Home Care Insurance
Home care insurance covers an operation with no premises at its centre. The work happens in other people’s houses, usually with one member of staff present and nobody watching, and the exposures follow the visit rather than the building, not the postcode on the policy. A provider delivering personal care is regulated by the Care Quality Commission in England exactly as a care home is, and the same enforcement powers apply, without any of the control a building gives you. This page sets out what a community care programme has to cover, which parts a generic commercial policy handles badly, and the questions worth answering before anybody quotes.
No Premises at the Centre
There is no statutory home care package. Domiciliary care insurance is assembled from ordinary sections, and what makes it different is where the work happens. A care home’s risk is concentrated in a single building it controls. Yours is spread across a hundred addresses it does not control, reached by staff in their own cars, working mostly alone.
The liabilities come first here. Employers’ liability for care workers, and it is the section most often claimed on — moving and handling is the defining everyday risk in social care, and in a client’s home you cannot specify the equipment or the space. Public liability for damage and injury in somebody else’s property. And treatment liability wherever staff give medication or carry out clinical tasks.
Then the exposures that belong to the visit. Abuse and molestation cover on the terms it is available. Clients’ keys, property and money. Staff driving between calls, which is a motor question most agencies have never put to an insurer properly. And cyber, because electronic call monitoring and care records on phones put the whole service on one system.
And the ones people forget because there is no building. Management liability for the people running the agency, since the care regulations reach a registered manager personally. Fidelity where staff handle client money. Office contents, equipment and continuity cover sized against losing the rota rather than losing a roof.
Where this page stops. This is about care delivered in people’s own homes and in supported living. A registered care home or nursing home is a different premises exposure and a different conversation. And holding cover is never evidence of registration, permission or a safe service.
Four Services, Four Ratings
Four operations that all look like home care from outside and rate differently, because what decides the terms is how much time your staff spend alone with somebody and what they are doing while they are there.
Short visits to a round of clients, several a day, each one in a different house. Home care insurance here is rated on the number of care workers, the visit volume and the travel between calls rather than on income. The two questions insurers press hardest on are lone working and what happens when a call is missed.
Staff based at or visiting a scheme, often with tenancies involved and a landlord somewhere in the picture. Supported living insurance sits between domiciliary and residential, and the thing to establish early is who carries responsibility for the building, because it is frequently not you and almost never only you.
A worker living in the client’s home, which changes the working-time, accommodation and supervision picture completely. It is the hardest of the four to place on a standard wording, and the questions are about rest breaks, cover arrangements, what the contract with the family says about the hours the worker is off duty but still in the house.
Where the visit includes clinical tasks — catheter care, PEG feeding, complex medication, tracheostomy support. Treatment liability becomes the centre of the programme rather than an extension bolted to the side of it, and if you employ registered nurses their own professional indemnity position needs checking as well.
Most agencies are two or three of these at once, and the mix moves on its own as clients get frailer and contracts change. That drift is the commonest reason a programme quietly stops matching the business it was written for, and it is the easiest thing in this sector to put right early.
Same Regulator, Different Setting
No law requires you to buy home care insurance. Employers’ liability is the main compulsory exception and motor cover applies to vehicles used on a road. What is regulated is the care. In England, providers carrying on the regulated activity of personal care are registered with the Care Quality Commission under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and its 2014 Regulations — the same regime a care home answers to. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own regulators.
The enforcement powers are the same, and so are the thresholds. CQC can prosecute a breach of Regulation 12, safe care and treatment, where a failure causes avoidable harm or exposes someone to a significant risk of it, without first issuing a Warning Notice, and the maximum fine for serious offences is unlimited. Regulation 11 on consent and Regulation 13 on safeguarding work the same way. Death is not a precondition, and neither is a building.
Recruitment is where community care differs most. Regulation 19 requires robust recruitment and appropriate checks, and its scope reaches contractors, bank and agency workers, not only employees. Under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 it is an offence for an organisation knowingly to allow a barred person to carry out regulated activity. When the work is unsupervised and in private, the check is most of the control you have.
And it is not only CQC. Health and safety law reaches directors and managers personally under section 37, and HSE treats moving and handling as the defining risk across health and social care. Local authorities have their own duty under section 42 of the Care Act 2014, which expressly includes financial abuse — relevant wherever staff handle money, cards and keys.
One area needs checking rather than assuming. The legal definition of deprivation of liberty changed on 2 June 2026 with immediate effect. DoLS is the authorisation process for care homes and hospitals, so a community provider supporting someone who may be deprived of their liberty at home or in supported living is on a different route. Take advice rather than reading across from a care home’s procedures.
Insurance does not transfer any of that, and it cannot make an unsafe service compliant. It protects the organisation financially when something happens, and good risk management makes it less likely to. Nobody should tell you a regulatory fine is insured.
Confirm, Do Not Assume
Four things that are routinely assumed into a community care programme and routinely are not in it. Each needs a written answer.
General public liability wording is not enough here, and unsupervised work in private makes it the most important line on the page. Get written confirmation of what is covered, what is excluded, how historical allegations are treated, and exactly which persons are protected — the company, the registered manager, employees, bank and agency staff.
Establish which section answers when a care worker gives medication, changes a dressing or carries out a clinical task, and whether that sits in a treatment liability extension, a malpractice section or a separate professional indemnity policy. An agency that has quietly moved into complex care is the commonest version of this gap.
Staff driving their own cars between visits is a business use question, and it is almost never answered. Establish what your liability is if a care worker has an accident on the way to a call, whether their own policy covers the journey, and what you are expected to check and record. Our commercial motor page covers the fleet side.
