity insurance can give you peace of mind. With professional indemnity insurance in place, we’ll help you add cover for accidents and injuries, any employees, and your trade tools or equipment.
- health and safety consultant professional indemnity insurance – £50,000 to £5 million
- 24/7 UK-based claims support from an expert team
- equipment, accident and employee cover – you choose what you need
What does health and safety consultant insurance cover?
We’ll start with professional indemnity (PI) cover, a number one priority for most health and safety professionals. Our PI insurance is built to cover negligence – however unlikely – as well as other failings in your duty of care. You can add other popular covers like employers’ liability, if you need it, and public liability insurance for accidents and injuries.
Public liability insurance for health and safety consultants
In case your consultancy causes an injury, illness or property damage.
Employers’ liability insurance
In case something happens to an employee while working for your consultancy.
Health and safety professional indemnity insurance
In case there’s a claim for breaches in your duty of care, or defamation.
Business and office equipment insurance
In case things like your phone or tablet are lost, stolen or damaged.
Tools insurance
In case your tools are lost, stolen or damaged.
Legal expenses insurance
In case you and your consultancy face legal costs.
Personal accident insurance
In case anyone you’ve covered is accidentally injured, at work or elsewhere.
Public liability insurance for health and safety consultants
In case your consultancy causes an injury, illness or property damage.
What’s typically covered by public liability insurance?
Claims against your business for:
- damage to someone’s property
- injury or illness caused by your health and safety consultancy
- accidental damage or injury caused by your employees, if you have any
For example:
- during a hotel inspection, you accidentally spill coffee over an expensive rug, which will need to be replaced
- while on a customer audit, you leave your box of equipment on the floor and someone trips over it, fracturing their jaw
What you’ll need additional cover for
- 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 something happens to an employee while working for your consultancy.
What’s typically covered by employers’ liability insurance?
Claims against your business for:
- an injury or illness that comes as a result of working for you (including temps and casual workers)
**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:
- an employee is injured while visiting a customer site, and didn’t have the right hi vis and protective equipment
- your assistant gets ill after visiting a site without the necessary dust mask and other protection
Health and safety professional indemnity insurance
In case there’s a claim for breaches in your duty of care, or defamation.
What’s typically covered by professional indemnity insurance?
Claims against your health and safety consultancy for professional negligence or a loss-causing breach of contract. This can include:
- advice which turns out to be incorrect
- mistakes in your work that cost others money to fix
For example:
- you advise your client that they should adhere to some out-of-date health and safety legislation, and they get a fine
- a customer puts some of your advised measures in place, but the council deems these as insufficient – another review is needed, costing the customer more money
Read more about professional indemnity insurance
Business and office equipment insurance
In case things like your phone or tablet are lost, stolen or damaged.
What’s typically covered by business and office equipment insurance?
- theft, flood, fire or accidental damage to the equipment you use to run your business
- operational equipment like your laptop, office printer and phone
For example:
- your laptop, which contains multiple client reports, is stolen from your business premises
- while carrying out a school inspection you drop your tablet from a height, damaging it beyond repair
Read more about business and office equipment insurance
Tools insurance
In case your tools are lost, stolen or damaged.
What’s typically covered by tools insurance?
- loss, damage or theft of your specialist professional tools and equipment
For example:
- you’re carrying out an assessment at a dental clinic and a patient knocks your tool kit onto the floor, damaging the contents
- while commuting on the underground you miss your stop, jumping off at the next station and leaving your tool kit on the train
Read more about tools insurance
Legal expenses insurance
In case you and your consultancy face legal costs.
What’s typically covered by legal expenses insurance?
- legal costs attributed to your consultancy
- property damage, nuisance or trespass – specifically, the associated legal claims and compensation payouts
- tax and compliance disputes and investigations you need help with
- access to expert advice – including a tax advice phone line, confidential 24/7 legal phone line, and crisis support to help you protect your reputation, as a respected health and safety consultant
For example:
- HMRC wants to take you to court for paying tax incorrectly, and you need to pay the legal costs involved
- a client is querying and refusing to pay an invoice and you end up taking them to court, with significant initial costs
Read more about legal expenses insurance
Personal accident insurance
In case anyone you’ve covered is accidentally injured, at work or elsewhere.
What’s typically covered by personal accident insurance?
- accidental injury or death at or outside of work, for anyone covered on the policy
- lost income, medical costs and hospitalisation benefit
For example:
- you slip on a wet floor in the train station and break your ankle, meaning you won’t be able to make in-person site visits for at least two months
- your business partner injures their back while on holiday and needs an operation, plus time off work
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 health and safety 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 £1.90 per month
Get your quotes in 7 minutes – prices are guaranteed for 30 days.
