Public Liability Insurance
Why take out Public Liability insurance?
For many business owners it's one of the most important covers to have because it protects you against common, and sometimes very large, third-party claims, for a relatively small cost. Many clients will also expect you to hold cover before they'll take you on.
Who it's for
Whether you're a freelance tradesperson just starting out, a contractor with a small team, or a shop owner; our public liability cover is built for sole traders and business owners who want solid protection against third-party claims.
What it costs
What you pay depends on your business; your activity, sector, turnover, number of employees and the cover amount you choose. We only insure your business activities, so you get cover that matches how you actually work.
Business insurance, done differently.
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.
Our insurance is for
What is Public Liability insurance?
Your public liability insurance protects you and your business when you, your employees or your products accidentally cause harm to a third party; whether that's injury to someone or damage to their property. It ensures a simple accident doesn't turn into a claim you have to pay out of your own pocket.
If there's a chance a client could hold you liable for purely financial loss, it's worth also considering Professional Indemnity cover.
How does it work?
You tell us your activities and choose your cover amount and excess. If an accident during your work injures someone or damages their property, your policy covers the third-party claim and your defence costs.
Cover that fits your work
Public Liability adapts to what you actually do, on client sites, on your own premises, dealing with the public, or supplying products. You select your activities when you apply, so the policy matches your real day-to-day risks.
Is Public Liability insurance mandatory in Ireland?
Public Liability isn't always required by law in Ireland. However, clients, venues, landlords and local authorities often make it a condition of working with you, especially where the public is involved. It matters most for public-facing or physical work (trades, retail, beauty and hair, healthcare, events), and also if you make or sell products: if you're considered the manufacturer, product-liability claims can land with you. Get your cover from €7.55 per month with Insify.
How much does our Public Liability insurance cost?
Cover starts from €7.55 per month. Your price depends on your activities, turnover, the cover amount and the excess you choose.
Which cover do you need?
Most businesses are exposed to both. One covers injury and damage, the other financial loss from your work. You can combine them in one Insify policy. Cover limits, excess and exclusions apply. See the policy wording.
Public Liability insurance
Covers claims when your work injures someone or damages something that belongs to them. For example, someone trips over your equipment, or you damage a floor while working at a client's premises.
- Choose your cover: from €1.25 million up to €6.5 million per claim, and up to twice that per insurance year
- Excess from €0, depending on your turnover
- Staff? Add optional Employers' Liability with €13 million cover per claim
- Most relevant when your work brings you into contact with clients, the public, their premises or their belongings
Professional Indemnity insurance
Covers purely financial loss a client suffers through a professional mistake, oversight or wrong advice, with no injury or property damage involved. Think of work a client claims was unfit for purpose and cost them money.
- Choose your cover: from €125,000 up to €1.25 million per claim, and up to twice that per insurance year
- Excess from €0, depending on your turnover
- Most relevant when clients pay you for advice, programmes and plans
Your public liability insurance covers:
Third-party injury and damage to property, plus defence costs.
Product liability (e.g. a charger you sell short-circuits and causes damage).
Intellectual-property infringement, for most activities (some activities may need an underwriting question).
Also covers your employees (e.g. an employee damages equipment you'd borrowed for a job).
Territorial scope: the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the UK; business trips worldwide (USA and Canada excluded).
Option: employers' liability (e.g. an employee is injured at work).
You choose your cover amount: €1.25 million or €2.5 million or €6.5 million (construction: €2.5 million).
Damage you cause intentionally
Damage to your own property or injury to yourself
Very large risks, or locations that carry major risks
Gradual or slow-acting environmental damage (only sudden, accidental pollution is covered)
Business premises outside the covered territory
Cyber liability
Cover and exclusions shown are indicative and non-contractual. Only the terms of your policy apply.
Some examples
You knock a client's laptop off a desk during a meeting and the damage is beyond repair.
You drill into a concealed water pipe at a client's premises and the leak damages their floor and stock.
A visitor trips over a cable on your worksite, is injured, and brings a personal-injury claim.
You knock a client's laptop off a desk during a meeting and the damage is beyond repair.
You drill into a concealed water pipe at a client's premises and the leak damages their floor and stock.
