Public Liability for Wedding Suppliers: PolicyBee vs With Jack vs Simply Business

Public Liability for Wedding Suppliers: PolicyBee vs With Jack vs Simply Business

Somewhere between the booking and the big day, the venue email arrives: "please send a copy of your public liability certificate". For photographers, florists, cake makers, planners, DJs, that email has quietly become as standard as the contract. This guide compares where wedding suppliers actually buy their cover, what it genuinely costs (checked this month) and the professional indemnity question that matters more in this trade than anyone tells you.

What Venues Actually Ask For

Most venues want to see £2m to £5m public liability before you work their premises, with the smarter ones asking at booking rather than the week before. Anything you plug in (DJ rigs, fairy-light walls, that ancient slide projector) triggers the PAT records question too, which we've covered in our gas safety and PAT testing guide. The certificate itself is a PDF your insurer generates. Keep it in the same folder as your contract templates and the venue email takes ninety seconds to answer.

The Two Covers, and Why Suppliers Confuse Them

Public liability pays when the physical world goes wrong: a guest trips over your light stand, the champagne tower meets your kit bag, a candle arrangement scorches a marquee. It protects other people and their property from your presence.

Professional indemnity pays when the work itself goes wrong. For wedding suppliers this is not a corporate abstraction. The photographer whose card fails with the only copy of the ceremony, the planner whose timeline stranded the string quartet, the florist who dressed the wrong church: those are PI claims. One wedding can't be reshot. For photographers and planners especially, PI is arguably the cover that matches the actual nightmare.

PolicyBee

PolicyBee is a specialist online broker with profession-specific policies, including one built for wedding photographers. The published pricing is refreshingly concrete: £1m public liability from £4.20 a month, professional indemnity at £100,000 from £7.08 a month, equipment cover at £5,000 from £10.04 a month (figures for incomes up to £25,000, tax included).

The appeal is that the policy already understands your job. Wedding-specific wordings, equipment cover that contemplates a kit bag at a venue, humans on the phone who know what a second shooter is. For the supplier who wants one place to build PL plus PI plus kit cover into a single sensible stack, this is the strongest starting quote.

With Jack

With Jack is the boutique of the three: a small specialist insuring UK freelance creatives, with professional indemnity at the centre and public liability, equipment cover, legal expenses around it. The service model is the differentiator: one solid policy, an actual named human when something goes wrong, rather than a call centre and a policy generated by menu.

The fit note: their heartland is designers, illustrators, web freelancers. Coverage is arranged around that kind of client work. Creative wedding suppliers can absolutely fit, but check your specific discipline with them directly rather than assuming. If your business is half client-commissioned creative work and half weddings, they're especially worth a conversation.

Simply Business

Simply Business is the comparison broker, pulling quotes from a panel of underwriters. Headline prices start low (their photography and small-business policies regularly quote in the £5-a-month region for basic PL) and the range means awkward businesses usually find someone willing to quote.

The trade-off is the same one we noted comparing them for street food insurance: you're buying through a script rather than from a specialist, the excess levels deserve a proper read and the cheapest quote on the screen is not automatically the cover your worst day needs. As a price benchmark before you buy anywhere, though, they're genuinely useful.

The Trade-Scheme Route

Two more doors worth knowing. If you exhibit at wedding fairs with a stand, the market-trader schemes apply: CMTIA covers stallholders at £69 a year for £5m, which is why plenty of part-time makers hold it. And several photography and supplier associations bundle or discount insurance with membership, so if you're already paying a guild or association subscription, check what's inside it before buying separately. The catering side has its own ecosystem entirely, which our street food guide covers.

Side by Side

What a Real Setup Costs

Wedding photographer, £8,000 of kit. PL plus PI plus equipment lands around £20 to £25 a month at PolicyBee's published rates. The PI is the part doing the heavy lifting: the realistic catastrophic claim in photography is the wedding that exists only on a corrupted card.

Florist or cake maker. PL first (the physical world claim is yours: installations, deliveries, allergens for cake makers). A few pounds a month at the entry level. More once wholesale values and workshop kit join the schedule.

DJ or musician. PL plus PAT records is the venue's standard ask, and equipment cover matters because your business fits in two flight cases that both fit through an unattended fire door. Budget for the kit schedule, not just the liability.

Planner or stylist. PI-weighted: your product is decisions. PL still needed for setup days. This is the profile where With Jack's shape fits most naturally.

Questions Suppliers Actually Ask

Do I actually need PI, or is PL enough?

Venues only ask for PL, so plenty of suppliers stop there. Then the claim that actually arrives is a couple whose day was mishandled, which is a PI claim. If your service involves judgement or deadlines or deliverables that can't be redone (which is the entire wedding industry), price PI before deciding it's a luxury.

Does my policy cover a drone?

Almost certainly not. Insurers class drones as aviation, and commercial drone work needs its own compliant cover. We've broken that down (with the training question) in our drone insurance and A2 CofC guide.

The venue wants to be named on my policy. Is that normal?

Increasingly, yes. Bigger venues and corporate-owned estates especially. Being added as an interested party is routine and cheap (£10 to £20 if charged at all). Give your insurer the venue's exact wording and let them handle it. Don't improvise certificate edits, which insurers treat about as warmly as HMRC treats improvised receipts.

I only do a handful of weddings a year. Do I still need this?

The venue asking for your certificate doesn't know or care that you're part-time. Annual policies at the entry level cost less than one wedding's fuel, and the trade-scheme route exists precisely for small-scale suppliers. Trading uninsured to save £60 a year is the wrong end of the risk to economise on.

Is my kit covered in the car overnight?

Read the schedule, because this is the classic gap: equipment cover routinely restricts or excludes theft from unattended vehicles. The same trap catches food traders, which our van insurance vs business insurance guide explains in painful detail. If the kit sleeps in the car during wedding season, get that scenario in writing.

The Bottom Line

PolicyBee for the wedding-shaped stack with published prices. With Jack for PI-led cover with a human attached, if your discipline fits their creative heartland. Simply Business as the benchmark quote and the panel of last resort. CMTIA and association schemes for fair stands and part-timers. Whatever you buy, buy the cover that matches your actual nightmare: for most wedding suppliers that's not the tripped guest, it's the day that can't be done again.

Last updated: August 2026. Prices from provider published rates at publication; premiums vary with income, kit value, claims history, so get matching quotes before buying.