employers-liability

---
name: employers-liability
description: Settles the one insurance the criminal law makes you hold, in writing: who on your payroll counts as an employee for this Act, whether you are in the narrow exemption or not, the certificate checked against the £5 million minimum, a display record showing where employees can actually read it, a prohibited conditions check on your own wording, and a continuity file of past certificates against the diseases that surface decades later. Use when you have taken on your first member of staff, changed insurer, moved premises, been asked for the certificate by an inspector, or have never checked whether the certificate on the wall is still in date.
---

# The certificate where staff can read it, the cover checked against the legal minimum, and the exemption question answered on paper instead of in your head

You give this your certificate or certificates of employers' liability insurance, your staff list with how each person is engaged, your premises list including any place employees work that you do not own, and your policy wording. You get back an employee schedule marked against the Act, a written exemption conclusion with the reason, a certificate register checked against the £5 million minimum and the current period of insurance, a display record naming the position of every displayed copy, a prohibited conditions check, and a continuity file of every certificate you still hold. It will not decide whether a particular worker is an employee in law. Employment status is a legal question with tax and employment consequences well beyond an insurance certificate, so the skill records the facts and marks the question for a solicitor or HR adviser.

## What it does

1. **List every person who works for the business and how they are actually engaged, before touching the certificate.** One row per person: name, role, how they are paid, whether PAYE is operated, who supplies their tools, whether they can send a substitute, whether they work for anyone else, and whether they are related to the owner and how. The HSE guide is blunt that the label is not the answer: "It does not matter whether you usually call someone an employee or self-employed or what their tax status is... What matters is the real nature of your relationship with the people who work for you and the nature and degree of control that you have over the work they do." A kitchen porter on a handshake, an agency chef, a self employed DJ, a work experience student and a relative doing Saturdays all need separate rows, because they resolve differently.

2. **Answer the exemption question in writing, with the reason, and expect the answer to be no.** The exemptions are narrow. HSE lists them as most public organisations, health service bodies, some other organisations financed through public funds, "family businesses, ie if all of your employees are closely related to you (as husband, wife, civil partner, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, stepfather, stepmother, son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, stepson, stepdaughter, brother, sister, half-brother or half-sister)", and "companies employing only their owner where that employee also owns 50% or more of the issued share capital in the company". Two traps sit in the family business line. It is defeated by a single employee who is not on that list, including a Saturday casual. And HSE states it plainly: "this exemption does not apply to family businesses which are incorporated as limited companies." A husband and wife limited company with no other staff is a different question again and belongs with the accountant, not in this document.

3. **Read the certificate and compare the figure with the regulation, even when it obviously passes.** Regulation 3(1) of the 1998 Regulations sets the amount at "not less than £5 million in respect of (a) a claim relating to any one or more of those employees arising out of any one occurrence; and (b) any costs and expenses incurred in relation to any such claim". Record the limit, the insurer, the policy number, and both dates of the period of insurance. Note that costs and expenses sit inside the figure, and note HSE's own observation that "In practice, most insurers offer cover of at least £10 million." The skill records what the certificate says and does not tell the owner what to buy.

4. **Check that every trading entity that employs anybody is actually named on a certificate.** A venue often runs through more than one company: a property company, an operating company, a separate events or catering entity. The certificate names the insured. An employee paid by a company that is not on the certificate is uninsured for this Act however healthy the group looks. HSE confirms a group approach is available: "If your business is part of a group, a policy for employers' liability insurance can be taken out for the group as a whole. In this case, the group as a whole, including subsidiary companies, must have cover of at least £5 million." Record each employing entity beside the certificate that names it, and mark any that appears on none.

5. **Record where each copy of the certificate is displayed, in words a stranger could follow.** Section 4(2) of the Act requires an employer to "display copies of the certificate of insurance for the information of his employees", and regulation 5 of the 1998 Regulations requires copies "at each place of business", positioned so they are "easily seen and read by any relevant employees" and "reasonably protected from being defaced or damaged", and kept on display "until the date of expiry or earlier termination of the approved policy". Write the position of each copy: the wall by the staff entrance, the back of the office door, the cellar corridor. A certificate in a folder in a locked office is not displayed. Electronic display is allowed: HSE records that "Since 1 October 2008 you have been allowed to display your certificate electronically", but adds the condition that employers "need to ensure their employees know how and where to find the certificate and have reasonable access to it", which for a kitchen with no staff computer is a real question and not a formality.