A visitor trips over a cable on your worksite, is injured, and brings a personal-injury claim.
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.
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.
Questions and answers about your cover
Public liability covers tangible harm; injury to people and damage to their property (e.g. you hit a water pipe while drilling). Professional indemnity covers purely financial loss, e.g. advice that goes wrong or a mistake that causes your client financial damage.
Public Liability isn't always required by law in Ireland. In practice, though, it's often effectively required: clients write it into contracts, landlords and venues ask for proof before you work on their premises, event organisers and market operators make it a condition of a stand, and many local-authority permits expect it. So while you can trade without it, a lot of work simply won't be open to you unless you can show you're covered, which is why it's one of the first policies most business owners take out.
Usually not. You know your own business best, and taking out cover with Insify is a self-service, information-based process: you tell us what you do, then choose your cover amount and excess. We give you the information to decide; we don't push regulated advice on you. If you're unsure what level of cover fits your work, you can always call, email or message us and we'll talk it through.
Your excess is the amount you pay yourself towards a claim before your insurance covers the rest. For example, on a €3,000 claim with a €250 excess, you pay €250 and Insify covers €2,750. You choose it when you apply, and it applies per claim. The options are €0, €250, €500, €1,000 and €2,500, with €0 and €250 available to smaller businesses (annual revenue up to €500,000; above that the minimum is €500).
You pick your start date when you take out the policy, and it can begin the same day if you need it. From there it runs on a rolling monthly basis with no fixed end date: it simply continues until you cancel, which you can do any day. Because the cover works on an occurrence basis, any incident that happens while you're insured stays covered, even if the claim only comes in later. Claims need to reach us within five years of your cover ending.
The more your work involves people, property and products, the more risk you carry. Clients want reassurance that if you accidentally cause damage, your insurance covers it, and showing you're covered inspires trust.
Personal liability covers damage you cause to others in everyday life. Damage you cause to a third party during work needs public liability cover, and personal cover won't apply.
Liability is always towards third parties. If you damage a client's property, you're liable and covered. To protect your own equipment, you can add contents/stock/electronics cover.
Cover starts from €7.55/month; your exact price depends on your activities, turnover, cover amount and excess.
Public liability insurance in Ireland: what it covers and what it costs
What is public liability insurance?
Public liability insurance pays for claims brought against you by a third party when your business work injures someone or damages their property. A third party is anyone outside your own business: a client, a customer, a visitor, a passer-by, a landlord.
It is the cover that responds to physical harm. Someone trips on your cable and breaks a wrist. You drill into a concealed pipe and flood a client's stockroom. You knock a laptop off a desk during a meeting. In each case the other side can hold you liable, and public liability insurance is what stands between that claim and your own money.
Two things are worth being clear about from the start. First, liability insurance only ever pays out to other people. It does not repair your own tools, laptop or stock, and insuring those needs a separate policy. Second, public liability is about injury and property damage. If a client is left out of pocket because of your advice or your professional work, with nothing broken and nobody hurt, that is professional indemnity insurance instead.
What public liability insurance covers
Your Insify public liability policy responds to third-party injury and third-party property damage arising from your insured business activities. Alongside the compensation itself, it deals with the cost of defending the claim, which is often the part business owners underestimate.
Included as standard:
Injury to a third party, and damage to third-party property, arising from your work
Your defence costs, together with mitigation costs and statutory interest. Mitigation costs are what you reasonably spend to limit a loss that has already happened. Statutory interest is the interest that accrues on compensation between the claim and the payment. All three are paid
in addition to
your cover limit, capped at a proportion of it, which is set out in your policy documents. The claimant's own legal costs work the other way: they come out of your cover limit rather than on top of it
Claims arising from the actions of your employees while working for you
Products liability, so claims arising from goods you make, sell or supply
Sudden and accidental pollution
Available to add, depending on your activities:
Employers' liability, with €13 million per claim and per insurance year, including applicable defence costs. See the employers’ liability section below
Cover for damage to third-party items in your care, or on a site you are working on.
The limit here is much lower than your main cover limit, and it is set by your activity rather than chosen by you: €5,000 for most businesses, and €25,000 per claim on a construction policy for a headcount of one, or €50,000 for a larger headcount. Your quote explains who counts towards that headcount. Cleaning businesses are the exception, at €500,000.
