Does Offering EV Charging Affect Your Holiday Let Insurance? (2026)

Quick answer: Possibly, and it's worth checking before you install. Adding an EV charger and billing guests for charging is a commercial activity that your insurer may want to know about. In most cases a professionally installed, certified charger won't be a problem, but failing to disclose it could affect a claim, and you'll want to confirm your public liability cover extends to guests using the charger. The fix is simple: tell your insurer in writing before you install, and get their confirmation in writing back.

This is the question holiday let owners tend to ask last, usually after they've chosen a charger and booked the electrician, when it really ought to be asked first. Offering EV charging at a let touches your insurance in a few specific ways, none of them dramatic, but all of them cheaper to deal with before installation than after a claim.

Why charging is an insurance question at all

A holiday let is already a commercial use of a property, and you should already hold appropriate cover for that (typically specialist holiday let insurance rather than ordinary home insurance). Adding an EV charger introduces two new things your insurer cares about: a new piece of electrical equipment that members of the public will use unattended, and, if you bill for charging, an additional commercial activity on the property.

Neither of these is a reason an insurer would normally refuse cover. But insurance works on disclosure: if something material to the risk isn't declared, the insurer can reduce or decline a claim later, even if the undeclared thing had nothing to do with what went wrong. That's why the safe approach is to tell them, rather than to assume it's fine.

The three things to check with your insurer

1. That they know about the charger at all. Tell your insurer, in writing, that you've installed (or are installing) an EV charger for guest use. Ask them to confirm, also in writing, that this doesn't affect your cover. Keep that confirmation. This single step is the one that protects you, because it converts "I assumed it was covered" into "the insurer confirmed it in writing."

2. That your public liability cover extends to the charger. Holiday let policies normally include public liability cover for injury or damage to guests and their property. You want to confirm that this extends to a guest using the EV charger, for example if a cable is a trip hazard or, in the very unlikely event, the equipment causes damage. Most policies will cover this for a properly installed unit, but confirm the figure and the scope. As a benchmark, public liability cover of at least £1,000,000 is a common minimum, and it's the level many platforms and partners expect a let to carry.

3. That billing guests doesn't change anything. If you bill guests per kWh for charging, you're recovering an electricity cost, not running a separate trade, but it's still worth mentioning to your insurer so there's no argument later about an undisclosed commercial activity. In practice, recovering the cost of electricity guests use (within Ofgem's resale rules) is a minor point, but disclosure costs you nothing and removes the question.

What makes a charger straightforward to insure

The good news is that the things that make a charger safe are the same things that make it easy to insure, and they're all things you'd want anyway:

• Professional installation by a qualified, certified electrician. The installer should be registered with a competent person scheme and should issue an electrical certificate for the work. This certificate is the document that demonstrates the installation was done properly, and it's exactly what an insurer (or their loss adjuster) would ask to see. Keep it safe.
• A compliant, modern charger. A current OCPP-compatible unit with built-in protection is a known quantity. Improvised setups are the opposite, which leads to the next point.
• No "granny charging" via a domestic socket. The biggest avoidable risk at a let isn't the proper charger, it's a guest running an extension lead to a three-pin socket because there's no charger, or instead of one. That's a genuine fire and safety risk, manufacturers advise against it, and it's the kind of thing that creates an insurance problem. A properly installed charger removes the temptation, and your guest information should make clear that domestic-socket charging isn't permitted.

A quick word on the certificate and records

If you take one practical thing from this article, it's this: keep the paperwork. The electrical installation certificate, your insurer's written confirmation that the charger is covered, and a note of the charger's make and model. If anything ever goes wrong, those three documents are what turn a potential dispute into a routine claim. They take five minutes to file and they're the cheapest insurance you'll buy.

The bottom line

Offering EV charging at your holiday let is very unlikely to be a problem for your insurance, but it's a disclosure question, and disclosure is free. Tell your insurer in writing before you install, confirm your public liability cover extends to guest use of the charger, mention that you'll be billing for charging, and keep the installation certificate. Do those things and the insurance side is settled. Skip them and you've created a small but real risk that surfaces at the worst possible moment, during a claim.

For the practical side of offering charging once your cover is sorted, see our complete guide to EV charging for UK holiday lets, and our guide to billing guests fairly per kWh.