6. **Check the wording against the conditions an insurer is not allowed to impose.** HSE sets out the prohibited conditions plainly: an insurer cannot refuse to pay purely because "you have not provided reasonable protection for your employees against injury or disease", "you do not keep specified records or cannot provide the insurer with information from those records", "you have done something they told you not to do", "you have not done something they told you to do (for example, report the incident)", or "you have not met any legal requirement connected with protection of your employees". Read the wording for any condition that looks like one of those and record it verbatim for the broker. Record also HSE's warning that this is not an amnesty: where an employer has failed its health and safety duties and that failure led to the claim, "the policy may enable the insurer to sue you to reclaim the cost of the compensation."

7. **Build the continuity file, because the legal minimum and the sensible minimum are different here.** HSE states that "Since 1 October 2008 there has been no legal requirement for employers to keep copies of out-of-date certificates", and then says what to do anyway: "employers are strongly advised to keep, as far as is possible, a complete record of their employers' liability insurance. This is because some diseases can appear decades after exposure to their cause". The consequence is stated in one sentence: "Employers that fail to hold the necessary insurance details risk having to meet the costs of such claims themselves." List every certificate the business still holds with its insurer, policy number and both dates, and list the gaps in the run as gaps, because a missing year is the thing that turns a 2046 claim into a personal liability.

8. **Hand the mechanical work to Codex and keep the judgement here.** Run, from the folder holding the certificates and the staff list:

   ```
   codex exec --sandbox danger-full-access --skip-git-repo-check -C "<working folder>" - < CODEX.md
   ```

   Claude hands over the staff schedule with the owner's own engagement facts, the owner's exemption conclusion and its reason, the certificate details transcribed from each certificate, the list of employing entities, the display positions, the prohibited conditions check with every suspect condition quoted verbatim, and the historic certificate list. Codex returns the employee schedule, the certificate register with the £5 million comparison, the display record, the entity coverage check, the continuity file with its gap years, and a gaps file. Codex decides nothing about employment status and estimates no dates.

9. **Write the inspector answer and the dated review point.** One short page an owner can hand over or read out: the insurer, the policy number, the limit, the period of insurance, where the certificate is displayed, and who holds the policy documents. Then set the next review date at the renewal date, not twelve months from today. HSE records the enforcement position: "You can be fined up to £2500 for any day which you are without suitable insurance. If you do not display the certificate of insurance or refuse to make it available to HSE inspectors when they ask, you can be fined up to £1000." The Act puts the same penalties on the standard scale, at level 4 for failure to insure under section 5 and level 3 for the certificate offences under section 4(3). A per day penalty is the reason the review date is tied to the policy and not to the diary.

## Then it checks

1. Every person on the staff list has a row recording how they are engaged, and none is marked employee or not employee without the facts that led there being recorded beside it.
2. The exemption conclusion is written out in a sentence with the reason and the HSE wording it rests on, and where the business is a limited company the file states that the family business exemption does not apply to incorporated businesses.
3. Every certificate in the register carries an insurer, a policy number, a limit, a period start date and a period end date, and the limit is compared with the £5 million in regulation 3 with the comparison stated even where it passes.
4. Every employing entity named on the staff list appears against at least one certificate, or is listed as appearing on none.
5. Every displayed copy has a written position specific enough for a stranger to find it, and any electronic display carries a written note of how employees are told where to find it.
6. The continuity file lists every certificate held with both dates, and every year with no certificate is listed as a gap year rather than left as a silence.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never state a typical employers' liability premium, a typical claim value, a typical claim frequency or a number of claims per employee for a single independent UK hospitality business. No such published figure exists, and an owner who believes one will either treat a fair premium as a rip off or treat a thin policy as normal, and the only test of which is a claim they cannot then unwind.
- Never decide whether a worker is an employee. The skill records the engagement facts and HSE's own indicators and marks the question for a solicitor or HR adviser, because getting it wrong has tax, employment rights and insurance consequences at the same time.
- Never tell the owner what limit to buy. State the £5 million statutory minimum, state the limit on the certificate, and stop.
- Never recommend an insurer, a broker or a policy, and never describe one as better, cheaper or more suitable.
- Never record a certificate as displayed without a written position. A certificate in a drawer, an email attachment or a folder in an office nobody enters is not displayed, and the offence in section 4(3) is committed whether or not anybody ever asked to see it.
- Never destroy an expired certificate because the retention duty was removed in 2008. The disease claims that arrive decades later are answered by the certificate or by the owner personally, and there is no third option.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's own FCA authorised insurance broker to check, and for their solicitor or HR adviser on any question of employment status. It applies published rules to documents the owner supplied. It is not advice on which policy to buy, it is not a legal interpretation of the Act, and it is not a ruling that the business complies.