The annual total is twice the per-claim figure. This cover is not available for every activity, and for some it is built in rather than optional. Your quote confirms which applies to you and at what limit
On a construction policy, optional faulty craftsmanship cover can pay necessary third-party access and reinstatement costs to reach a defect. It does not pay to correct or redo your own faulty goods or work. This add-on has a limit of €25,000 per claim and €50,000 per insurance year for a headcount of one, or €50,000 per claim and €100,000 per year for a larger headcount. An extra €500 excess applies on top of your selected excess
Terms, conditions and underwriting criteria may apply.
You choose the cover limit and the excess yourself when you apply. Your excess is the amount you pay yourself towards each claim before your insurance covers the rest. You also tell us what your business actually does. We only insure the activities you declare, which is why the cover follows your real working day rather than a generic template. It also means the add-ons above are offered on the basis of those activities, so two businesses will not always see the same options.
Public and products liability: where products fit in
In the Irish market the cover is usually written as public and products liability, because products liability sits inside it rather than beside it as a separate policy.
Products liability matters more than most small businesses expect, because a claim about a faulty item can land with you rather than with whoever made it. A phone charger you sell short-circuits and damages a customer's desk. A cosmetic product you blend yourself causes a reaction. A piece of furniture you assembled collapses.
The same applies to work you have carried out, not only goods you have handed over. If something you installed later causes injury or damage, that is a third-party claim about your work.
One boundary to be clear about. Products liability responds to the injury or damage a faulty item causes to someone else. It does not pay to recall the product, to put it right, or to replace it. Those costs stay with you.
Is public liability insurance mandatory in Ireland?
Public liability insurance isn't required by law in Ireland, and neither is employers' liability insurance. Some sectors and licensed activities set their own insurance conditions, so if your work needs a licence or a permit, check what that licence requires.
What is required by law is something different: you have health and safety duties to manage risk to employees and to anyone else affected by your work. Insurance does not discharge those duties. It deals with the financial consequences when something goes wrong anyway.
So for most businesses nothing obliges you to buy public liability cover. In practice, though, a lot of paid work is closed to you without it, which is the subject of the next section.
Why clients, landlords and venues ask for it
Public liability cover is not compulsory, but it is routinely made a condition of the work. In our experience of the Irish market, the people most likely to ask you for it are:
Clients and main contractors, who write a minimum cover limit into their terms and ask for evidence of cover before you start
Landlords and managing agents, before you work on their property
Venues, hotels and event organisers, as a condition of working on site or taking a stand
Market and festival operators, who ask stallholders for it, often with a stated minimum limit
Local authorities, as part of a permit or licence application
Public-sector and larger private tenders, which treat it as a qualification requirement
In each of those cases somebody wants documentary evidence rather than a verbal assurance. When you take out cover with Insify you can download your policy documents straight away, so you have something to send when a client asks.
Who needs public liability insurance
The more your work brings you into contact with people, their premises, their belongings or your own products, the more third-party risk you are carrying. That has less to do with your legal structure than with how much contact your work has with other people and their property. Every business on this list carries third-party exposure of some kind, so this is about the size of the risk, not whether you have one.
Trades and construction: Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, painters, roofers, tilers, plasterers, bricklayers, floor layers and landscapers work in other people's buildings with tools that can cause real damage in seconds. Construction work is underwritten on its own basis at Insify, at a fixed cover limit of €2.5 million per claim, and it starts from €21.84 per month rather than the general starting price below. Cover for damage to third-party items on the site you are working on is built into the construction policy. You can also add faulty craftsmanship cover for defined third-party access and reinstatement costs, rather than correcting your own faulty work.
Retail, food and hospitality: Shops, cafés, takeaways, food trucks and small hospitality businesses have members of the public on the premises all day, plus products going out the door. Slips, falls and product claims are the two recurring exposures, and both sit inside public liability cover.
Beauty, hair and wellbeing: Hairdressers, barbers, beauticians, nail technicians, massage therapists and holistic practitioners work in close physical contact with clients, often using heat, chemicals or equipment. A reaction, a burn or a fall in the salon is a third-party injury claim.
