If you clean people's homes for a living, the cover you need starts with public liability insurance. That is the policy that responds when you injure someone or damage their property while working: the vase knocked off a shelf, the client who slips on a wet kitchen floor, the radiator valve caught by a vacuum that floods a hallway. Most domestic cleaners buy public liability with a limit of indemnity (the most the insurer will pay for any one claim) of £1 million, £2 million or £5 million, and add the extras that match how they actually work.
Those extras are where domestic work differs from office or contract cleaning. You hold keys or key safe codes. You work around pets, children and irreplaceable personal items. You are alone in someone's house with their belongings, so an accusation of theft is a real risk even when nothing has been taken. And if you employ anyone, even a part-time cleaner on a Saturday round, employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement rather than a choice.
This guide walks through what sole traders need, what changes when you run an agency or employ staff, and how insurers treat breakages, keys, pets and theft allegations. It is general guidance rather than advice about your own business, and what any policy pays depends on the wording, the insurer and your circumstances. Our domestic cleaners insurance page sets out the covers we arrange.
What does domestic cleaners insurance actually cover?
There is no single product called "domestic cleaners insurance". It is a package built from sections, and you choose the ones that fit. The core is liability cover; the rest depends on what you carry, who works for you and what you promise clients.
| Section | What it responds to | Typical relevance to domestic cleaning |
|---|---|---|
| Public liability | Injury to a client or member of the public, or damage to their property | Essential. Covers slips on wet floors, broken ornaments, water damage |
| Employers' liability | Injury or illness suffered by an employee | Legally required if you employ anyone, including casual or part-time helpers |
| Damage to property worked upon | Damage to the specific item you were cleaning at the time | Often excluded or limited under standard public liability. Matters for carpets, ovens and delicate surfaces |
| Loss of keys | Cost of replacing locks and keys after you lose a client's key | Common for regular domestic rounds where you hold keys |
| Tools and equipment | Theft or damage to your vacuums, machines and stock | Useful once you own more than basic kit, particularly if it lives in a van |
| Personal accident | Your own injury, income support after an accident | Optional. Worth considering for sole traders with no sick pay |
| Money and loss of documents | Cash handled or held, replacement of lost records | Minor for most domestic cleaners, sometimes included |
A quick note on the term you will see most often. Public liability covers your legal liability, meaning you pay only when you are at fault or the law holds you responsible. If a client's ancient boiler fails the day after you cleaned the kitchen, that is not automatically your claim. The insurer will look at whether anything you did caused the loss.
Sole trader or agency: how the cover differs
Two domestic cleaning businesses can look identical from the street and need very different policies. What changes the answer is how the people doing the cleaning are engaged.
If you are a sole trader cleaning alone
You need public liability, sensible add-ons for keys and equipment, and honest answers about the work you do. No employers' liability is required while you genuinely work on your own with nobody helping you. If your partner covers a client while you are ill, or your teenage son helps on a big job, that arrangement can bring you into employers' liability territory, so tell your broker before it happens rather than after.
If you employ cleaners
The Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 requires most employers to hold at least £5 million of employers' liability cover, and the HSE can fine up to £2,500 for each day you trade without it. Most insurers issue the standard £10 million limit as a matter of course. You also need to consider how your staff behave in clients' homes, which is where dishonesty cover and careful recruitment records start to matter. Our guide on employers' liability insurance for cleaning companies goes into detail, and there is a plain comparison in public liability vs employers' liability.
If you run an introduction agency
Some domestic cleaning businesses do not employ cleaners at all. They match self-employed cleaners with householders, take a fee and step back. Insurers treat that differently again. Your liability exposure shifts towards the advice and vetting you provide, which is professional indemnity territory rather than pure public liability. If a cleaner you introduced damages a home, the client may still come after you on the basis that you presented that person as checked and competent. Be specific with your broker about who is contracted to whom, who invoices the householder, and what your terms say about vetting. Professional indemnity cover is worth discussing if you give advice or make representations about the people you supply.
If you use self-employed cleaners on your own contracts
This is the middle ground and the one insurers question most. A cleaner who works only for you, uses your products and follows your schedule may be treated as a labour-only subcontractor, meaning someone who supplies labour under your direction and control rather than running their own independent business. Labour-only subcontractors usually need to be declared and rated as employees for employers' liability purposes. Bona fide subcontractors who carry their own insurance are rated differently. Getting this wrong is a common reason claims run into trouble, so declare the arrangement plainly when you request a domestic cleaners insurance quote.
