Gardening and landscaping insurance
You run powered machinery in other people's gardens. This cover handles injury and the damage your work does to property that is not yours.
Cover for garden and grounds maintenance, planting and landscaping, with tree work covered up to 3 metres.
Public Liability from €21.84 per month, with €2.5 million of cover per claim.
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Fully online business insurance in Ireland.
A few questions and you're covered.
No lock-in, no long contracts.
Excess from €0, up to €6.5 million of cover.
Why take out business insurance as a gardener?
Gardening and landscaping puts mowers, strimmers, chippers and diggers on ground that belongs to your client. Here is why dedicated gardener insurance matters:
Machinery throws things: A stone off a strimmer head breaks a window, dents a parked car or catches a passer-by. Public Liability picks up the compensation and the legal bill that follows.
You work on someone else's ground: The lawn, the planting, the paving and the house behind them all belong to the client. That property counts as being in your care, custody or control while you are on site, and it is covered as standard, to €25,000 a claim on your own or €50,000 once you employ anyone.
Putting work right costs money: When turf or planting has to come up and go down again, the optional cost of additional work cover pays for it, to €25,000 a claim on your own or €50,000 with staff.
What is Public Liability insurance?
Public Liability answers the claim when somebody outside your business is hurt by your work, or something of theirs is damaged by it. It pays what you are legally liable for, and it pays the cost of defending you.
What does it cover?
Anyone hurt on or near a garden you are working in, and anything of theirs you break while you are there. The cover limit is €2.5 million for a single claim and €5 million across an insurance year. The client's own lawn, planting and buried services count as property in your care, custody or control, and they are covered too, to €25,000 a claim on your own or €50,000 once you employ anyone.
What can you add?
Employers' Liability at €13 million a claim, which you need the moment a second pair of hands works for you, summer help included.
Cost of additional work at €25,000 a claim on your own or €50,000 with staff, over a €500 excess, for when turf or planting has to be lifted and laid again.
Cover that fits your trade
Set out everything you take on when you sign up, and the policy follows it: laying out and maintaining gardens and other green spaces, plus the materials you buy in for a job and pass on. Tree work is in, up to a height of 3 metres. Trimming or felling anything taller than that is out.
Work you have to declare
Some of the questions at sign-up only move your price. Others send your application to an underwriter to look at by hand before we can quote, which is neither a refusal nor an acceptance. Either way, answer them straight:
Fire-hazardous work. This means any work involving heating, such as welding, cutting, grinding, flame soldering, paint stripping, bitumen burning, and work with hot air such as blow-drying. The question is about the operation, not the trade, so if any of that is part of a job you take on, say so. It affects your price.
Subcontractors. Tell us if more than 50% of your revenue comes from subcontractors, meaning people you hire to carry out work on your behalf. Above €500,000 of revenue, that combination needs a look from an underwriter before we can quote. Worth knowing if you chase grounds-maintenance contracts.
Where your revenue comes from. More than 50% of your revenue arriving from outside the European Union needs the same manual look before we can quote.
Your experience. If your business has been trading for less than 36 months, we ask whether you have at least 3 years of experience with the activities your company carries out. It affects your price.
Is it mandatory?
Public Liability is not required by law in Ireland. What happens instead is that nobody lets you through the gate without it: main contractors, letting agents, management companies running estate grounds and local authorities awarding maintenance work all want the certificate first. Cover starts from €21.84 per month.
What does our insurance cover for gardeners?
Gardening and landscaping sits on our construction rating, so Public Liability is the base and you add to it depending on how you work.
Public Liability: Answers a claim when a client, a neighbour or a passer-by is injured, or something of theirs is damaged, because of your gardening or landscaping work. It pays the compensation you owe and the cost of defending you, to €2.5 million a claim and €5 million an insurance year.
Third-party objects and sites: Included as standard on this trade, not sold as an extra. This is the part that pays for the lawn, the planting, the paving and the buried services on the site you are working on, because they belong to the client and sit in your care, custody or control while you are there. €25,000 a claim on your own, €50,000 once you employ anyone.
Tree work above 3 metres is not covered: Trimming or felling a tree taller than 3 metres sits outside this cover, in a garden or on a boundary. Work on playgrounds is outside it too. If either is part of what you do, tell us before you buy.
