Demand for personal guarantee insurance from female founders up 77%
Purbeck Insurance Services, the UK’s leading provider of personal guarantee insurance, has seen a 77% uplift in demand for personal guarantee insurance from female directors, in H1 2026 compared to the same period in 2025. Responding to the progress report on the Investing in Women initiative, Todd Davison, MD of Purbeck Insurance Services said: “Today’s announcement that Investing in Women Code signatories have outperformed the wider market in supporting female founders for six consecutive years chimes with something we’re seeing directly in our own data. In the first half of 2026, applications for personal guarantee insurance from female directors, to protect again the risk of business loans grew 77% year-on-year. This is faster than the 64% growth we saw across the market as a whole. The proportion of applications coming from female-led businesses has grown from under 12% to nearly 13% in the space of a year. While this may seem a small proportion we need to remember that only around 14% of small businesses are currently run by female founders.
“Personal guarantee insurance exists because signing a guarantee puts a director’s home and personal assets on the line to secure business finance. The fact that more female directors are taking that step and increasingly protecting themselves when they do, suggests growing confidence to pursue the borrowing that fuels growth.
“Government-backed initiatives like the Investing in Women Code are vital because access to capital has historically been harder to secure for female-led businesses. What we’re seeing in our own figures suggests that where that capital is being accessed, awareness of how to manage the associated personal risk is growing right alongside it. That’s a healthy sign for the wider SME finance market.”