Small traders and PL Insurance

[tim...]

Hi,

I am moving into a new age restricted wardened flat and they (not unreasonably) insist that all work is done by traders with appropriate qualifications and insurance.

I've currently selected a kitchen fitter who is dragging his heals over supplying a copy of his PL certificate and I suspect that he doesn't have any and is hoping that the problem will go away if he waits long enough.

But it is not within my gift to let the problem go away and, as there is a warden on site (who's a bit of a nanny and takes an hour to hour interest in what's going on on the site) we shall be rumbled if I let him do the work before I have supplied the management company with the required docs.

Apparently, if he's only replacing cupboards like-for like (more or less) he doesn't need to be "authorised", but if he does plumbing or electric work he does. And, of course, he's doing some plumbing work - but not the electrics, we have sub-ed that part to someone else as I have substantial work in the rest of the flat that needs doing.

So my questions:

1) Is it normal for small traders who do this type of work to "forget" to carry PL insurance.

2) what does it cost anyway, for this trade?

TIA

tim

[Andy Burns]

Dunno, my combined PL/PI policy is only a couple of hundred, it will depend on turnover, how long he's been trading, and job specific factors (e.g. he'll probably need "hot works" cover for use of a blowtorch).

[spuorgelgoog]

Not reputable ones.

Plumbing costs more, because of hot work and leaks, but they usually charge enough to cover the cost.

"AXA says the average price for builders is £278.08 but for carpenters it's £126.32."

nce-cost/

It may be simpler to sub the plumbing to a plumber.

Owain

[Andy Burns]

"We calculated the cost by dividing the size of the public liability insurance market by the number of UK businesses"

That method strikes me as likely to give fairly meaningless results for any given business, whether a one-man band, or one employing tens of thousands ... it'll only be correct in average.

[John Rumm]

Probably not that normal - generally you get PL as a package with other things like Employer's liability etc. For most small businesses its not that expensive (low hundreds typically), but it could vary quite a bit with the nature of the job[1]. Professional Indemnity is usually more pricey, but not all clients will insist on that, and there is no legal requirement to have it.

You could probably get a quote from an online insurance site.

[1] Mate of mine used to run a small pile driving business - small in all senses, they could drive their piling machine through a doorway, and dig piles in a room to allow underpinning of a foundation etc. First couple of years their insurance was a couple of k, but by about year six or seven the best quote was north of 100K, at which point the business became non viable. That was with no claims and a perfect trading record. It just seemed that the insurance industry decided that "groundwork" had become risky, and they got lumped into that category.

[Bill]

In message , John Rumm writes

That ties in with my experience, although our business just involved the installation of electronic systems. Our main client required PL cover up to several millions. The business operated for 10 years and in the last three the insurance cost was doubling each year from the low hundreds to around 1K. That was one of the factors involved in closing the business.

I can quite see that a small business might have had one client with specific insurance conditions, and that this might lead to the abandonment of both the client and insurance.

[tim...]

have you tried getting a plumber in for an hours work?

and even if I did find one willing, they would have to come at the exact timeslot that the fitter was ready and waiting for the work to be done.

tim

[tim...]

he doesn't have any employees.

he's a sole trader, as all of my contacts are, even the gas fitters.

that's what I thought, but the leccy man (or was it one of the gas men?) said that theirs approached a thousand

I could, but most of them work on the "give us your email and we will contact you basis". ICBA with that

tim

[spuorgelgoog]

Probably gas.

Gas is explosive. When things go wrong they can go very wrong.

Owain

[Brian Gaff]

It did not used to be that expensive back in the 80s, but of course that worked as long as nobody made a claim I never had the misfortune to have that happen to me.

Actually I think most people should have at least some personal liability insurance as even your own fence can fall and hit somebody and they can claim for damages. Sadly its worse now than it used to be. Brian

[Bill Wright]

Certainly not. Every trader I know has it. Anyone without it is bound to be a cowboy with no assets. Once you have assets you make sure you're insured.

Couple of hundred for £2m cover was what I paid.

Years ago two guys were fixing a TV aerial to the side of a new warehouse that was fully stocked with tellys etc. They drilled through a cable and started a smouldering fire that erupted in the middle of the night and burnt the whole place down. They weren't insured. It ended badly for them. This is the bare bones of the tale.

Bill

[bert]

Are we talking Public Liability or Professional Indemnity or both here?

[Steve Walker]

There was a poplar tree between our next-door neighbours' and next-door but one. It got a bit dodgy, so our neighbour got someone in to trim it down a bit. Some years later a large branch (estimated at 4 tonnes) fell and damaged the workshop in the garden of nd+1.

The tree was on the boundary and ownership should have been shared, but because our neighbour had previously paid to have work done, they were deemed to have accepted liability for the tree and nd+1 was able to claim for the damage done and the loss of income through not being able to carry out his business in his workshop.

They were going to fight it, but the insurance company decided that because of the ongoing loss of income, they would pay out rather than let the sums build up and possibly have to be paid later anyway.

SteveW

[Bill Wright]

Yes. As long as I hadn't been negligent.

Bill