Breakages: what public liability pays and what it does not
Breakages are the everyday claim in domestic work. A duster catches a photo frame. A mop handle clips a lamp. A cleaner moves a dining chair and scrapes the floorboards. Public liability responds to accidental damage to the client's property where you are legally liable, subject to the policy excess (the first part of any claim you pay yourself, commonly a few hundred pounds on property damage).
The excess is the reason many cleaners pay small breakages themselves. If a claim is worth £120 and the excess is £250, there is nothing to claim. Insurers generally prefer this too, because a run of small notified claims affects renewal terms. Where the excess bites is on items you did not expect to be expensive: a hand-thrown ceramic bowl, a rug that turns out to be a genuine Persian, a designer light fitting.
Two exclusions catch people out.
- Damage to property worked upon. Standard public liability often excludes damage to the specific thing you were cleaning. Break a mirror while hoovering the hall and you are usually covered. Crack a mirror while cleaning the mirror and the exclusion may apply. This matters far more if you also do carpet and upholstery cleaning or oven cleaning, where the item being treated is the item at risk.
- Treatment risk. Chemical damage from using the wrong product on a surface, a stone worktop etched by an acidic cleaner, a wool carpet that shrinks after a wet clean. Some policies extend to this, many do not. Our guide on treatment risks and the gap in standard public liability explains where the line usually sits.
Water damage deserves a separate mention because the numbers are rarely small. A tap left running in a first-floor bathroom, a washing machine hose knocked loose, a radiator valve nudged open. Damage can run into tens of thousands once flooring, ceilings and a client's alternative accommodation are counted. This is the main argument for a £2 million or £5 million limit rather than £1 million, and for reading the true cost of a claim before you decide.
Keys, key safes and access: the risk nobody budgets for
Most regular domestic cleaners hold keys or codes. It is the only practical way to clean a house while the owner is at work. The insurance question is what happens when a key goes missing.
Loss of keys cover pays for replacing locks and keys after you lose a client's key, sometimes including the cost of a locksmith attending. The trigger and the limit vary between policies, and some wordings require the keys to have been lost rather than stolen from an unattended vehicle. Read the conditions. Our loss of keys insurance page sets out how the cover is usually structured, and keyholding risks explained covers the practical side.
Beyond the lock replacement, there is a wider security exposure. If a key is lost with an address label attached and the property is burgled, the argument moves from replacing a cylinder to liability for the theft. That is a public liability question and the outcome depends on whether you were negligent.
Sensible handling, which insurers like to see and which costs nothing:
- Never label keys with an address, a name or a house number. Use a code that only you can match to a client.
- Keep keys on a single ring or in a locked box at home, not loose in a cleaning caddy.
- Record who holds which keys if you have staff, and get a signature when keys are handed over or returned.
- Change your key safe code and any shared alarm codes when a cleaner leaves.
- Return keys in writing (an email or text confirming the handover is enough) when a client cancels.
Pets, children and other people's households
Domestic work puts you in homes with dogs, cats, toddlers and elderly relatives. Three risks come up repeatedly.
First, the escaping pet. A cat slips out while you carry equipment in, or a dog gets through a gate you left open. If the animal is injured or lost and you were careless, that is a liability claim, and clients can be far more upset about a missing cat than a broken lamp. Agree in writing which rooms pets are kept in and who is responsible for shutting them away.
Second, you being bitten or scratched. As a sole trader that is your own injury and a public liability policy will not pay you. Personal accident cover, or income protection bought separately, is the route to consider. If an employee is bitten, that is an employers' liability matter and your risk assessment will be looked at closely.
Third, chemicals in a home with children or animals. Products left on a low shelf, a bucket of diluted bleach on the floor, a spray bottle within reach. The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations apply to your work even in a domestic setting, and a client's child drinking something you left out is a serious claim. Our plain-English COSHH guide covers what you need to have in place without drowning in paperwork.
Accusations of theft: what insurance does and does not do
Every domestic cleaner worries about this one. A client cannot find £200 in cash, or a ring, or a watch, and you were the only person in the house. Often the item turns up. Sometimes it does not, and you are left with a damaged reputation and possibly a police enquiry.
Public liability does not cover theft by you or your staff. Cover for employee dishonesty is a separate section (often called fidelity guarantee or employee dishonesty cover) and it protects you against losses caused by your own employees stealing from clients or from you. It usually requires you to have taken references and it typically excludes losses where the employee is not identified. As a sole trader, no policy will cover your own dishonesty, which is exactly as you would expect.