## Built from
- Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, section 1, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1969/57/section/1, latest available revised version as the page states, read 23 September 2026: the duty to insure and maintain insurance, in steps 1 and 3.
- Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, section 3, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1969/57/section/3, read 23 September 2026: the exempted employers, in step 2.
- Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, section 4, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1969/57/section/4, read 23 September 2026: the duty to display copies of the certificate and to produce it to an inspector, and the level 3 penalty, in steps 5 and 9.
- Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, section 5, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1969/57/section/5, read 23 September 2026: the level 4 penalty and the daily nature of the offence, in step 9.
- The Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Regulations 1998, SI 1998/2573, regulation 3, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2573/regulation/3/made, as made, read 23 September 2026: the £5 million minimum including costs and expenses, in step 3 and check 3.
- The Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Regulations 1998, SI 1998/2573, regulation 5, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2573/regulation/5/made, as made, read 23 September 2026: display at each place of business, easily seen and read, protected from defacement, and kept on display until expiry, in step 5.
- Health and Safety Executive, "Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969: A brief guide for employers", HSE40(rev4), https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse40.pdf, first published 11/12, read 23 September 2026: the exemption list, the employee status indicators, the group policy position, electronic display since 1 October 2008, the end of the certificate retention duty with the advice to keep them anyway, the prohibited conditions, and the £2,500 and £1,000 penalty figures, in steps 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9.
- Health and Safety Executive, "Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969", HSE39(rev2) publication page, https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse39.htm, date of publication 2012, read 23 September 2026: confirms the companion employee facing leaflet covering certificate display and the family member exemptions, which is the document to give staff who ask, in step 5.

# employers-liability

## You are given
The employers' liability position of one UK independent hospitality business. A staff schedule with one row per person who works for the business, each carrying the person's role, the employing entity that pays them, whether PAYE is operated, who supplies their tools, whether a substitute may be sent, whether they work for others, their relationship to the owner where there is one, the start date of the engagement, and the owner's own marking of `employee for this Act`, `not an employee for this Act` or `question referred to adviser`. The owner's exemption conclusion, written as a sentence, with the reason and the category relied on. Every certificate of employers' liability insurance the business holds, current and historic, transcribed with insurer name, policy number, limit of indemnity, period of insurance start date, period of insurance end date, and the names of every insured entity exactly as printed on the certificate. The list of legal entities that employ anybody, with company numbers where they are companies. The list of places of business where employees work, with the written position of each displayed copy of the certificate, and for any electronic display the written arrangement by which employees are told where to find it. Every condition in the policy wording that the owner has flagged as possibly a prohibited condition, quoted verbatim with its clause number. All judgement calls, including every employment status marking and the exemption conclusion, have already been made by the owner or the owner's adviser and are supplied to you.

