Charity insurance

UK charity insurance, otherwise called not-for-profit insurance, is just like business insurance, but specifically tailored to the risks associated with running a charity or not-for-profit organisation.  Risks could include those posed by running regular fundraising events or dealing with vulnerable members of the public.

Charities insurance can include any (or all) of the following covers to protect against the risks associated with running a not-for-profit organisation:

• Property insurance, such as buildings and contents insurance
• Motor fleet insurance
• Employers’ liability insurance
• Public liability insurance
• Trustee liability insurance
• Charity professional indemnity insurance
• Cyber insurance
• Charity event insurance
• Business interruption insurance

But cover with Endsleigh provides much more than just charities insurance. Our expert charity team provide a number of support services to our customers, including safeguarding, health and safety and risk management evaluation. Speak to the team for a specialist charity insurance quote.

Every charity and its needs are different, so it’s important to choose the right policy for you and your organisation. There are a number of things to consider when choosing your charity insurance in the UK, such as:

• How many employees and volunteers do you have? When it comes to volunteers and employees, insurance quotes will vary depending on how many you have.
• Do you deal with members of the public?
• Do you own or lease vehicles?
• Do you run events?
• Do you give advice or recommendations?
• Do you make or sell products or goods?
• Do you require cover for buildings, contents or stock?
• What contracts do you have in place?
• Do you have a contingency plan in place should something happen to your premises?
• Do you hold customer or employee data?
• Do you use computers in your day-to-day operations?
• Does your organisation have a website?

When you speak with our team of charity insurance specialists, they’ll make sure all of these areas are covered so that no stone is left unturned when it comes to your policy.

Here is a breakdown of the types of charity cover that you could opt for based on your requirements:

Public liability insurance

Most not-for-profits will need some sort of public participation, but that can also open them up to third party risks. Whether you're making or selling goods or working with communities and service users, it is important to make sure your organisation is protected.

Public liability insurance will provide cover for defence costs relating to allegations of negligence against you or your employees following third party injury or property damage.

Employers' liability insurance

As well as the public, you may also have staff and volunteers to consider. Employers’ liability insurance is a legal requirement and will protect your charity from legal costs and compensation claims arising from employee or volunteer bodily injury and or illness.

Motor and fleet insurance

Did you know we’re the approved insurance partner for Community Transport Association members? Whether your organisation has a single vehicle or a fleet of minibuses, we can cover all your vehicles under one roof with our comprehensive charity fleet insurance. Cover is offered on an “any driver” basis, including staff and volunteers.

Business interruption insurance

Business interruption insurance will cover your organisation if you are unable to continue operating as a result of an insured cause i.e. fire, flood or a storm. This insurance covers the loss of revenue and additional costs incurred following physical damage to your property.

This is an important area of cover that can often be miscalculated and could have a detrimental impact on your ability to continue operating when such disasters strike. However, it’s important to remember that business interruption insurance won’t necessarily cover all types of disruption but will only protect against the risks specified on the policy.

Business interruption cover may vary depending on your insurer, your organisation and its activities, so it’s important to read your policy documents carefully and understand any exclusions - for example, communicable diseases (i.e. pandemics) are a common exclusion of business interruption insurance policies.

Endsleigh’s insurance for charities can provide cover for business interruption.

Charity professional indemnity insurance

Professional indemnity insurance will provide cover for third party financial losses resulting from negligent advice or recommendations given by employees or volunteers on behalf of your organisation.

Does my charity need professional indemnity insurance?

As a general rule, if you’re an organisation providing advice to individuals and/or third-party companies, you’ll likely want to consider having professional indemnity insurance in place. This is both to protect your organisation and to ensure you meet all third-party requirements.

In fact, it may even be a requirement of some third-party contracts that you have professional indemnity insurance in place.

It’s important to remember that advice can be anything from consultancy work to providing guidance on completing welfare and benefit forms.

