Food bank insurance

A helping hand for your community work

Safeguard your vital food bank services

Providing emergency supplies and support to people in crisis can be a lifeline for a community. We know the needs of food banks are extensive and often changing – and your insurance should match that.

That’s why we’ve built food bank insurance that’s as flexible as it is comprehensive. Our charity team will also be on hand for advice and support relating to safeguarding, health and safety, and risk management evaluations. 

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 1,600 community-focused organisations.

Expert support

We work with thousands of charities and not-for-profits to help them manage risk.

Competitive prices

Value for money matters. We offer 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.

What is food bank insurance?

Food bank insurance offers financial protection for the risks these community services face. After all, from damaged donations to injury to the public, things don’t always go to plan.

Your policy can include cover for buildings and contents, public liability, motor insurance for transporting stock, and more – whatever you need to protect.

We’ll design your cover around the specific risks of your organisation, giving you confidence that you have the comprehensive level of cover you need.

Why do you need it?

Having food bank cover in place can help safeguard your activities. It also shows your duty of care towards volunteers, staff, and the public. It can even help make sure you're able to continue to deliver your service. 

Apart from employers’ liability insurance, which you'll need by law if anyone works for you, there are different options you can include in your policy. These can cover you for the financial fallout for anything from the charity being sued for negligence to water-damaged donations.

Two people packing boxes with non-perishable goods

What does food bank insurance cover?

Your operations include a number of risks. From storing and transporting food and other essentials to keeping visitors and volunteers safe, you’ll want to consider insurance to match. Types of cover include:

This offers protection for third-party liability claims against your food bank. This can include claims by visitors, volunteers, and other members of the public.

This means if they are ill, injured, or die, or their property is damaged and they sue, claims costs are covered. So medical fees, legal expenses, and compensation claims would be taken care of. 

If your charity owns buildings or is responsible for them under a maintenance agreement, you may need buildings insurance. Accidental damage and subsidence can be added, and we cover listed buildings, too. 

Contents insurance can cover the organisation’s belongings, like furniture, stock (stored and transported, and at multiple locations), and donated goods. Then, if a fire, flood, theft, accidental or malicious damage happens, you'd be covered financially.

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. 

We can provide charity insurance for your cars, vans, MPVs, and minibuses. 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 (with a few limitations, as outlined in the policy documents).

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.  

If your charity offers guidance or advice, or does consultancy work, you’ll want to consider this protection.

That's because it can cover the cost of claims if someone accuses the charity or its people of negligent advice or services that have 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.

People handing out bags of food in a foodbank

More than insurance

  • We’ll build a long-term partnership you can rely on. That's an insurance policy to protect your organisation and its service users, and regular reviews, so you stay protected. 
  • We can help you manage risk in compliance with the relevant legislation. Services include safeguarding, health and safety audits, and risk management evaluation. 
  • Our in-house claims service and close relationships with insurers makes for an easy and efficient claims process. We’ll be by your side throughout, ready to answer your questions and keep things moving.
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Like what you hear?

Charities with an annual income of under £350K can get a quote online with Markel Direct – for everything else, contact us

Get a quote

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Arrange a callback - Community group insurance

Please complete your details below and one of our team will call you back as soon as they are available.

denotes required field


Your details

Please select a date for us to call. Please note that we are open Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm, and closed on bank holidays.
What time would you like us to call?

Our Website Terms and Conditions and Privacy Notice includes information on the scope of our service and how we will handle your data.

CAPTCHA
9 + 10 =
​​​
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.