Terrorism Insurance UK — Martyn's Law Makes You Plan. It Doesn't Make Anyone Insure You.

No. The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 is a preparedness statute, not an insurance one. It requires qualifying premises and events to have documented public protection procedures — evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication — with enhanced tier premises going further on protective measures and providing information to the SIA. It creates no obligation to hold any insurance whatsoever, and it does not alter your existing policies in any way. That matters because the two are easily conflated: a business can complete every step of its Martyn's Law obligation, satisfy the regulator entirely, and still have no cover at all if an attack causes damage or closes it down. Compliance and cover are separate decisions, and only one of them is being prompted by legislation.

Almost certainly not. Since the 1990s the UK commercial market has treated terrorism as a separate, opt-in peril, and standard property and business interruption wordings carry a terrorism exclusion as default. So damage caused by an act of terrorism, and the trading loss following it, fall outside the policy unless the cover has been specifically written back. This surprises people because the exclusion sits quietly in the wording and is rarely raised at renewal. Take two minutes and look at your schedule for the word "terrorism" — then establish whether it appears in the cover section or the exclusions. If you would rather not, send it to us and we will check it for you and tell you plainly, at no cost and with no obligation.

It covers loss of trade where a cordon, evacuation or police action stops customers reaching you, without any physical damage to your premises at all. It matters most because it describes what actually happens to the overwhelming majority of businesses affected by a terrorist incident in this country. Very few suffer damage; a great many find themselves inside a police cordon for days while an investigation runs, with staff to pay, stock spoiling and no revenue. Standard business interruption cannot help, because it requires physical damage to trigger — and that is the single most commonly uninsured terrorism loss in the UK. If your budget only stretches to one element on this page, this is the one to prioritise, and it applies whether or not Martyn's Law covers you.

It turns on the maximum number of people who could be present at the same time, and on whether the premises are used for a qualifying activity listed in the Act. Premises expecting 200 to 799 people fall into the standard tier, with procedural obligations only. Premises expecting 800 or more fall into the enhanced tier, which adds public protection measures where appropriate, a documented assessment provided to the SIA, and a designated senior individual where the responsible person is a company. Qualifying events are always enhanced tier where they host 800 or more, are open to the public and control access through ticketing or payment. Below 200 you are out of scope entirely — though as noted elsewhere on this page, that changes nothing about your insurance position.

Current government guidance states the Act is expected to come into force in spring 2027, following an implementation period of at least 24 months from Royal Assent on 3 April 2025, with the exact date to be confirmed. The machinery is already moving though: the Commencement No. 2 Regulations 2026, published on 10 June 2026 and effective 15 June 2026, switched on core provisions including the statutory duty on the SIA to produce guidance on how it will exercise its regulatory functions, and the sections defining "qualifying worldwide revenue" for enhanced tier purposes. The Home Office statutory guidance is published. Practically, the preparation window is finite and shrinking, and the insurance review is worth doing in the same exercise rather than as a separate job later.

Pool Re is the government-backed reinsurance scheme established after the 1990s City bombings, which allows UK insurers to offer terrorism cover they would otherwise struggle to underwrite. In practice it works through member insurers: you buy commercial property cover, and the terrorism peril is written back alongside it, with your insurer reinsuring into the scheme. It is not the only route. Standalone terrorism markets in Lloyd's and the company market write cover independently, and they are frequently the better answer where you need extensions that go beyond material damage — non-damage denial of access, loss of attraction, threat and hoax. The right route depends on your size, your limits and what you actually need. We place both and will explain the trade-off rather than defaulting to one.

No. Fines, civil monetary penalties and criminal sanctions are uninsurable in the UK as a matter of public policy, and no policy will pay them. What insurance can do is fund the defence: legal expenses cover with a prosecution defence section responds to the cost of defending SIA enforcement proceedings, and that is a separate purchase from your liability policy, which does not cover criminal defence costs either. The practical response to the penalty exposure is compliance rather than insurance — documented procedures, trained staff, records that the training happened, and for enhanced tier the assessment provided to the regulator. That work is inexpensive, and the government has been explicit that in-scope premises should be able to comply without buying specialist services.

Indirectly, yes, and this is the part least discussed. The Act creates a statutory standard of preparedness where none existed before. Once that standard exists, the absence of documented procedures becomes something a claimant's solicitor can point to after any incident — not only a terrorist one — as evidence that the venue fell short of what was expected of it. So a venue that never completed its preparation is a materially easier target for a personal injury claim, even though the Act says nothing about civil liability. The practical consequence is that Public Liability limits and the quality of your documented procedures are now connected, and both are worth reviewing together. Doing the compliance work properly is also, incidentally, the cheapest liability risk management available to you.

Usually whoever has control of the premises, which for a leased venue normally means the tenant operating it — but "usually" is doing real work in that sentence, and the risk is that both parties assume the other holds the obligation. Settle it in writing now rather than discovering the ambiguity during an SIA inspection. The insurance side is a separate question again and needs answering separately: your buildings policy carries the same terrorism exclusion as your tenant's contents policy, so a terrorism event could leave the structure uninsured even if the tenant has arranged their own cover. Loss of rent following a terrorism event, including non-damage closure, is worth addressing at the same time. From commencement it is also reasonable to make tenant compliance a lease condition.

Martyn's Law does not apply to you, but the insurance position is entirely unchanged by that — the terrorism exclusion in your property policy never depended on capacity, and a police cordon does not check your maximum occupancy before closing the street. If you trade in a city centre, near a transport hub, beside a stadium or close to a recognised landmark, your actual exposure to a non-damage loss may be higher than that of a large venue in a quiet town. Two other points. Capacity can change: a licence variation, a marquee or an unusually busy event may bring you into scope. And adopting the standard tier procedures voluntarily costs almost nothing and improves your liability position, which is worth doing regardless of whether anyone requires it.

Yes. Late-hours venues, nightclubs and festival sites are declined by mainstream schemes routinely, and an assault claim or a licensing review on the record narrows things further — but that is an appetite problem, not an insurability one. What decides the outcome is presentation: what happened, what caused it, what changed afterwards and how the change is evidenced. Door supervision introduced, CCTV upgraded, closing times pulled back, staff retrained, and now Martyn's Law procedures documented — that last one is genuinely useful evidence for an underwriter looking at a venue risk. Expect a loading, typically recovering across two clean renewals. We place venues that have been refused elsewhere as routine work; see business insurance with a claims history.

Ask one question: does my policy cover me if a police cordon closes my venue for a week with no damage to my building? A broker who understands terrorism cover will immediately talk about non-damage denial of access. One who starts talking about rebuild costs has not thought about what actually happens. Two follow-ups worth asking — whether they place standalone terrorism as well as Pool Re, and what they think Martyn's Law does and does not change about your insurance. Miller & Partner is an FCA Authorised specialist broker (Firm Ref 1029698) with 13+ years in commercial insurance, direct Lloyd's and MGA access, and a long-standing venue and event book. Send us your property schedule and we will tell you plainly what it does and does not cover.