DEMO SAMPLE — written for a fictional company
Granton Cover Ltd is not a real firm. This article demonstrates WrittenRank's standard deliverable. Legal requirements cited are real UK law (Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 and Regulations 1998; Road Traffic Act 1988); penalty figures are HSE's published maxima.
1. Client brief (as submitted)
- Company: Granton Cover Ltd (fictional) — commercial insurance broker, Manchester
- Target reader: director of a small UK limited company checking compliance
- Target query: "what insurance does a limited company need UK", "is business insurance a legal requirement"
- Tone: authoritative, precise about what is law vs what is prudent
- Banned claims: no premium estimates, no naming insurers, no fear-selling
2. Meta
- Title (57 chars): What Insurance Must a UK Limited Company Have? (2026)
- Description (150 chars): Only two covers are required by UK law — and directors routinely get both wrong. What's compulsory, what's contractual, and what's just sensible.
3. Article (~1,300 words)
What insurance does a UK limited company legally need?
UK law compels a limited company to hold only two insurances, and only in specific circumstances: employers' liability insurance (minimum £5 million of cover) the moment it has anyone working for it who isn't an exempt family-member or majority shareholder, and motor insurance for any vehicle it puts on the road. Everything else — public liability, professional indemnity, cyber, contents — is either demanded by a regulator, required by a contract, or simply prudent. Directors get into trouble in two ways: assuming "we're too small to need employers' liability", and assuming "not legally required" means "not needed". This article separates the three categories cleanly.
Is employers' liability insurance a legal requirement?
Yes — and it's the one small companies most often get wrong. Under the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, an employer must be insured for at least £5 million against injury or disease suffered by employees in the course of their work, with the policy from an authorised insurer. In practice most policies are written at £10 million.
The traps sit in the word "employee". The duty can be triggered by people who are not on payroll in the everyday sense:
- Temps, casual workers and some labour-only subcontractors can count as employees for this purpose — the test looks at control and substance, not the label on the invoice.
- Volunteers and work-experience placements are covered scenarios many policies address and firms forget to declare.
And the main exemptions, which are narrower than directors assume:
- A company whose only employee owns 50% or more of its shares (the classic single-director company) is exempt.
- Close family members employed by unincorporated family businesses are exempt — but this family exemption does not apply once the business is a limited company.
The penalty for getting it wrong: the Health and Safety Executive can fine an uninsured employer up to £2,500 for every day without proper cover, and up to £1,000 for failing to display or produce the certificate. Those are the enforcement maxima; the larger real-world risk is an injury claim with no insurer behind you.
When is motor insurance the company's problem?
Whenever the company owns, leases or operates vehicles: third-party cover is compulsory under the Road Traffic Act 1988, exactly as for private motorists. The commonly missed exposure is the opposite case — staff using their own cars for work errands. That's "business use", it needs to be on the employee's own policy, and prudent employers verify it rather than assume it. Firms with more than a handful of drivers typically move to a motor fleet policy plus occasional business-use checks.
What insurance do regulators and contracts require?
Not law for everyone — but mandatory for you, if one of these applies:
- Professional indemnity (PI): required by professional bodies and regulators in fields including legal services, accountancy, financial advice, architecture and surveying, and increasingly demanded contractually from consultants, IT firms and agencies. If your terms of engagement promise advice or design, assume a client will eventually require evidence of PI.
- Public liability: not a statutory requirement, but standard in construction contracts, local-authority work, events, and most trade work on someone else's premises. Many contracts specify £5m as the entry ticket.
- Landlord and lease conditions: commercial leases routinely oblige the tenant to insure contents, glass or reinstatement — read the repairing and insuring clauses before signing, not after a claim.
The discipline that keeps this simple: keep a one-page register of every contract, lease and regulator that imposes an insurance condition, with the cover level and expiry date. Most compliance failures here are diary failures, not money failures.
What cover is optional but usually sensible?
Judged case by case — an honest broker will tell you when the answer is "skip it":
- Cyber insurance: increasingly requested in supply chains; more valuable for the incident-response service attached than for the indemnity itself. Insurers now routinely ask about MFA, backups and staff training before quoting — the questionnaire is a free security audit; treat it as one.
- Business interruption: pays for lost income while you recover from an insured event; the cover small firms most wish they'd bought after a fire or flood, and the one most often left off to trim the premium.
- Directors' & officers' (D&O): protects directors personally against claims arising from their decisions — relevant the day the company has investors, significant creditors or employees bringing claims.
- Key person cover: if one person's absence would sink the revenue line, the company can insure that risk like any other.
What should a director actually do this month?
- Check the two legal covers first. If anyone works for the company beyond an exempt majority-shareholder director: employers' liability, minimum £5m, certificate available. Any vehicles: motor cover matching actual use.
- Sweep contracts, leases and regulators for imposed insurance conditions and put them on one page with renewal dates.
- Match cover levels to today's business, not the business you had at the last renewal — headcount, turnover, new services and new premises all move the requirement.
- Declare accurately. Understating headcount or activities to save premium is the classic way to have a valid-looking policy fail at claim time.
Granton Cover reviews all of the above as a fixed-scope written audit — no meetings required. (Demo CTA — fictional firm.)
4. JSON-LD
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5. Internal-link suggestions
- Link "professional indemnity" → Granton's PI product page
- Link "cyber insurance" → suggested article: "What UK insurers now ask before quoting cyber cover (and how to pass)"
- Link closing CTA → the written insurance-audit service page