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*How we work out example prices 10% of our customers paid up to £22.81 a year for a professional indemnity insurance policy between 1st April 2023 - 30th June 2023. Equivalent to £1.90 per month based on a monthly cost when paying for the policy in one annual payment. Paying monthly is usually more expensive as you'll pay interest. Most customers pay more than this but some pay less.
Example health and safety consultant insurance quotes, real prices
£20.08 /month
£178.5 /month
A self-employed workplace health and safety consultant, working with local businesses
- 2-3 years' experience
- Sole trader
- No employees
- Based in Bradford
Public liability
£1,000,000
Employers’ liability
Not included
Professional indemnity
£100,000
£96.39 /month
£856.79 /month
A small health and safety consultancy business, providing workshops and seminars on reducing risks in the workplace for medium/large businesses
- 5+ years' experience
- Limited company
- 2 employees
- Based in CF10 1FJ
Public liability
£5,000,000
Employers’ liability
£10,000,000
Professional indemnity
£1,000,000
How we work out example quotes These examples are real quotes from our online system (created 19/04/2021). 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
Professional indemnity | No excess | £2500 |
Public liability | £200 | £750 |
Contents | £100 | £750 |
Tools | £60 | £500 |
Employers liability | No excess | No excess |
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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How do I choose insurance?
Making sure you have the right type and level of business insurance can be the difference between getting a claim paid and having to cover the cost of an expensive accident yourself. Read our tips for guidance on what to consider when buying a policy.
Can I just cover my most expensive tools?
Which type of workers do I need insurance for?
Will tools insurance cover all my equipment?
Does health and safety consultants insurance cover my work correctly?
Do I need cover for other types of work?
Which public liability cover limit should I choose?
Can I just cover my most expensive tools?
Make sure you cover the total cost of replacing all your tools or you’ll only get a proportion of your claim paid out if something happens to them. Learn about tool cover.
Which type of workers do I need insurance for?
Employers’ liability insurance is a legal requirement if you employ people.
If you have people working for you, including bona fide subcontractors (BFSC), labour-only subcontractors (LOSC), part-timers, or full-time staff, employers’ liability insurance is required by law.
Read on for our simplified guide to the difference between labour-only subcontractors and bona fide subcontractors.
Will tools insurance cover all my equipment?
Depending on what you use to do your work, you may need other covers.
You may need more than tools insurance – for example, business equipment insurance if you have a work laptop, plant insurance if you use machinery.
Does health and safety consultants insurance cover my work correctly?
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 contractors insurance or self employed insurance?
Do I need cover for other types of work?
If you provide other services, make sure you’re covered:
Other types of insurance
Which public liability cover limit should I choose?
Think about the maximum possible loss your business could face in the event of a claim, and make sure you take legal fees and damages into consideration. You can choose from three levels of coverage – £1 million, £2 million, or up to £5 million.
Talk to an expert
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
Call our team
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. The figure below is rounded across our range of products. Our claims process may vary for different products and operates on a ‘claim by claim’ basis.
£39 million in claims paid out in 2022
Paying 80% of settled claims within 24 hours in 2022
Example claim
Having health and safety insurance through Simply Business has saved consultants thousands of pounds when the unexpected happened.
Caroline saved more than £1,980
Caroline (not her real name) spilled coffee over her new laptop while writing up a report on the train. The business and office equipment cover in her health and safety insurance policy took care of the accidental damage costs.
Insurance payout
£1,984.00
Covering the cost of accidental damage
Caroline’s costs
£100
The excess amount stated in Caroline’s policy terms
Chosen by 900,000 small businesses and landlords
We started out as a team of five back in 2005. We’ve grown since then with 900,000 customers across 1,500 trades now trusting us to provide their business insurance.
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Health and safety consultant 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 health and safety consultants. You can also check out our business insurance FAQs.
This depends on your business, your clients and the contracts you’re taking on. If you’re certified by your industry body, then you may need professional indemnity insurance in order to operate. But even if it’s not mandatory for your job, professional indemnity cover will still be a priority for most consultants.
For example, your client may require you to have £250,000 of professional indemnity insurance in place before taking on their project. We offer between £50,000 and £5 million in PI cover, so it should be a quick job to find the right level for your policy.
From there, lots of businesses choose to include public and liability cover – in case they cause an accident – plus insurance for their tools and other kit. And remember, employers’ liability insurance is a legal requirement for most businesses with employees.
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.
If you change your business legal structure from sole trader to limited company mid-way through your policy, give us a call straight away on 0333 043 8527. It’ll only take us a few minutes to cancel your existing policy and replace it with one that correctly covers your new legal structure. It’s worth bearing in mind that your insurer and premium amount may need to change.
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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