Keys, key safes, alarm codes, shopping money, bank cards and a worker alone in someone’s house. Confirm how loss of keys, damage to a client’s property and allegations about money are each treated, and by which section. These are small claims that arrive often, and the wording decides whether they are yours or nobody’s.
Four questions, four written answers. Most of the programmes we review answer two of them, usually the first and rarely the third. If yours answers all four it is in good order and we will say so, which is a short conversation and a useful one either way.
The Fact-Find
A community care operation cannot be rated on turnover. Care agency insurance is priced on the shape of the service.
Your registration and the regulated activities on it; the latest CQC rating and any enforcement action or condition; whether you hold local authority or NHS contracts, which bring their own insurance requirements; and whether you also run a scheme, a care home or a separate trading company. All of it is written down already.
Who you support and how much time they get — older people, adults with learning disabilities, mental health needs, children; visit lengths and volumes; live-in placements; and how far your staff travel. Social care insurance is rated far more on the shape of the round than on the number of clients on the books.
Care workers, bank and agency staff, turnover of staff, and what your recruitment and DBS procedures actually extend to. Then the lone-working arrangements: how a visit is logged, what happens when one is missed, out-of-hours cover and escalation. This is the section insurers ask most about and agencies prepare least for.
Electronic call monitoring, care records on phones, the rostering system and who else can see it; medication administration and any clinical tasks; moving-and-handling equipment you supply; keys and money handling; and previous claims with their circumstances. Home care business insurance turns on this list.
The thing that changes most often and gets reported least is scope creep into clinical work. Nobody decides to become a complex care provider — a long-standing client’s needs increase, a district nurse asks whether your staff can take something on, and a year later the round includes tasks the policy was never rated for. A review once a year, plus a call whenever a new service or contract starts, is the whole of the maintenance this needs — and it is cheaper than finding out at claim stage.
Named People, Not a Call Centre
Most care agency enquiries come from an owner-manager or a registered manager who is also covering three other jobs that week. The ones you speak to first are the ones you deal with afterwards.
Ian Cooke has thirty-four years in the industry, leads the internal team and owns compliance at Park. On a CQC-registered client he is the one who will ask for the registration, the rating and the recruitment procedures before anything is quoted, because in this sector those documents are the submission. Kate Thompson works alongside Donna Hall in new client acquisition, making the onboarding process as seamless as possible — which matters when the person buying has never been through a proper fact-find. Jody Sutherland has over eighteen years in insurance and provides the internal support that keeps a changing schedule of cover accurate.
Colin Thompson is our Claims Manager, with over eighteen years in the role. A community care claim often happens where nobody from the organisation was present, which makes early notification and a clear record far more important than they are elsewhere. Claims are handled in house, and the rest of the team is on our team page.
Home Care Insurance Enquiry
Park is an independent insurance broker in Durham, arranging cover for domiciliary agencies, supported living and live-in care providers across the North East and UK-wide. Seven questions and an optional upload. The answers that decide the most are what you are registered for, who you support and how your staff work — including whether they drive. Send your current schedule and registration details if you have them to hand. One working day, no fee and no obligation, and if what you already hold is right we will say so.
Common Questions
A programme rather than a package: employers’ liability for care workers, public liability for injury and damage in clients’ homes, treatment liability where staff give medication or carry out clinical tasks, abuse and safeguarding cover, management liability for the registered manager and directors, cyber for call monitoring and electronic care records, fidelity and loss of clients’ keys and money, office contents, and continuity cover. What you need is decided by what you are registered for and how your staff actually work.
Not as a product. No law requires you to buy something called domiciliary care insurance. Employers’ liability is compulsory for most employers and motor cover applies to vehicles used on a road. What is a legal requirement is registration with the regulator where you deliver personal care, and compliance with its standards. A local authority or NHS contract will often impose its own insurance requirements on top, and those are contractual rather than statutory.
By the same regulator and under the same regulations, yes, if you carry on the regulated activity of personal care in England. The enforcement powers are identical: CQC can prosecute a Regulation 12 breach where a failure causes avoidable harm or exposes someone to a significant risk of it, without a Warning Notice first. What differs is the setting, and therefore the controls available to you — which is exactly why the insurance is rated differently.
This is the question we are asked least and should be asked most. Whether a care worker’s own motor policy covers travel between calls is a matter for that policy and usually needs business use on it. Your own exposure as the employer is separate again. It needs establishing in writing, along with what you are expected to check and record, rather than assumed from the fact that nobody has raised it.
Do not assume so. General public liability wording is not enough, and this needs express confirmation — what is covered, what is excluded, how historical allegations are treated, and exactly which persons are protected, including bank and agency staff. Unsupervised work in somebody’s home, with no colleague present and often no witness, makes it the single most important thing on a care agency account to have in writing rather than in principle.
It depends entirely on the wording, which is why it is worth settling now rather than at the time. Loss of keys, the cost of replacing a lock or a key safe, damage caused in a client’s home and allegations about money each sit in different places, and some sit nowhere unless asked for. They are small claims that arrive often, and an agency that has never checked usually finds at least one of them uninsured.
Yes, and it is worth separating out at the fact-find because it rates differently. Supported living usually brings tenancies, a scheme and a landlord into the picture, and the first thing to establish is who carries responsibility for the building, since it is frequently not the care provider and almost never only the care provider. Tell us about any scheme at the outset rather than leaving it inside a general description of the service.
One conversation, and usually more than one rating. A registered home is a premises risk with a resident population you are responsible for around the clock; an agency is a workforce risk spread across addresses you do not control. They share liabilities and very little else. If you run both, say so at the outset and we will treat them as what they are. Our care home insurance page covers the residential side.