Imagine one of your volunteers helps a client fill out their benefits form, but the form is completed incorrectly by the volunteer – an easy enough mistake to make. But because of this, the client is unable to access their full benefits, and suffers financially as a result. Under these circumstances, professional indemnity insurance may provide cover for the financial losses incurred by the client, as well as compensation or legal costs applicable to the case.

Cyber insurance

If you’re storing client data it’s important to make sure you have safeguards in place. This is because a cyber-attack could not only interrupt your charitable activities and impact your income, but also have a negative effect on your organisation’s reputation.

Cyber liability insurance will cover loss of income, legal protection and compensation claims following a cyber-attack as well as social engineering or phishing attacks. Plus it can also provide access to legal advice and a team of experts to help minimise the damage caused to your organisation - be it financial or reputational.

Does my charity need cyber insurance?

Although not a legal requirement, it’s sensible for charities to have cyber insurance in place to cover key risks associated with operating digitally.

Did you know that charities, community groups and social enterprises can be particularly vulnerable to cyber risks due to the sensitive client data they store?

When it comes to protecting against cyber risks, the size of your organisation is irrelevant. While hacking is often reported as the cause of a data breach, data loss can also be caused by a computer virus or simply by employee error – so it’s important to be prepared for every scenario.

Consider what would happen if there were to be a cyber breach at your organisation, and your data or network was compromised. Not only could your organisation suffer reputational damage, but you may have to put fundraising activities and events on hold while you deal with the fallout of the breach.

Having charity cyber insurance in place will help minimise the reputational and financial impact of a data breach at your organisation.

Charity trustee indemnity insurance

Financial protection for trustees, directors, governors, officers and committee members of charities, clubs, associations or not-for-profit organisations. Get protected against legal defence costs and damages awarded against one of your directors, trustees or officers arising from a wrongful act by them in the course of their statutory duties. Find out more about trustee insurance.

Charity event insurance

Charity event insurance provides protection for your organisation when running fundraising events.

Fundraising is vital for not-for-profits to thrive, but whether you're holding a raffle, sports match, bake sale, street carnival or fireworks night, it’s important to make sure you’re protected against the risks associated with holding public events.

From public and employers’ liability, to cover for cancellation and curtailment, charity event insurance covers the risks involved with running unique charity events.

Don’t worry if you’re running a slightly “unusual” event – our panel of insurers are very flexible with the types of charity events they insure, from one-off raffles and games evenings to large annual fetes and open days.

Do I need public liability insurance for charity events?

While public liability insurance for a charity event is not a legal requirement, it’s sensible to have cover in place if you’ll be engaging with the public during your event. This will protect your charity from potentially costly third-party compensation claims in the event of an accident.

Sadly, it’s not uncommon for people to injure themselves or cause damage to third party property – especially if you’re running a large event with lots of volunteers and customers wandering around.

Some venues may even require you to have public liability insurance in place before they’ll allow you to hold an event on their premises. They should let you know when you book the venue if this is the case.

Legal expenses

Cover for defence costs that may occur as a result of any civil proceedings brought against your organisation by a third party.

Business travel insurance

Group travel insurance policies can be arranged to cover directors, trustees, employees and volunteers for any trips they make outside of the country on behalf of your charity or not-for-profit.

Asset protection

Cover for your organisation’s assets such as buildings, contents, stock and tenant improvements. Cover can be tailored to your needs and can cater for asset transfers (including community centres and historical/grade listed buildings).

Buildings and contents

Cover for buildings that are either owned by the organisation or for which they are responsible under a maintenance agreement. Cover can be extended to include accidental damage and subsidence.

All risks insurance

Cover for loss or damage to your specified or unspecified property, within the geographical limits you choose.

Group personal accident

This provides valuable protection for your organisation and employees – protecting against injury, disability or death as the result of an accident. The benefits paid under the policy can be tailored to your needs.

Although there are lots of different types of insurance to consider for your charity, these can all be contained within one straight-forward policy when you work with charity insurance brokers like Endsleigh.