Sport, fitness and coaching: Gyms and fitness facilities, personal trainers, yoga and pilates teachers, sports coaches, dance and martial arts schools and clubs deal with physical activity and equipment, frequently in rented halls and studios whose owners ask for evidence of cover as a condition of the booking.
Events, markets and stands: Anyone running or exhibiting at an event is usually dealing with two sets of requirements at once: the venue's and the organiser's. Both will normally specify a minimum cover limit, and event organisers and market operators make it a condition of taking a stand.
Consultants, tech and office-based work: Client visits, meetings and carrying equipment all create third-party exposure, and anything you sell can carry products liability. Businesses in this group often hold professional indemnity alongside it, because they are exposed to both physical and financial claims.
How much does public liability insurance cost in Ireland?
Insify public liability cover starts from €7.55 per month, based on our IE pricing as at July 2026. That is a starting price, not an average, and it applies to lower-risk activities at the lower end of the cover and turnover range. Construction and trades are priced on a separate basis and start from €21.84 per month.
What you actually pay is driven by five things:
Your activities: This is the biggest single factor. Roofing carries more third-party risk than office-based consulting, and the premium reflects that.
Your sector: Public-facing and physical work is priced differently from office-based work.
Your turnover: Higher turnover generally means more jobs, more clients and more exposure.
Your headcount: More people doing the work means more chances for something to go wrong.
The cover limit and excess you choose: Both are yours to set, and both move the price.
How your excess changes what you pay. On a claim of €3,000 with an excess of €250, you pay €250 and Insify covers €2,750. Choosing a higher excess lowers your monthly premium, because you are absorbing the small claims yourself.
Which excess options you see depends on your annual revenue:
Up to €500,000 revenue: €0, €250, €500, €1,000 or €2,500. The standard option is €500.
Above €500,000 revenue: €500, €1,000 or €2,500. The standard option is €1,000.
Comparing quotes in the Irish market is worth doing properly, and price is only half of it. Check the cover limit, the excess, the exclusions that apply to your specific activities, and whether you are locked into a 12-month contract. With Insify there is no fixed term and you can cancel any day.
Choosing your cover limit
Your cover limit is the maximum your insurance pays for a claim. Insify public liability cover offers €1.25 million, €2.5 million or €6.5 million per claim, with €2.5 million as the standard option, and up to twice the per-claim amount in total across an insurance year.
Construction activities are the exception: they are written at €2.5 million per claim, and the limit cannot be moved up or down.
Three things to weigh up:
What your contracts require. If a main contractor, a venue or a local authority specifies a minimum, that sets your floor. This is a common reason business owners move up a tier.
The realistic worst case in your work. A personal-injury claim involving long-term consequences reaches figures that property damage rarely does.
How many claims a year could plausibly arise. The annual total is capped at twice the per-claim limit, which matters if you handle high volumes of public footfall.
We give you the information and the options so you can decide. We do not give regulated advice, and we do not charge an advice fee. If you would rather talk it through before deciding, you can call, email or message us.
Employers' liability: what changes when you take on staff
Public liability covers claims from people outside your business. Employers' liability covers claims from the people inside it: an employee who is injured or made ill by their work and holds you responsible as their employer.
Ireland does not make employers' liability insurance compulsory. Your health and safety duties apply from your first employee, but no statute obliges you to insure against the claim. What does happen is that main contractors and public-sector tenders frequently specify a minimum employers' liability limit before you can be appointed.
At Insify, employers' liability is an optional add-on to your public liability policy, available on every activity we insure. The cover limit is €13 million per claim.
Two features of it differ from the rest of your cover, and both are worth knowing before you rely on it:
The annual total is not doubled. Everywhere else on your policy, the most your insurance pays across an insurance year is twice the per-claim limit. For employers' liability the annual total is the same €13 million as the per-claim limit.
Additional costs come out of the limit, not on top of it. Defence costs, mitigation costs and statutory interest are paid in addition to your cover limit on the rest of your policy. On an employers' liability claim they are paid from within the €13 million.
Terms, conditions and underwriting criteria may apply.
How a public liability claim works
A personal-injury claim takes months, generates correspondence and requires an assessment of whether you are actually liable, and for how much. That process is one of the practical reasons to hold cover.
