What insurance do you need as a roofing and scaffolding business?

Roofing and Scaffolding businesses face a variety of high hazard risks on a daily basis. These might include working at height or with inadequate edge protection, potentially causing accidental damage to a client’s property or professional indemnity issues if you provide any advice or design work.

It’s therefore vital that you carry out extensive risk management assessments, including ensuring you have appropriate insurance cover, before projects begin. No matter how many measures you put in place to manage your risks, sometimes things can still go wrong and accidents can happen, so having adequate insurance in place will be the key to financially protecting your business.

Let’s take a closer look at five of the most important covers for your roofing and scaffolding business.

1. Employers’ Liability Insurance

The Health and Safety Executive’s Employers’ Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 means that you must have Employers’ Liability Insurance in place if you employ one or more employees, unless they are related to you and you do not operate as a limited company, or you employ someone who is based abroad.

Employers’ Liability will protect your business financially if one of your employees gets injured as a result of business activities e.g., injuries from falls from height.

2. Public Liability Insurance

While Public Liability is not a legal requirement, for any business having any form of contact with the public, it is highly recommended. Public Liability covers your legal liability to pay compensation to third parties in the event of death, bodily injury, or damage to their property, which occurs as a result of your business activities.

If you are a member of any trade associations, your membership terms and conditions may require you to have Public Liability Insurance. If you work on commercial sites, you may also need to provide proof of your public liability insurance too.

3. Excess of Loss cover

Excess of loss cover is essentially a top up of a business’s primary liability cover, meaning additional cover is in place. This provides financial protection from major incidents that may not be fully covered by liability policies.

For example, during a scaffolding project, if a structure collapses due to incorrect assembly or overloading, and a member of the public is injured or killed, your business could face a large public liability claim. The cost to settle this claim could exceed your primary limit of indemnity, meaning you could be left with the legal liability to pay any additional costs. This can sometimes amount to millions of pounds.

Excess of loss cover can help to prevent this, by providing excess financial protection above and beyond your primary liability cover. This cover is especially important for businesses carrying out highly hazardous work like roofing and scaffolding.

4. Tools and Equipment cover

Tools and Equipment Insurance is designed to protect the tools that you use to carry out your job and covers the cost of replacing lost, stolen, or damaged equipment.

Many construction contractors believe their tools will be covered under their commercial property policy. Whilst this holds true as long as the tools remain in the building, if your work requires you to travel with any tools or equipment, they will no longer be covered under your property insurance.

This means tools and equipment cover is vital in financially protecting you from loss, theft or accidental damage of any tools or equipment.

5. Hired in Plant cover

During construction projects, it is often necessary to hire large machinery like diggers or cranes. But if this equipment is stolen or damage, your projects will not only be slowed down but you may be liable to the leasing company.

Hired in plant cover is there to protect you against these risks, by financially protecting your business against the loss or damage of any large and expensive machinery that has been hired. It covers a variety of instances like fire, floods, and vandalism, which can provide peace of mind that if something goes wrong, you will be financially protected.

We can arrange tailored roofers and scaffolders insurance for your business. From public and employers’ liability, to excess of loss cover, hired in plant cover, legal expenses cover and more – we will ensure you have the right roofers and scaffolders insurance policies in place for complete peace of mind.

To talk to us about arranging insurance for your business or to arrange a review of your current levels of cover, please complete our enquiry form and we’ll be in touch.

Alternatively, you can call to speak to an experienced broker today on 01480 272727 or send an email to enquiries@barnesinsurancebroker.co.uk – we’re here to help you get comprehensive insurance protection for your business.