Employers' Liability (optional): Add it as soon as anyone works for you, including a hand taken on for the summer. €13 million a claim.
Cost of additional work (optional): Pays the necessary and reasonable cost of putting your own faulty work right, to €25,000 a claim on your own or €50,000 with staff, over a €500 excess.
What's covered
Layout and maintenance of gardens and other green spaces
Trade in related construction goods and materials
Use of land, buildings or premises for the insured activity
Execution of business trips and company events
Participation in seminars or training courses
Optional: Employers' Liability if you employ anyone (€13 million per claim)
Optional: cost of additional work, for putting faulty work right (€25,000 or €50,000 per claim, €500 excess)
Trimming or felling of trees with a hight of more than three meters
Work on playgrounds
Activities outside the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom are not covered.
Claims, and circumstances that could give rise to a claim, that you or an insured person is aware of on the date the cover starts
Cover and exclusions shown are indicative and non-contractual. Only the terms of your policy apply.
Claim examples for gardeners
You are strimming a boundary at a house and a stone off the head goes through the neighbour's conservatory panel and into their parked car. Public Liability covers that.
Digging footings for a garden wall in Limerick, your mini digger cuts the client's water main and floods the ground floor of the house. Damage to property in your care is covered.
You are cutting a hedge along a footpath and a falling section catches a passer-by on the shoulder. The injury claim, and the cost of handling it, fall to Public Liability.
You are strimming a boundary at a house and a stone off the head goes through the neighbour's conservatory panel and into their parked car. Public Liability covers that.
Digging footings for a garden wall in Limerick, your mini digger cuts the client's water main and floods the ground floor of the house. Damage to property in your care is covered.
You are cutting a hedge along a footpath and a falling section catches a passer-by on the shoulder. The injury claim, and the cost of handling it, fall to Public Liability.
Examples are for illustrative purposes only. Compensation depends on the exact circumstances of the claim. No rights can be derived from these examples.
Your business insurance with Insify SmartGuide
Taking out insurance can be quick. Making sure you have the right cover is another matter. With Insify SmartGuide, you don't sign a contract blindly. You ask all your questions, and get clear, immediate and personalised answers, before you take out a policy.
Are you covered if you accidentally damage a client's equipment while working?
What excess should you choose?
Are you protected in the event of a dispute with a client?
Insify SmartGuide guides you step by step to understand what's covered, what isn't, and why. In just a few clicks, you build insurance that's truly tailored to your business, with complete confidence. Try Insify SmartGuide. Understand your insurance before you need it.
How to choose the right insurance as a gardener?
Criteria to compare:
The cover offered: Does it answer for what actually goes wrong on a garden job. Something thrown by a machine, something cut underground, and the client's own ground you are standing on. Check all three, not only the first.
The price: Worth comparing, but a keen premium on landscaping work usually means the exclusions have been drawn tighter than you noticed.
The excess: Find out what comes out of your own pocket first, on every claim.
The exclusions: Read the trade-specific ones properly. Tall tree work, playgrounds, anything you have not declared, and any promise of a guaranteed result.
The service: Find out how you get a straight answer before you buy, not while you are waiting on a claim. Anyone who understands this trade will ask what machinery you run and how tall the trees are.
Mistakes to avoid: Do not buy a policy written for a generic small business. Landscaping insurance has to answer for powered machinery working on ground that belongs to someone else. To secure your business today, discover our Public Liability insurance.
More than 40,000 entrepreneurs trust us
When I had to make a claim, I was amazed how quickly and efficiently it was handled. Within a few days I had a resolution.
Very friendly, quick and thorough. It gives me real confidence in taking out the cover. The company feels genuinely transparent, exactly what I look for. You don't find that often.
Very friendly, quick and thorough. It gives me real confidence in taking out the cover. The company feels genuinely transparent, exactly what I look for. You don't find that often.
When I had to make a claim, I was amazed how quickly and efficiently it was handled. Within a few days I had a resolution.
The cover itself was sorted quickly, and when I later needed support I got that fast too.
Very friendly, quick and thorough. It gives me real confidence in taking out the cover. The company feels genuinely transparent, exactly what I look for. You don't find that often.
When I had to make a claim, I was amazed how quickly and efficiently it was handled. Within a few days I had a resolution.
The cover itself was sorted quickly, and when I later needed support I got that fast too.
