Employers’ liability insurance
For your charity or not-for-profit organisation
Protect your charity or not-for-profit organisation with employers’ liability insurance
If your charity or not-for-profit organisation employs people in any capacity, you have a legal duty to protect them. Our charity employers' liability insurance protects you if you are found legally liable for injury, including illness, and death caused to an employee whilst carrying out their business duties.
Our employers’ liability insurance includes:
- A minimum of £10,000,000 cover for claims made by employees against your organisation (the minimum legal requirement is £5,000,000)
- Legal costs relating to the employee’s injury
- Protection for those on work experience with your organisation
- Reimbursement of court attendance costs following a claim under this policy
It is not possible to choose our charity employers’ liability insurance as a standalone cover, but you can add it if you have public liability insurance with Zurich. Public liability insurance protects your organisation against third-party damage and injury claims.
Our 10 questions to make buying insurance simple document explains more about the types of insurance you might need.
About our employer’s liability insurance
Why would we need this cover?
Employers’ liability insurance covers you against your legal defence costs and compensation you might have to pay, in damages, in respect of injury caused to an employee while they are at work.
Let’s consider an example. A charity employee trips over a computer cable and twists their knee, which results in a prolonged period of physiotherapy and treatment to recover. They subsequently claim against the charity, alleging negligence in that such an obvious ‘trip hazard’ should have been identified and resolved. The charity’s employers’ liability cover would settle this claim (within the conditions of the policy).
Employers’ liability insurance also covers organisations that need to defend themselves against actions taken against them for breaches of health and safety laws.
For more information about our employers’ liability insurance, or more details on our charity insurance, please feel free to contact one of our friendly experts on 0800 917 9420 or email enquiries.team@uk.zurich.com.
FAQs about employers’ liability insurance for charities
The minimum level of insurance legally required is £5,000,000. However, our policies start with a minimum of £10,000,000 cover, and you can choose higher levels if required for an additional cost.
There are two things to consider when you’re deciding on the level of cover you need: firstly, what types of injury or illness could your organisation be held liable for; and secondly what are the costs you could incur from those injuries or illnesses.
If your organisation is purely volunteer-led, then you don’t necessarily need employers’ liability insurance to cover your volunteers. Our public liability insurance covers injury to volunteers as well as third-party injury or damage claims made against volunteers when they’re carrying out your organisation’s activities.
To set up employers’ liability insurance you’ll need to provide the number of employees you have, how many hours they each work per week, and how much everyone is paid. We’ll also need to know your organisation’s PAYE reference number, which is regulatory information required for the Employers’ Liability Tracing Office.
Read the latest charity news
As well as providing insurance, we also produce articles and guides to help charities and not-for-profit organisations with risk management.