Painters and Decorators Insurance
There is one claim in decorating that is wildly out of proportion to the work, and every decorator who sprays should know about it before it happens rather than afterwards.
Paint carries on a breeze a lot further than anybody expects. Spray an industrial unit on a gusty afternoon and the fine mist settles on every car in the yard next door, and every one of them needs professional correction rather than a wash. A day's work turns into a claim with a hundred vehicles on it.
Everything else about the trade is more ordinary: spills on floors that were finished last week, falls from ladders, and in older buildings the lead and the textured ceilings that nobody thinks about until they start sanding.
How Much Is Painters & Decorators Insurance?
Cover for a sole trader painter and decorator with up to £2m of public liability typically starts at about £6.70 a month, roughly £80 a year. That is the entry point rather than the average: one person, liability only, with nothing for tools, employees or the job itself. Employ anyone and employers' liability becomes a legal requirement, and from there the price is driven by wageroll and by the work you take on rather than by the trade.
What moves the price is the same in every trade: turnover, how many people work under your direction, the work you take on, and your claims record. We are a broker, so we take it to several insurers rather than quoting one. Call 02382 000820 for a realistic figure.
What Painters & Decorators Insurance Covers
Public Liability Insurance
Injury and damage to other people's property, which here includes overspray and everything you are working around. £2m for domestic, £5m for commercial, and £5m as the floor for anybody spraying outdoors whatever the client has asked for.
Employers' Liability Insurance
Required by law once anybody works to your instructions, and included as standard. Falls dominate, and solvent and dust exposure sits behind them over a longer horizon.
Contract Works Cover
Work in progress and materials on site. Paint on a large commercial job is worth more than people assume and it is easy to move.
Tools & Equipment Cover
Spray units, towers, steamers, sanders and hand tools. Airless kit is worth listing separately rather than hiding inside a general figure.
Overspray Is Worth Ten Minutes Of Planning
Before any external spray job, the question is not whether you can mask the building, it is what is downwind of it and how far. Car parks, a neighbouring yard, somebody's conservatory, stock stored outside.
Two things to check on your own policy. Some wordings restrict overspray, or attach conditions about sheeting and about not spraying above a certain wind speed. And a history of these claims is priced hard, because insurers read it as a procedure problem rather than bad luck. A written approach to masking and to calling off in wind genuinely helps at renewal.
Rags, Solvents And The Fire You Did Not Light
Rags soaked in oil based products generate their own heat and can ignite with nothing else involved, hours after everybody has gone. Left bundled in a corner or in the back of the van, they are a genuine cause of fire rather than a footnote.
In an occupied building you are usually bringing the only real fire load in with you, and some policies attach conditions about how solvents are stored on site. Worth knowing what yours says.
Old Ceilings, And Why We Ask About Them
Textured coatings put up before the mid 1980s can contain asbestos, and sanding or scraping one releases fibres. Asbestos is excluded on effectively every policy, licensed work or not.
So on anything pre-2000 the protection is procedural rather than insurance: do not disturb a textured finish until you know what it is, and have it tested where there is any doubt. It is a short delay against a liability that has no cover behind it.
Decorators After An Overspray Claim
One overspray claim can double a renewal, because the numbers are large and the cause looks avoidable from the outside. It is also very fixable, which is the useful part.
Underwriters respond to specifics: a masking checklist, a wind speed above which you do not spray, moving to brush and roller on exposed elevations, or notifying neighbours before an external job. Any of those turns a bad history into a managed one.
If your renewal has jumped after a claim like that, call 02382 000820 and bring the detail. It is a conversation worth having before you accept the number.
What We Need To Quote
- Turnover across domestic, commercial and industrial
- Whether you spray, and inside, outside or both
- How you mask and protect what is next to the job
- How high you work and what you work from
- Whether you are in occupied buildings
- Whether you work on pre-1990s property
- Five years of claims, especially any overspray
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this policy.
- Plasterers and drylinersThe trade immediately before you, with the same problem of working over finished surfaces.
- Scaffolders insuranceErecting your own access is a separate activity and is rated separately.
- Tradesman insuranceTools cover, and the conditions on theft from a van overnight.
- Contractors all riskCover for the job itself while it is in progress, before it is handed over.
Common questions
How much is painters and decorators insurance?+
A sole trader painter and decorator typically pays from about £6.70 a month, roughly £80 a year, for up to £2m of public liability on its own. Spraying is what moves it. A brush and roller decorator sits near that floor; anybody spraying externally is a different risk because of overspray, and should be carrying £5m rather than £2m anyway. Two minutes on 02382 000820 will get you a figure for your own work.
Am I covered if overspray damages cars?+
Normally yes under public liability, and it is the claim to be most careful about in this trade because the numbers are so far out of proportion to the job. Check two things on your own policy though: whether overspray is restricted at all, and what conditions apply about sheeting and wind. And be aware that a claim of this kind is priced hard afterwards.
What public liability limit do decorators need?+
£2m covers most domestic brush and roller work. £5m is what commercial contracts and main contractor sites expect. If you spray outdoors, treat £5m as the minimum regardless of what has been asked for, because the exposure is not the building you are painting, it is everything parked and stored around it.
Does my insurance cover paint spilled on a customer's carpet?+
A customer's carpet, furniture or fittings would normally be a public liability claim, subject to the excess and to how the wording treats the room you are actually working in. In practice a lot of decorators absorb small spills rather than claiming, because a run of small claims damages a renewal more than one larger loss does.
What about asbestos in textured ceilings?+
It is a real risk in older homes and it is excluded on virtually every policy, whether or not the work needed a licence. Textured coatings applied before the mid 1980s may contain asbestos and sanding releases fibres. On any pre-2000 property, do not disturb a textured finish until you know what it is, and get it tested where there is doubt.
Other trades we cover
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