Answers to your questions about our insurance for gardeners
It moves with your turnover, the work you declare, how many people work for you and the excess you pick. Public Liability for a gardener starts at €21.84 per month with Insify. That starting point sits above the trades on our general rating, because gardening and landscaping is rated as construction: powered machinery working on other people's ground causes more injury and more property damage. Build a quote online in a few minutes and move the excess up or down to watch what it does to the premium.
Public Liability is not required by law in Ireland. It is required by almost everyone who hires you. A main contractor will not sign you onto a site without a current certificate. Letting agents and facilities managers ask before they hand over a key or a gate code. Management companies want it before you cut a communal green. Local authorities and public tenders publish their own minimum limits. And when a claim does arrive, the cover is what stands between it and your own money.
Only up to a height of 3 metres. Trimming or felling a tree taller than 3 metres is excluded, so a claim arising from that work is not covered, even if the rest of the job is. This is the most important limit on the page for a landscaper, because tall tree work is both commonly asked for and the fastest way to put a limb through a roof or a car. Work on playgrounds is excluded as well. Declare either one at sign-up, not afterwards: work that falls under an exclusion produces a claim we cannot pay, and finding that out during a claim is the worst possible moment.
Yes, that is one of the main things this cover is for. If your digger, auger or spade catches a water main, an electricity cable or a drainage run, the damage to the site you are working on is covered under third-party objects and sites, up to €25,000 per claim on your own or €50,000 if you employ anyone. Damage beyond the site, for example a neighbour's property or a supply serving other houses, is covered under Public Liability up to €2.5 million per claim. Ask the client and the utility for service drawings before you break ground; it will not change your cover, but it will save you the claim.
Yes, and you do not have to buy it as an extra: on this trade it comes with the policy. Anything of the client's that sits in your care, custody or control while you work is covered to €25,000 a claim on your own, €50,000 once you employ anyone, and twice those figures across an insurance year. It is the cover that answers when a treatment kills a client's lawn and beds, or a tracked machine wrecks a paved driveway on the way to the back garden. Redoing your own work is different: that is the optional cost of additional work cover. Damage to your own mowers, tools and trailer is not covered.
There is one limit on this rating and it does not move: €2.5 million for a single claim and €5 million across an insurance year. The three-way choice of €1.25 million, €2.5 million and €6.5 million belongs to our general rating, and gardening and landscaping is not on it. That matters if you bid for grounds work, because council contracts and public tenders often specify more than €2.5 million. Say what the contract asks for before you buy, so it does not surface halfway through the job.
Your excess is the slice of every claim you fund yourself. On a claim that settles at €4,000 with a €500 excess, you find €500 and Insify finds €3,500. You can pick €0, €250, €500, €1,000 or €2,500, though €0 and €250 are only offered up to €500,000 of annual revenue, and the floor is €500 above that. Taking a bigger excess usually pulls the premium down and costs you more on the day something goes wrong. Cost of additional work carries a separate €500 excess of its own.
Yes, and seasonal help counts. Employers' Liability is an optional cover at €13 million a claim, and it is not in your policy until you add it. It is not compulsory in Ireland, unlike the United Kingdom, but you are liable to the people who work for you either way, and a hand taken on for six weeks of hedge cutting is exactly the one that gets forgotten. Headcount also lifts your third-party property limits from €25,000 to €50,000 a claim.
Set out the work you take on, and answer the sign-up questions straight. Some of them only move your price. One asks whether you carry out fire-hazardous work, meaning anything involving heating: welding, cutting, grinding, flame soldering, paint stripping, bitumen burning, and hot air work such as blow-drying. Another appears if you have been trading for less than 36 months, and asks whether you have at least 3 years of experience with the activities your company carries out. Two more decide whether we can quote straight away. More than 50% of your revenue coming from subcontractors, on revenue above €500,000, needs an underwriter to look at your application by hand first. So does more than 50% of your revenue coming from outside the European Union. Neither is a refusal and neither is an acceptance. Before the policy binds you also confirm that no insurer has refused or cancelled any form of insurance for your business in the last 5 years, and that there has been no situation involving a crime in the last 8 years. If you cannot confirm either one, it goes for the same manual look. A claim you already know about when the cover starts is not covered, and neither are circumstances that could give rise to one. Work you have not declared produces a claim we cannot pay.