## Produce
Write into a `./employers-liability-output/` folder:

1. `staff-schedule.csv` with these columns in this order: `person_ref`, `name`, `role`, `employing_entity`, `paye_operated`, `tools_supplied_by`, `substitute_permitted`, `works_for_others`, `relationship_to_owner`, `engagement_start_date`, `status_marking`, `status_source`. `person_ref` is P001 upward. `paye_operated`, `substitute_permitted` and `works_for_others` are each `yes`, `no` or `not stated`. `relationship_to_owner` is exactly one of `husband`, `wife`, `civil partner`, `father`, `mother`, `grandfather`, `grandmother`, `stepfather`, `stepmother`, `son`, `daughter`, `grandson`, `granddaughter`, `stepson`, `stepdaughter`, `brother`, `sister`, `half-brother`, `half-sister`, `not related`. `status_marking` is exactly one of `employee for this Act`, `not an employee for this Act`, `question referred to adviser`. `status_source` is exactly one of `owner marking supplied`, `adviser marking supplied`, `not stated`.
2. `exemption-conclusion.md` recording, on separate lines and nothing else: the exemption category the owner relied on or the word `none`; the owner's conclusion sentence verbatim; whether the business is incorporated, stated as `limited company`, `partnership`, `sole trader` or `not stated`; the count of people in `staff-schedule.csv` whose `relationship_to_owner` is `not related`; and the resulting record stated as `exemption claimed`, `exemption not claimed` or `exemption claimed but contradicted by the supplied facts`. Every line names where the fact came from.
3. `certificate-register.csv` with columns: `certificate_ref`, `status`, `insurer`, `policy_number`, `limit_gbp`, `period_start`, `period_end`, `insured_entities_verbatim`, `meets_5m_minimum`, `source_document`. `certificate_ref` is C001 upward in period start date order. `status` is exactly one of `current`, `expired`, `future`. `meets_5m_minimum` is exactly one of `yes`, `no`, `not stated`.
4. `entity-coverage.csv` with columns: `entity_ref`, `entity_name`, `company_number`, `employs_anybody`, `certificate_refs_naming_this_entity`, `covered`. `employs_anybody` is `yes` or `no`. `covered` is exactly one of `named on a current certificate`, `named on no current certificate`, `not stated`. Every entity with `employs_anybody` of `yes` and `covered` other than `named on a current certificate` is listed in `gaps.md`.
5. `display-record.csv` with columns: `display_ref`, `place_of_business`, `display_method`, `position_description_verbatim`, `readable_by_employees`, `protected_from_damage`, `electronic_access_arrangement_verbatim`, `date_checked`, `checked_by`. `display_method` is exactly one of `paper copy`, `electronic`, `none`. `readable_by_employees` and `protected_from_damage` are each `yes`, `no` or `not stated`. Every place of business with `display_method` of `none` is listed in `gaps.md`.
6. `prohibited-conditions-check.csv` with columns: `condition_ref`, `clause_number`, `condition_verbatim`, `matches_prohibited_category`, `referred_to_broker`, `date_referred`. `matches_prohibited_category` is exactly one of `reasonable protection of employees`, `keeping or providing records`, `doing something the insurer forbade`, `not doing something the insurer required`, `meeting a legal requirement connected with protection of employees`, `no match`, `not stated`.
7. `continuity-file.csv` with columns: `year`, `certificate_ref`, `insurer`, `policy_number`, `limit_gbp`, `period_start`, `period_end`, `document_held`. One row per calendar year from the earliest certificate year to the current year with no year omitted. `document_held` is `yes` or `no`. Every row with `no` is a gap year and is listed in `gaps.md`.
8. `inspector-answer.md` a single page printing, each on its own line: the current insurer, the policy number, the limit, the period of insurance with both dates, the display position of each copy, the name of the person who holds the policy documents, and the next review date, which is the current period end date and is never a date calculated from today.
9. `gaps.md` a numbered list of: every person whose `status_marking` is `question referred to adviser`; every certificate with a missing field; every certificate where `meets_5m_minimum` is `no` or `not stated`; every employing entity named on no current certificate; every place of business with no displayed copy; every electronic display with no written access arrangement; every flagged condition not yet referred to the broker; every gap year in `continuity-file.csv`; and any date supplied without a source document.

## Rules
- Codex transcribes, compares, counts and sorts. It never decides whether a person is an employee, never reaches the exemption conclusion, never decides whether a condition is prohibited, and never writes advice. Those were supplied.
- Never estimate or infer a date, a limit, a policy number or an insurer name. A missing value is an empty cell and a line in `gaps.md`, never a guess and never a value carried across from an adjacent row.
- Never record `meets_5m_minimum` as `yes` from a policy summary, a broker email or a renewal invitation. Only a figure transcribed from the certificate itself supports `yes` or `no`; everything else is `not stated`.
- Never record a certificate as displayed without a `position_description_verbatim` that names a physical location a stranger could find. An empty position makes `display_method` `none`.
- Never treat the family business exemption as available where the supplied facts say the business is a limited company, and never resolve the contradiction. Record it as `exemption claimed but contradicted by the supplied facts` and put it in `gaps.md`.
- Never write a typical premium, a typical claim value, a claim frequency or any other benchmark figure into any file. No such published figure exists for a single independent UK hospitality business and none is to be recorded.
- Never delete, overwrite or omit an expired certificate row. The continuity file exists precisely to hold them, and a year with no certificate is recorded as a gap year rather than left out of the table.
- Use British English, GBP written as `GBP` or the pound sign, and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes in any file you write, and any supplied text containing one is recorded verbatim and flagged in `gaps.md`.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner's own FCA authorised insurance broker to check, and for their solicitor or HR adviser on any question of employment status. It records supplied certificates and supplied markings and is not advice on which policy to buy or a ruling that the business complies.

## Return
The absolute path of every file written, the row count of each CSV, the number of people marked `employee for this Act` and the number marked `question referred to adviser`, the conclusion recorded in `exemption-conclusion.md` stated in full, the current certificate's insurer, limit and both dates with the `meets_5m_minimum` result, the count of employing entities named on no current certificate and their names, the count of places of business with no displayed copy and their names, the count of flagged conditions by `matches_prohibited_category`, the list of gap years from `continuity-file.csv`, the next review date printed in `inspector-answer.md`, and the `gaps.md` item count.