Studios & workshops

Insurance for design-and-make businesses: when you’re the designer, the manufacturer and the installer

In short: A business that designs a bespoke piece, fabricates it in its own workshop and installs it at the client’s premises wears three hats that insurers treat as three different trades. Professional indemnity responds to the design and specification element, products liability to the thing you made, and public liability plus contract works to the installation — and the classic gaps sit at the joins, especially the cost of removing and replacing your own defective work. An online form that makes you pick one trade label cannot arrange this properly.

Who this applies to

Bespoke furniture makers and joinery studios. Signage designers and fabricators. Shopfitters and makers of reception desks, bars and feature pieces. Metalwork, glass, stone and resin studios producing architectural features, surfaces, panels and sculptural work. Kitchen and interiors fabricators. Lighting designers who build what they draw. If your projects run from concept and material development through fabrication to delivery and installation at the client’s premises, this page is about you.

The common thread is that no single trade label fits. You are not simply a “designer” — designers don’t hold stock, run machinery or install. You are not simply a “manufacturer” — manufacturers don’t give design and specification advice or work at client sites. And you are usually keen to point out that you are not a contractor in the conventional sense, even though part of your work looks like contracting to an insurer. That instinct is right, and it matters: the description of your business on the policy schedule decides what is covered, and a label that captures only one of your three hats leaves the other two exposed.

The three hats, and which policy answers for each

The designer. When you advise on materials, produce designs, or specify how a piece will perform — how a surface will wear, whether a fixing method suits a wall, whether a resin system suits its environment — that is professional advice, and claims arising from it are professional indemnity territory. There is a catch specific to businesses like yours, covered below.

The manufacturer. Once you have made the thing and handed it over, a defect in it that injures someone or damages their property is a products liability claim. Because you designed and manufactured the item rather than reselling someone else’s product, the claim lands on you, not on a supplier up the chain — which is precisely why this cover needs to be arranged around what you actually make, not a generic trade description.

The installer. While you are working at the client’s premises, damage you cause to their property or injury to third parties is public liability. The piece itself, before handover — damaged during installation, or in your workshop, or in the van — is a separate question again: contract works cover for installations in progress, and goods-in-transit and stock covers for everything before it leaves.

The two gaps that catch design-and-make businesses

Your PI needs to know you also build. Many professional indemnity policies are written for pure consultants and restrict or exclude claims where the insured also fabricated or installed the work — the same design-and-construct issue that arises in construction. If your PI was bought online under a “designer” label, there is a real chance it assumes you never touch the thing you drew. The cover you want is PI arranged to include design where you subsequently make and install — a known and insurable risk, but one that has to be asked for.

Removing and replacing your own defective work. Products liability policies generally cover damage your product causes, not the cost of the defective product itself — the classic example being a failed component: the resulting damage is covered, the component isn’t. For a business whose product might be a large installed feature, ripping out and redoing the work can be the biggest cost in the room, and it sits in the gap between products liability and PI unless the programme is built to address it — through the design element under PI where the failure is design-driven, and through specific extensions where they are available. This is the single question we would spend most time on with a design-and-make risk, and it is exactly the kind of question an online form never asks.

The home workshop problem

Many studios start in a workshop at home. Two things go wrong here. First, household buildings and contents policies are not designed to cover business machinery, stock, raw materials or finished pieces — and some household insurers take a dim view of undisclosed business use of the property at all, particularly where the work involves processes they consider hazardous. Second, the business covers need arranging on a commercial basis at a residential address, which some insurers are fine with and others are not. The clean answer is commercial cover for the business contents, stock and work in progress at the home workshop, arranged alongside — and disclosed to — the household insurer, so neither policy is a surprise to the other.

The rest of the package

Around the core sits the usual commercial programme, shaped to how you actually work: business interruption keyed to what a workshop fire or machinery loss would really do to your pipeline of bespoke commissions; employers’ liability from the first employee — a legal requirement, with a minimum limit of £5 million set by statute — and thought given to how subcontractors are treated, since labour-only and bona fide subcontractors sit differently under liability policies; and cover for tools and equipment away from the workshop. None of this is exotic. All of it depends on the insurer understanding the business as one connected whole rather than as a dropdown selection.

FAQ

Is a design-and-make studio a manufacturer for insurance purposes?

Partly — and that is the point. You carry a manufacturer’s products liability exposure for what you make, a professional’s PI exposure for what you design and specify, and a contractor’s liability exposure for installation. A programme that only reflects one of the three leaves gaps at the other two.

Does professional indemnity cover a defect in something I made?

PI responds to the design and specification element — the piece failed because it was designed or specified wrongly. A pure workmanship or manufacturing defect is not a PI claim; the resulting third-party damage falls to products liability, and the cost of the defective work itself needs specific attention in how the programme is structured. Which policy answers depends on why the piece failed, which is why the covers need arranging together.

Will my household insurance cover my workshop at home?

Assume not. Business machinery, stock and materials generally fall outside household cover, and undisclosed business use can put the household policy itself at risk. Arrange commercial cover for the business property and tell your household insurer what happens at the address.

What information should I have ready for a quote?

A plain-English description of what you design, make and install; roughly how turnover splits between design or consultancy work and fabrication or installation; the materials and processes you use; where you work and store finished pieces; and your largest typical project value. The description of the business matters more than any single figure.

Designed it, made it, installed it — insure it as one risk

Tell us what you make and how a project runs from drawing to handover. We’ll structure the covers around the joins, which is where the risk actually lives.

Call 0117 325 0027 info@apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk

Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 724952). This page is general information, not advice on a specific policy.