What insurance can help with is the defence of a claim brought against you. If a client alleges negligence or theft and sues, your liability insurer will normally handle the defence of claims that fall within the policy. It will not defend you in a criminal matter. Tell your insurer or broker early if an allegation is made rather than waiting to see if it goes away, because late notification can prejudice a claim.
Practical steps that protect you better than any policy:
- Ask clients to put cash, jewellery and medication away before you attend, and say so in your terms.
- Do not move valuables to clean under them if you can clean around them.
- Keep a simple log of the times you arrived and left each property.
- Take references for every cleaner you engage and keep them on file.
- Check right to work documents for anyone you employ and retain copies in line with UK GDPR requirements on keeping personal data secure and no longer than needed.
- If something goes missing, respond calmly in writing, offer to cooperate with the police and notify your broker.
What insurers ask a domestic cleaning business
When you apply, expect questions on turnover, how many people work for you and on what basis, the split between domestic and commercial work, whether you use ladders or work above ground floor level, whether you carry out specialist treatments, and your claims history. Commercial customers have a duty of fair presentation under the Insurance Act 2015, which means disclosing everything a prudent insurer would want to know, clearly and accessibly. In practice that means declaring the odd bit of end of tenancy or carpet work rather than describing yourself as purely a domestic cleaner.
Where the mix matters:
- Move-out cleans. Deep cleans against an inventory carry a higher dispute risk. See end of tenancy cleaning insurance.
- Outside windows. Reaching upstairs windows from a ladder changes the risk profile. Window cleaners insurance and our guide to working at height explain why.
- Patios and driveways. Pressure washing brings overspray, pointing damage and injury risks that domestic ratings may not contemplate. See pressure washing cover.
- Offices or landlord blocks. Once you clean business premises regularly, commercial cleaning insurance or contract cleaners insurance may be the better fit.
Our questionnaire only asks questions that apply to cleaning businesses, so you are not working through pages about warehouses and manufacturing to describe a two-person domestic round.
A checklist for domestic cleaners
- Decide your public liability limit. Consider £2 million as a starting point, and higher if you clean high-value homes or work near water systems. Public liability limits explained helps you think it through.
- Confirm whether anyone helps you, in any capacity, and arrange employers' liability if they do.
- Ask your broker specifically about damage to property worked upon and treatment risk if you clean carpets, ovens, stone or upholstery.
- Add loss of keys cover if you hold any client keys or codes, and check the limit against the cost of replacing a modern multipoint lock.
- List your equipment with serial numbers and photographs, and insure it if replacing it would stop you trading. See tools and equipment insurance.
- Write terms of business covering breakages, valuables, pets, access, cancellation and what happens if you cannot attend.
- Take and keep references for every cleaner you engage.
- Do a short written risk assessment for each property: wet floor signs, trailing leads, pets, stairs, chemicals.
- Photograph pre-existing damage on a first clean, particularly marked worktops, chipped tiles and stained carpets.
- Diary your renewal date and review whether your work has changed since last year.
- Save your insurer's claims number in your phone and read how to handle accidental damage before you need it.
What to do in the first hour after something goes wrong
The way you behave immediately after a breakage or an accident shapes both the client relationship and the claim. Make the area safe first: pick up glass, turn off water, move a rug off a wet floor. Tell the client what happened in plain terms and do not speculate about who is at fault. Saying "I'll pay for that" before you know the value can create difficulties if the item turns out to be worth thousands, because admitting liability is usually a breach of policy conditions.
Photograph everything, including the wider room and anything that contributed, such as a wobbly shelf or an overloaded plug socket. Write down the time, who was present and what was said. Then call your broker. A good broker will tell you whether the matter is worth notifying, and if the value sits below your excess, you can settle it directly and move on. For anything involving injury, water spreading between floors, or a suggestion of theft, notify straight away. Legal liability for cleaners entering client premises covers the wider duty you owe once you have the keys to someone's home.
Getting cover in place
Domestic cleaning is a low-margin business where one uninsured water escape can wipe out a year's profit. The policy does not need to be complicated, but it does need to match the work you actually do, including the occasional oven, carpet or move-out job you take on to fill a gap in the diary. If you are still weighing up whether you need anything at all, our guide on whether cleaning insurance is necessary is a good starting point, and you can see the full range on the cleaning insurance hub or browse more guides.
When you are ready, tell us how you work and we will put terms to insurers who understand domestic rounds. Start a domestic cleaners insurance enquiry, or use the general quote form if your business spans domestic and commercial work. Any cover offered depends on the policy wording, insurer acceptance and your own circumstances, and this guide is general information rather than personal advice.