How do I choose charity insurance?

If you’re not sure which cover types are right for your charity, using an independent broker (like us) can be invaluable. We’ll ask you a few details about your organisation, which can help reveal your risks and the types of cover you could benefit from. These could include: How many employees and volunteers do you have? Do you deal with third parties or members of the public? Do you rent, own, or lease your premises? Do you need to insure any business equipment, such as computers, stock, or furniture? Do you run events, either regularly or as one-offs? Do you have a contingency plan in place if something happens to where you operate? Do you hold customer or employee data, or use a computer to operate, or have a website? What sort of activities do you provide to your service users? We’ll make sure all of these areas are covered, so no stone is left unturned when it comes to your policy.

Charity insurance

We're ready to help protect your charity or not-for-profit

Get in touch

A helping hand for charities

Getting protection for potential losses, damages, and liabilities if something goes wrong needn’t be a headache.

We’ll create an insurance package around your organisation. Whether you’re a small community group or large trust with complex needs, we’ll get to know your operations and offer cover to match your day-to-day risks.

Trusted by charitable organisations for decades, we also know that your needs go beyond insurance. Our team has expertise in a range of charity support services. This includes safeguarding, health and safety audits, and risk management evaluations.

If your charity has an annual income of under £350K, you can get a quote online. For larger or more complex charities, arrange a callback with our team.

Locality logo

We’re proud to be the trusted broking partner to ukactive – which serves over 4,000 members and partners from across the public, private and third sectors – and Locality, which supports 1600 community-focused organisations.

Expert advice

We're specialists, with deep sector and insurance knowledge.

Competitive prices

We’ll seek out well-priced policies without compromising on quality.

Personal service

We'll review, revise, and develop your insurance over the term, to help you stay fully protected.

Types of charity insurance

We understand that charitable organisations have a lot on their plate. That’s why we'll make finding the right insurance an easy process.

If your charity is public-facing – whether that's visitors, service users, or fundraiser attendees – this can open you up to third-party risks. This can mean costly claims if someone is injured or dies, or their property is damaged, and they take action against your charity.

With public liability insurance in place, your charity is covered for these claims, including legal defence costs and any compensation. This can be extended to cover extra risks, such as medical malpractice and hirer’s liability.

If your charity has employees, you’ll need employers’ liability insurance by law. The minimum is £5m. This covers the cost of a claim if someone who works for you gets injured or ill through their work and sues the charity. This can include claims from volunteers, too.

Without this cover, you could face large fines, uninsured claims, and damage to your charity’s reputation.

If your charity offers guidance or advice, or does consultancy work, you’ll want to consider this protection. It covers the cost of claims if someone accuses the charity or its people of negligence in their advice or services that has caused them loss.

Legal fees and compensation costs for claims can be very high, but with this insurance in place, they’d be covered.

Management liability – or trustee Indemnity insurance – protects the personal liability of people in positions of authority. That’s your individual trustees, directors, governors, officers, and committee members.

With this cover, if a claim is made against them for committing a wrongful act – such as a breach of health and safety or wrongful dismissal – legal defence and compensation costs are covered. Without this insurance, they’d potentially have to pay these costs out of their own pocket.

Charities of all sizes face cyber threats and can be targets due to the sensitive data they hold. The UK government’s 2024 Cyber Security Breaches Survey reports that around a third of charities (32%) had a cyber security breach or attack in the previous 12 months. Organisations can be severely affected if their data or network is compromised.

Cyber insurance for charities protects you financially (and your reputation) if data breaches, malicious cyber hacks, or other data security threats happen. It covers costs associated with these events, including IT forensics and loss of income.

It can also cover third-party liability if you’re sued for causing a data breach through mistakes or oversights. Specialist legal advice and expertise to help minimise the damage are also part of the package.

To talk to our experts about cyber insurance for charities, get in touch.

If your charity owns buildings or is responsible for them under a maintenance agreement you may need buildings insurance. You can extend this to include accidental damage and subsidence. You can also add contents insurance, which can cover your charity’s possessions, including:

Furniture
Stock
Donated goods and prizes
Cash
Essential equipment

Events covered can include fire, flood, theft, accidental damage, and malicious damage.

Unexpected events, like fires, floods, and storms, can stop a charity from doing its work – and even staying afloat. This covers lost income and additional costs if your organisation is unable to continue operating after this happens.

We can provide insurance for your cars, vans, MPVs, and minibuses – and even your fleet. Our charity motor insurance is also provided on an any-driver basis.

This means any of your staff are insured to drive the vehicles at any time, including volunteers. Though there may be limitations based on age and driving experience, so ask your broker or check the policy documents.