With Insify, you tell us as soon as you become aware of a claim or of a circumstance that could turn into one. From there we take it off your hands: we assess liability, deal with the claimant or their solicitor, and arrange legal help where it is needed. Your policy then pays what you are legally liable to pay, within your cover limit and less your excess.
Insify is an insurance intermediary, not the insurer. We arrange and administer your policy and handle your claim, and the cover itself is underwritten by our insurance partner, named in your policy documents.
If you are ever unhappy with how a claim has been handled, tell us and we will deal with it under our complaints procedure. If we do not resolve it, eligible customers can refer the matter to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO). Eligibility and time limits are set by the Ombudsman, and the details are in our terms of business.
When your cover responds, and for how long
Insify public liability responds to insured acts or omissions during your period of cover, subject to the policy’s conditions. Report claims and circumstances promptly.
If a claim relates to an insured act or omission during cover, it may be reported during cover or within five years after cover ends, subject to the policy’s conditions.
Claims must reach us within 5 years of the date your cover ends.
The practical consequence is that a gap in cover is a permanent gap. Work you did while uninsured is not picked up by a later policy. Later claims remain subject to the reporting deadline and other policy conditions.
Where in the world you are covered
Your cover applies across the European Union plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, which includes work you do in Northern Ireland.
Business trips are covered worldwide. Claims brought in the United States or Canada, or under the law of either, are not covered, wherever the incident happened. Business premises located outside the covered territory are not insured.
What public liability insurance does not cover
No liability policy covers everything. Key exclusions include the following; this is not an exhaustive list:
Damage you cause intentionally
Damage to your own property, and injury to yourself
Purely financial loss a client suffers because of your professional work, with no injury or property damage. That is what professional indemnity insurance is for
Cyber liability
Gradual or slow-acting environmental damage. Only sudden, accidental pollution is covered. Cleaning up your own site is not covered
Damage caused by or involving a motor vehicle, which belongs with motor insurance, with limited exceptions
Recalling, repairing or replacing a faulty product, as covered above
Outcomes you promised or guaranteed to a client
Two mechanics worth knowing. Claims that are related to each other are treated as a single claim, dated from the first act, which affects how they count against your annual total. And a subcontractor is not insured under your policy in their own right, though you are covered if you are the one held liable for work inside your insured activities.
Terms, conditions and underwriting criteria may apply. Specific exclusions also attach to particular activities, and you see the ones relevant to you before you buy.
Public liability or professional indemnity?
A common question, and the distinction is simpler than it sounds.
Public liability covers tangible harm: someone is injured, or something of theirs is damaged. You hit a pipe, a client trips, a product fails.
Professional indemnity covers purely financial loss: nobody is hurt, nothing is broken, but your client is out of pocket because of a mistake, an oversight or advice that turned out to be wrong.
Plenty of Irish businesses carry exposure to both. An information technology (IT) contractor can damage a server room and can also cause a costly outage through a configuration error. An interior designer can break a client's fitting on a site visit and can also specify the wrong material, leaving the client to pay for the job twice.
Where both covers are available for your declared activities, you can combine public liability and professional indemnity. Public liability deals with injury and property damage; professional indemnity deals with pure financial loss from insured professional mistakes. PI is not available for every activity. Your quote shows which covers you can choose, including eligible advisory activities such as facility management. Read more about professional indemnity insurance, or see how this works for a specific trade on our personal trainer insurance page.
How to arrange public liability insurance with Insify
The whole thing is online, and you arrange it yourself.
Tell us what your business does. You select your activities, and this is what shapes both your cover and your price.
Give us your size. Annual turnover and number of people, including yourself.
Choose your cover limit and your excess. You see the price change as you do it.
Check your quote. Your quote sets out the inclusions and exclusions that apply to your declared activities, so you know what you are buying before you commit.
Set your start date and pay monthly. Cover starts on the date you choose, from tomorrow. There is no fixed term, so you can cancel any day.
Have questions before you commit? Our online guidance answers them as you go, so you understand the cover before you need it.
Cover and exclusions described on this page are indicative and non-contractual. Only the terms of your policy apply.