A Guide to Public Liability Insurance for Artists, Makers, and Creative Freelancers

If you need artist insurance cover today

Axis membership includes £15 million public liability, products liability cover and £5 million professional indemnity.

You are covered from the day you join, whichever way you pay, and your certificate is in your member dashboard straight away.
 

Get covered today, £3 a month

^{Check the detail first, download the policy summary (PDF).} 

^{£15 million cover, the highest available to UK artists · Underwritten by Hiscox · 13,000 members}

What is public liability insurance?

Public liability insurance pays out if a member of the public is hurt, or their property is damaged, because of your work: a visitor trips over a cable in your installation, a workshop participant cuts their hand on your tools, a sculpture comes off its plinth and onto someone’s car. It covers the compensation and the legal costs, which on a serious claim can run far beyond what any artist could pay.

Do artists need public liability insurance?

Legally, no. In practice, yes, because the request usually arrives as a line in the contract or an email asking for a copy of your certificate before you can install, set up or start. Galleries, councils, festivals and fair organisers ask because if someone is hurt by your work the claim comes to you, and they need to know it can be paid. If you can’t show a certificate, the opportunity usually goes to someone who can.

How much cover will you be asked for?

Most contracts still ask for £5 million or £10 million, but £15 million is now appearing in commissioning packs from local authorities and public bodies, and that’s where artists start losing work because their cover stops short. Axis membership includes £15 million, the highest cover available to individual artists in the UK, so whatever figure the contract asks for, you meet it.

What kind of insurance do you need?

Start with the work rather than the policy. If the public comes anywhere near what you do, at an exhibition, a workshop, an open studio or an installation in someone else’s building, you need public liability. If you sell what you make, at a fair, a market or from your studio, you need products liability too, which covers you if something you’ve made causes harm after it’s left your hands. If you take commissions or give advice, professional indemnity covers claims that what you delivered fell short of what was agreed. Axis membership includes all three. Cover for your own artwork, tools and equipment is separate, and you’d arrange that yourself.

What does it cost?

Bought on your own from an insurer or broker, cover at the level commissioners ask for runs into the hundreds of pounds a year. Axis membership costs £30 a year, or £3 a month, and includes £15 million. It costs less because Axis is a charity funded by its members: we buy one policy for everyone and share the cost between us. If cost is a barrier, we offer concessionary rates.

What Axis membership covers

• £15 million public and products liability
• £5 million professional indemnity per claim, with legal costs paid on top rather than out of the limit
• Performance and live art, as standard
• Goods you sell or supply, including refreshments at your own events
• Damage to premises you lease or rent, such as a temporary studio or borrowed space
• Free legal, tax and counselling helplines, 24 hours a day
• A £250 excess

The cover is for individuals based in the UK, not organisations or groups. Public liability covers work in the UK and EU, and professional indemnity worldwide apart from the USA and Canada. It works on a claims-made basis and runs for as long as your membership does, so keeping your membership current is what protects work you’ve already done. 

Some venues and commissioners ask for more than public liability, particularly for work with children or vulnerable adults, so check what your contract requires and get in touch if you want a hand.

Getting your certificate

Your cover starts the day you join, whether you pay by card or Direct Debit, and your certificate is in your member dashboard straight away. It shows the full £15 million, so you can send it to the venue or commissioner the same day.

The rest of membership

Insurance is usually why people join Axis. What keeps them is everything else: opportunities and jobs, awards to apply for, resources and templates for the business side of your practice, the chance to apply for Vacant Space when you need somewhere to work, and a network of around 13,000 artists and art workers across the UK. 

Professional members can also apply for bursaries and fellowships, get mentoring and have a public profile that sends people to their work.

£3 a month or £30 a year, with cover from the day you join.

Get covered today, £3 a month

^{Check the detail first, download the policy summary (PDF).} 

Full details are on our public liability insurance for artists page. Organising an event and checking what an Axis member is covered for? See insurance for art events.