Insurance for founders

Founder insurance in the UK

Most “startup insurance” protects the company. But as a founder, some of your biggest risks are personal — the guarantees you’ve signed, the liability that follows a director, and what happens to the business if something happens to you. Founder insurance is the cover that protects both: you, and the company you’ve built. This is a UK guide — not the US “founder insurance” written around US law that you’ll find elsewhere.

Part of: Insurance for startups & scaleups at Apex

What “founder insurance” actually means in the UK

“Founder insurance” isn’t a product you buy off a shelf — it’s shorthand for the handful of covers a founder actually needs, across two layers most people never separate:

• You, the person — your own money and liability: personal guarantees you’ve signed, being sued as a director, and your household’s income if you’re out of action.
• The company you built — claims against the business: professional indemnity, cyber, product and public liability, and cover for your team.

Search “founder insurance” and most results are American, built around US securities law and US regulators. They don’t map to a UK company. This is the UK version.

Protecting you — the founder

This is the layer that gets missed. Standard business policies protect the company; they do little for the founder’s own balance sheet. Four things to look at:

• Personal guarantees. If you’ve personally guaranteed a loan, lease or supplier facility, your own assets — often your home — are on the line if the company can’t pay. Personal guarantee insurance can cover a large share of that exposure. (Women founders are asked to sign guarantees disproportionately often, so this matters even more.)
• Director & officer liability. A director can be pursued personally — by investors, HMRC, employees or regulators — even at a tiny company. D&O insurance defends you and pays claims that would otherwise come out of your own pocket. Investors usually require it at a raise; the exposure exists well before then.
• Key person. If the business stops without you, key person cover gives the company a cash cushion to survive, recruit or repay debt.
• Your income. Founders rarely have sick pay. Executive income protection and relevant-life arrangements keep your household going if you can’t work — these are specialist protection products, and we’ll point you to the right adviser where they sit outside general insurance.

Protecting the company you built

The company-side covers most founders already half-know — the trick is matching them to what you actually do:

• Professional indemnity — if you advise, design, build or deliver work for clients and they claim it caused them a loss.
• Cyber — breaches, ransomware and the cost of customer-data incidents.
• Product & public liability — if you sell a physical product or people/property can be harmed by what you do.
• Employers’ liability — legally required the moment you hire; see insuring your first employees.

What cover you need, by stage and type

• Pre-revenue / building: usually light — public liability, maybe PI if you’re consulting to fund it, and awareness of any personal guarantees.
• Raising: investors typically require D&O as a condition of the round.
• Hiring & scaling: employers’ liability becomes mandatory; key person and income cover start to matter as more depends on you. See startups & scaleups.
• Product / ecommerce founders: product liability, recall and stock are the big ones — distinct from a software business.
• Tech, fintech, healthtech, AI & deeptech founders: PI/tech E&O and cyber lead, with sector-specific extras (clinical, regulatory, IP).
• Agency & consultancy founders: professional indemnity is the core — see our agency & creative guide.

Where founders get caught out

• Insuring the company but not themselves — leaving personal guarantees and director liability wide open.
• Buying the cheapest policy online that quietly excludes the existing structure, the real contract values, or the actual work done.
• Leaving D&O until an investor demands it — when the exposure was already there.
• Never valuing the founder as a “key person” — so the business has no cushion if they’re out.

Related founder & company cover

Frequently asked

Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered in England and Wales, company number 07014570. This page is general information, not advice on your individual circumstances, and it does not guarantee that cover will be available or on what terms.