What charities do we cover?

We place insurance for a wide range of non-profits, of all sizes. This includes:

Care and respite homes
Hospices
Drug and alcohol rehabilitation
Community housing
Community centres
Nurseries
Vulnerable persons programmes
Community transport

More broadly, we can cover most organisations, including community groups, food banks, charity shops, and village halls.

To learn more, download our brochure.

Claims you can count on

From the moment you tell us about a claim to the final decision and settlement, we’ll do all we can to make things easy. Our in-house claims service and close relationships with insurance partners makes for a straightforward, efficient process. And we’ll be by your side throughout, ready to answer your questions while we keep things moving.

In-house specialists with deep sector and insurance knowledge
Here when you need us in person, by phone, or email
Simple, clear, and concise communications

Your charity's risk partner

We’re here to help get you confident in managing risk. Our flexible services can include an overall health check, health and safety and physical security audits, and fire risk assessments.

You can also access our portal for voluntary organisations, which lets you:

✓ Get to grips with health and safety and employment legislation
✓ Access information and downloadable policies, procedures, and documentation
✓ Stay up to date with news and legislation throughout the year

Go to portal

Charity insurance FAQs

It’s not a legal requirement, but it’s sensible for charities to consider cyber insurance. Charities, community groups, and social enterprises, big or small, can be particularly vulnerable to cyber risks due to the sensitive client data they store.

While hacking is often reported as the cause of a data breach, a computer virus or an employee slip-up can be the culprit, too – so it’s important to be prepared.

Consider what would happen if a cyber breach happened at your organisation, and your data or network was compromised. As well as reputational damage, you may have to put fundraising activities and events on hold while you deal with the fallout. Cyber insurance can minimise the impact of this.

The policy also comes with our expert advice and risk management evaluations to help you build a robust cyber strategy. If you think we can help, get in touch with our team today.

Whatever insurance you need, we can combine it into one straightforward policy. Depending on what you’re looking to protect, you could consider:

Legal expenses insurance
Covers legal expenses for disputes if your charity needs to take legal action or defend itself. This is for issues such as employment disputes, contract disputes, charity commission investigations, and tax protection. Expert advice through a legal helpline is included.

Group travel insurance
Does your charity organise trips for activities or conferences, at home or abroad? Group travel insurance can cover your directors, trustees, staff, and volunteers for trips outside of the country on behalf of your charity or not-for-profit. Emergency medical expenses and loss or damage to property are included, along with a 24-hour emergency helpline for support and reassurance.

Group personal accident insurance
This pays out if people at your charity develop a serious injury, disability, or die due to an accident. We can adapt how the benefits pay out and what’s covered to suit your charity.

Fidelity insurance
Charities often have high turnover of staff and volunteers. This may unfortunately leave them vulnerable to employee fraud and dishonesty. This cover provides compensation for financial loss after an employee commits an act of fraud or dishonesty.

Charity event insurance
From public and employers’ liability to cover for cancellation and curtailment, charity event insurance covers the risks involved with running one-off charity events. Don’t worry if you’re running an unusual event. Whether it's raffles and games evenings or large annual fetes and open days, the insurers on our panel are flexible.

Yes, we can cover large and complex charities. For us, these are charities with an annual turnover of over £350,000. Along with the insurance you need, you'll get a personalised service with a dedicated account manager who will handle your policy and cover reviews.

Cover can include asset protection and asset transfers (including community centres and grade-listed buildings), and car insurance on an any-driver basis, which can include your volunteers. Being properly protected can help your charity maintain its reputation and give your clients peace of mind.

If you’re not sure which cover types are right for your charity, using an independent broker (like us) can be invaluable. We’ll ask you a few details about your organisation, which can help reveal your risks and the types of cover you could benefit from. These could include:

How many employees and volunteers do you have?
Do you deal with third parties or members of the public?
Do you rent, own, or lease your premises?
Do you need to insure any business equipment, such as computers, stock, or furniture?
Do you run events, either regularly or as one-offs?
Do you have a contingency plan in place if something happens to where you operate?
Do you hold customer or employee data, or use a computer to operate, or have a website?
What sort of activities do you provide to your service users?

We’ll make sure all of these areas are covered, so no stone is left unturned when it comes to your policy.

Meeting of charity members with donation boxes

Spotlight on turnover, technology, and talent

Our Rewarding Industries 2023 report explores how the cost-of-living crisis has affected fundraising, as well as recruitment and retention of staff. It also sheds light on tech innovations opening up new opportunities for charities to reach donors and service users. (2023 Endsleigh report.)

Download report