What insurance should an electrician have?
Public liability insurance of at least £2 million (£5 million is common and better) covering damage and injury arising from their work, plus employer's liability if they bring staff. Scheme registration requires it, but ask anyway: the confident answer names the insurer and the sum, and a certificate is producible on request.
Public liability is the one that protects you: if the work damages your property (a drilled pipe, a board fault that cooks appliances, worse) or injures someone, this policy answers. £2 million is the customary floor; £5 million costs firms little more and signals a business run by adults.
Employer's liability is legally required the moment a firm has anyone beyond the principal working, apprentices included. It protects their people rather than you directly, but its absence in a firm sending two-person teams tells you about corner-cutting culture generally.
The insurance most customers never ask about: professional indemnity, covering advice and design rather than physical work. For inspection-heavy services (EICRs, specification work) it is the policy that stands behind the report's conclusions. Firms doing serious certification work carry it.
How to ask without awkwardness: 'can you confirm your public liability insurer and cover level in the quote?' It is a one-line answer for any real business, it lands in writing where it is worth something, and the reaction to the question is, as ever, the free diagnostic.
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