High street electrical chain Maplin is scrambling to reassure suppliers about its future in the run-up to Christmas ­after credit insurers cut their exposure to the retailer.

QBE pulled cover last month, while fellow insurers Euler Hermes and Atradius are also understood to have scaled back their exposure, having been spooked by falling profits, and concerns about struggling sales and the wider retail downturn.

It means some suppliers could struggle to insure their debts with Maplin to enable them to continue supplying it with goods. Maplin has 211 stores in the UK, employing around 2,600 people.

The chain’s owners, Rutland Partners, are set to meet credit insurers later this week to update them about the company’s performance in a bid to reassure them that it can continue trading. A source close to the investor said that another credit insurer had ­recently doubled its exposure to the firm and that Maplin had credit insurance ­available and was trading within its banking facilities.

It denied that the owner would be forced to carry out a cash injection in the coming weeks to keep Maplin trading through the potentially lucrative Christmas period. Rutland bought the business for £85m in 2014, far less than the £244m previous owner Montagu had paid for it three years previously.