Why does my public liability premium keep going up?

Quick answerUsually because public liability sits in a package rated off a table, priced from the claims insurers have paid in your trade. At its edge, the package keeps charging more. A standalone general liability policy starts to compete at about $5,000 of premium for some trades, and $15,000 to $20,000 for retail, wholesaling and manufacturing.

Those are indicative thresholds from what we place, not quotes. The only way to know your premium is a quote for your actual risk.

Written by William Paull, Co-Founder & Account Director · 6 min read

Why does my premium rise when nothing in my business has changed?

Often because your public liability is one section of a packaged policy, rated off a table built for the ordinary small business. When your work, turnover or claims sit at the edge of that table, it charges more, every year.

Each insurer prices your trade from the claims it has paid in it, alongside its own appetite, reinsurance costs and monthly targets. When those claims change, it re-rates the whole trade. Plumbing shows it now: strata water claims have made the trade expensive, and many packaged insurers have pulled back from plumbers, particularly above about $1 million of turnover. A careful plumber with a clean record pays for the trade's losses.

Two ordinary decisions also push the premium up:

• Using subcontractors instead of employees. An injured employee is a workers compensation matter. An injured subcontractor can be a claim on your public liability, so that risk moves onto your policy.
• Importing. Goods you bring in from overseas add products liability risk to your policy.

What we check: whether the insurer pricing you still wants your trade. We have the market tested at every renewal, and we can place a business pack across a panel of up to nine insurers.

Does one claim change what I pay?

It can, though usually not as a loading on your rate. A claims history that is not clean shrinks the panel: the agencies with the keener premiums decline first, and the premium rises because less competition is left. Even a $30,000 to $50,000 demand, on what we have seen as at August 2026, is often cheaper for an insurer to settle than to fight, and most are genuine.

One claim rarely closes the market. Even if your insurer will not renew, others usually quote. They ask what you learned and what you changed so it will not happen again. Good answers get terms, which can cost more depending on your trade and the claim. Insurers commonly ask about claims in the last three to five years, though the period varies, and one unlucky event reads very differently from a pattern.

One client, a locksmithing business turning over about $10 million with a $20 million limit, held a standalone policy with a general liability insurer. Its premium went from $11,310 in 2018 and $7,994 in 2020 to $23,862 in 2022, after one claim in 2021 paid at $16,982: an employee alleged the owner had defamed him, which the owner disputed. In 2024 that insurer offered renewal at $31,139. By 2024 the claim was more than three years old, outside the period the other insurers' proposal forms asked about, so we took the risk to market and placed it with a mainstream Australian insurer for $19,910. It is an example, not a quote. Sometimes you have to move away from the insurer that paid a claim, because it will not adjust its rates.

What we check: the proposal form. It usually asks about claims made against you and about anything you know of that could still become one. A near miss belongs on the form even though nobody has sued you; leaving it off is how cover gets challenged later.

What should I tell the insurer so the premium is right?

Your business as it runs today. Turnover moves the premium most, so a policy rated on the turnover you declared two years ago is mispriced if the business has grown, and not in your favour at claim time. If your work mixes low-risk and high-risk jobs, declare the split rather than letting the riskiest slice set the premium for all of it.

Tell the insurer if you import anything. It is one of the most important answers you give, because imports change the products liability risk.

What you pay subcontractors is rated too, and a misstatement can reduce or defeat a claim: if a subcontractor is hurt on your job, can you be held liable?

Is a higher excess worth it when the premium climbs?

Sometimes, and there is a test that turns it into arithmetic. Take the yearly saving a higher excess buys and multiply it by four or five. If that covers the extra excess you would pay on one claim, the higher excess is generally the better trade. If it does not, it is not.

The test only holds for a business that does not claim often. And the saving is never a given: some insurers discount a higher excess heavily and others barely move, so it has to be tested quote by quote. The excess is still the smallest lever on a liability premium. More in why we sometimes recommend a higher excess.

What is a cheap premium leaving out?

Often cover, cut on the schedule in the policy's language rather than yours:

• endorsements that remove cover your trade genuinely needs;
• restrictions on work at height, underground or outside, which can leave ordinary jobs uncovered;
• limits on worker-to-worker cover for personal injury;
• restricted-industry endorsements that exclude whole kinds of site, such as airports, ports, public utilities or mining, so one job in the wrong place can be uninsured;
• efficacy exclusions, which cut off the products liability side of the cover.

A policy bought online adds two risks you cannot see: what its wording excludes, and how strictly the insurer will read your answers on its form. If those answers did not fully and clearly describe your occupation and what the business does, the insurer may be able to refuse or reduce a claim for non-disclosure. That is the easiest ground it has.

What we check: every restriction on your schedule. Where one has to stay, we rewrite it in plain English on your documents at new business, at every change and at renewal.

When should public liability come out of the package?

When the package keeps climbing, and trades generally get there sooner. For some trades, a standalone general liability policy, quoted by an underwriter through a broker, competes from around $5,000 of premium; for retail, wholesaling and manufacturing, from $15,000 to $20,000. Above about $20,000 insurers are keen to quote, because an underwriter can only get through so many quotes a day and spends them on larger risks. Those are indicative thresholds from what we place, not quotes; the only way to know your premium is a quote for your actual risk.

It does not always lower the premium. Sometimes it stops the climb, which for a business that has watched three rises in a row is worth a lot. How it is placed: general liability insurance.

Moving can pay even if you would rather stay. An insurer holding your policy prices to keep its book and often will not discount at renewal; offered the same risk as new business a year later, it prices to win it. A direct insurer will not tell you its renewal is above the market. A broker runs the market every year. When it has to, it moves you for a year and, with clean claims, can bring you back at the first insurer's new business rate. We often do this with truck policies. That is what you pay a broker for.

Has your public liability premium gone up again?

Tell us what you do, your turnover and what you pay subcontractors, and a broker will look at why.

Talk to a broker on 07 3292 1111. For new enquiries we reply within 90 minutes during business hours, 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday.

Or ask for a call back

Related reading

• How much public liability insurance costs, trade by trade
• Public liability insurance: what it covers and the mistakes that cost money at claim time
• General liability insurance, for businesses that have outgrown the package
• Why you cannot buy general liability insurance online
• Contractor public liability insurance
• Why we sometimes recommend a higher excess