Directors and officers liability insurance can protect personal assets of anyone running a limited company from claims that they mismanaged it, whether or not the claim turns out to have any merit. In the UK, a director's liability isn't capped at what they invested in the business: a successful claim can reach personal savings, property, and future earning ability, and the financial loss that follows a serious claim can be severe even when it's eventually dismissed.
Chris Knott Insurance arranges directors and officers insurance through a panel of specialist insurers, covering past, present and future directors, officers and partners against the financial fallout of wrongful act claims brought against them individually. Sometimes called directors and officers liability insurance, it's built to protect the individual, not just the business.
We've been arranging commercial cover as an independent, UK-based broker since 1983, and we hold a 4.9-star Trustpilot rating from over 2,200 reviews you can check yourself. We're not on the comparison sites, and we're authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, so the cover comes with a broker you can verify rather than take on trust.
Excellent service from start to finish. The team took time to understand exactly what I needed and found me a great policy at a competitive price. Couldn't be happier with the whole experience.
Been with Chris Knott for over 5 years now. Easy renewal process and the team are always a pleasure to speak with. Proper UK-based advice you can actually trust.
After being let down by my previous insurer, Chris Knott made the whole process painless. Honest, straightforward, and friendly from the very first call. Highly recommend them.
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Claims don't only come from outside the business. Employees can allege unfair dismissal or discrimination against a director personally, a shareholder can claim mismanagement or a breach of duty, and creditors can pursue directors if a company becomes insolvent while it keeps trading. Regulators, including the Health and Safety Executive and HMRC, can bring legal action over compliance failures, and third parties such as competitors or customers can allege defamation or unfair business practices. None of these claims need to succeed to cost money: defending even a groundless allegation runs up legal fees a director or officer would otherwise have to pay personally.
Most claims over wrongful acts are covered: breach of duty of care, breach of trust, negligence, defamation, health and safety failures, and pension scheme failures are all typical grounds for a claim. Cover generally pays legal defence costs as they're incurred, not just compensation if the claim succeeds, which matters because defence costs are often the larger bill regardless of the outcome.
D&O policies are usually built in three parts, and it helps to know which does what:
Two extensions are worth understanding. Cover can include the legal costs of defending director disqualification proceedings, which can be brought even against a director who has done nothing dishonest. Run-off cover keeps protection in place for past directors after a company is sold, merges or stops trading, so a claim made years later about decisions taken while they were in post is still covered. This matters most in distressed situations, such as insolvency, where claims against directors become far more likely just as the company itself can no longer indemnify them.
Cover excludes deliberate wrongdoing: fraud, dishonesty, and criminal acts such as insider trading aren't insurable, because a director shouldn't be able to profit from cover against their own intentional misconduct. It also typically excludes bodily injury and property damage claims, which sit under public liability and employers' liability instead, and it isn't a substitute for professional indemnity insurance either, which covers claims about the advice or services a company provides rather than how it's governed. Any circumstance a director already knew about before the policy started is excluded too. This is standard across the market, not a Chris Knott-specific limitation, and it's worth checking the exact wording and any additional exclusions in the policy documents before you buy.
A large share of claims against directors and businesses come from employees, over issues like unfair dismissal, discrimination or harassment. Employment practices liability (EPL) is the cover that responds to these. It's often not part of a standalone D&O policy, and instead sits within a broader management liability insurance policy that combines D&O, company cover and EPL in one.
If your business has employees, this wider protection is usually worth weighing up against D&O on its own, since employment disputes are one of the more common reasons a growing business ends up in a legal process.
D&O cover is relevant to any organisation with a board or governing body, not just large corporations. That includes limited companies of all sizes, limited liability partnerships, and non-executive directors who often assume, wrongly, that their part-time role carries no personal risk. Charities, trusts and non-profits have the same exposure through their trustees, though that's usually arranged as trustee indemnity insurance rather than a standard D&O policy. Because the right structure depends on your organisation type, it's worth a conversation rather than assuming one policy fits all.
The limit of indemnity is the most the policy will pay out, and it needs to be high enough to cover both the legal defence and any award against a director, since defence costs alone can be substantial. There's no single right figure: it depends on the size of the business, its turnover and assets, how many people need cover, and the jurisdictions it operates in. As a general guide, cover for smaller UK companies commonly starts in the low hundreds of thousands of pounds and runs into several million for larger or higher-risk businesses. We can talk through an appropriate limit for your organisation rather than defaulting to a round number.
Because Chris Knott works across a panel of specialist insurers rather than one, directors and officers liability insurance cover can be shaped around the size of the business, the number of people who need to be covered, and the sectors it operates in, rather than a one-size policy. As an independent broker, we can compare across that panel to match the limit and structure to your organisation rather than fitting you to a single insurer's product. We're authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 304452), and you can verify that on the Financial Services Register at register.fca.org.uk.
Excellent to deal with, great price, and a very efficient service. I would recommend Chris Knott Insurance to anyone wanting insurance.
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The most common questions we're asked about directors and officers insurance. Can't find what you're looking for? Speak to our UK-based team on 0800 917 2274.
That broader policy covers the company itself and its employees generally, as well as individual board members, bundling in cover such as employment practices and regulatory defence costs. A business with several directors and a larger workforce often ends up needing that wider protection rather than D&O on its own.
No, because sole traders can't get it. D&O insurance protects the legal distinction between a director and their company, and a sole trader has no such distinction: the business and the individual are legally the same thing. Directors of limited companies, on the other hand, do have that separation, which is exactly what creates the personal liability this cover protects against.
This is exactly why cover extends to past directors, not just current ones. Most D&O insurance policies are written on a "claims made" basis, meaning the policy in place at the time a claim is made responds to it, even if the wrongful act being claimed about happened years earlier while that person was still a director. This is one of the reasons it's worth keeping cover in place even as a company's leadership changes, rather than assuming a departing director's exposure ends when they leave.
You can make a claim by contacting our team directly, and we'll talk you through what's needed. Getting legal advice early and notifying your insurer as soon as a potential claim arises matters more with this type of cover than most, since delayed notification can affect whether a claim is accepted.
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*Chris Knott Insurance is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 304452). You can check this on the Financial Services Register at register.fca.org.uk.*
