There’s no special insurance required for working from home, but it’s a good idea to check if your home or contents insurance covers any business equipment you have.
If you have people coming to your home for business, it can be a good idea to ensure you’ve got public liability insurance.
If you work from home and run your own business, you may still need business insurance, depending on the nature of your business and the risks involved.
For example, if you provide professional services, such as accounting or legal advice, you may need professional indemnity insurance to protect you against claims of negligence or errors. If you manufacture and sell products, you may need product liability insurance to protect you against claims of injury or property damage caused by your products.
It's best to speak with an insurance provider to determine what business insurance you may need for your specific situation.
The only type of business insurance that’s a legal requirement is employer liability insurance, as long as you have employees. A few exceptions exist, such as unincorporated family businesses that only employ family members or employees based abroad.
All other types of business insurance aren’t legally required, though this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider them.
If you don’t have employers’ liability insurance when you have employees, you could be fined up to £2,500 every day you’re not insured.
For all other types of business insurance, whilst there are no fines for not being insured, it could still cost you, especially as a small business.
Imagine someone gets seriously hurt in your shop and sues your company, or your premises is damaged due to a fire, and you need to replace all your equipment or even move to a new location.
Whilst these things are worst-case scenarios, they’re still possibilities, and not being insured could potentially bankrupt your business.