Events & live

Insurance for exhibition and event build companies

In short: An exhibition or event build company does five jobs on every contract: design the stand or set, fabricate it in the workshop, transport it, install and operate it at the venue, and de-rig it afterwards. Each stage engages a different part of the insurance programme — design PI for the drawings and structural decisions, public liability at the venue including damage to the venue itself, contract works on the stand until handover, goods in transit between workshop, storage and show, and hired-in plant throughout. An online policy sold to a “carpenter” or an “events company” covers one slice of that; the schedule’s description of business decides whether the rest exists.

Five jobs in one contract

The economics of exhibition and event build are project-shaped, but the risk is stage-shaped. At the design stage you are a professional: drawings, load calculations, material choices for a temporary structure people will walk through. In the workshop you are a fabricator, with machinery and premises risk. On the road you are moving high-value, deadline-critical freight. At the venue you are a contractor working at height, to the clock, in someone else’s building, alongside other trades. During the show you may operate the stand; afterwards you take it down under the same pressures in reverse. A claim can arise at any stage, and each stage points at a different policy. The programme only works if every stage is on the schedule.

Design liability and the temporary-structure pinch point

The design of stands, sets and temporary structures is professional work, and its failure is a professional indemnity claim: the platform that flexes under crowd load, the rigged element that had to be pulled at the last minute because the calculations would not stand scrutiny, the stand design the organiser’s engineer rejects on the morning of the build. Temporary structures are the pinch point, because venues and organisers increasingly demand structural sign-off, and the question of who carries design responsibility — your in-house designer, an external engineer, the fabricator who “adjusted” the drawing in the workshop — is exactly the kind of seam insurers probe after a failure.

If your PI was bought on a form that described the business as fabrication or joinery, design may be incidental at best. If the design work is real — and if organisers are relying on your drawings for sign-off, it is — the PI needs to say so.

On site at the venue

Public liability at a venue is not the same risk as public liability in a workshop. You are working at height on scissor lifts and towers, sometimes carrying out hot works under a venue’s permit system, surrounded by the public’s property in the most literal sense: the venue’s floors, doors, services and finishes. Damage to the venue itself is one of the most common claims in the sector, and venue contracts routinely require specific limits and evidence of cover before you are allowed through the loading dock. Venue rules on hot works, height and permits are not just safety bureaucracy — breaching them is the first thing an insurer will look at after an incident. Your policy needs to be arranged by someone who knows the work happens in other people’s buildings, under other people’s rules, against other people’s deadlines.

The stand itself: works, plant and transit

Until handover, the stand is yours to lose. Contract works cover picks up damage to the thing you are building — in the workshop, in transit, during the build — and without it, a stand destroyed the night before opening is simply your cost, along with the overtime to rebuild it. Hired-in plant is its own line: lifts, towers and generators on hire terms that make you liable for the kit while you have it. And goods in transit deserves more attention than it usually gets, because event freight moves constantly — workshop to storage, storage to venue, venue to the next venue — and the values in a single vehicle are high and time-critical. These are three different covers with three different sets of questions, and a form that asked none of them has answered none of them.

Cancellation, clients and overseas shows

Event cancellation and curtailment insurance belongs to the event owner — it is the organiser’s or client’s cover, not yours, and a build firm cannot meaningfully insure the show going ahead. But build firms carry the knock-on contract exposure when a show moves or collapses: staged payments, materials bought, workshop time committed, cancellation terms in your own contracts that may or may not protect you. That is a contract-drafting and credit question as much as an insurance one, but your broker should know it exists, because it shapes how much financial shock the business can absorb.

Overseas shows add territorial questions. Liability policies have territorial limits and jurisdiction clauses; a policy written for UK work may not respond to an incident at a European fair, still less further afield. Freight, carnets and customs are their own discipline — but the insurance point is simpler: every country you build in needs to be within the policy’s territory, in writing, before the trucks leave.

Crew: employed, freelance and the EL question

Event build runs on flexible labour: a core workshop team and a pool of freelancers for installs. For insurance purposes the line is direction, not tax status: crew working under your direction — your method statements, your site supervisor, your schedule — count as employees, and employers' liability is a legal requirement with a £5 million statutory minimum. Genuine independent contractors under their own direction should carry their own cover, which you should verify. Declaring a workforce of five when show weeks put twenty people under your direction is the kind of quiet inaccuracy that surfaces only after someone falls off a tower.

FAQ

The venue is asking for evidence of insurance with specific limits. Is that normal?

Entirely. Venues and organisers routinely set minimum public liability limits and require evidence before site access, and some require specific confirmations about hot works or working at height. Send the requirements to your broker before signing — meeting them is usually straightforward, but only if the policy was arranged knowing they exist.

Our stand was damaged in transit the night before the show. Which policy pays?

Goods in transit or contract works, depending on how the programme was structured — and that is the point: it should be structured, deliberately, so the stand is covered continuously from workshop to handover with no gap at the tailgate. If transit cover was never bought because the form never asked, the answer may be no policy at all.

Do we need cancellation insurance in case a show is called off?

Cancellation and curtailment cover belongs to the event owner — the organiser or the exhibiting client — not the build contractor. What you carry is the contractual knock-on: whether your terms entitle you to staged payments and costs if the show collapses. That is protected by contract drafting and payment structure rather than by an insurance policy, and it is worth reviewing before the deposit-heavy season, not after a cancellation.

An engineer signs off our structures. Doesn’t that remove our design liability?

It narrows it, but does not remove it. Sign-off typically confirms the design as presented; if the fault lies in your drawings, your calculations, or a workshop change never shown to the engineer, the liability path comes back to you. Design PI remains necessary, and the boundary between your design work and the engineer’s should be in writing on every project.

Five stages, one programme — no gaps at handover

Design, fabricate, transport, install, de-rig: we’ll arrange the covers so every stage of every job is on the schedule.

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.