Contractor insurance

Every contractor has their own area of expertise and must protect themselves against accidental injury to clients or employees, or damage to property that could leave the business financially exposed.

As a contractor, you will need to safeguard your livelihood against unforeseen events. You may be working alone, or in partnership, or employ a team to support you and your business. Whatever your needs, we can help you source the insurance that is right for your business.

Typically, your contractor insurance would include a minimum of public liability cover, and can be further tailored to suit your business needs with additional employers’ liability insurance, commercial legal protection, tools cover and even personal accident cover. If you are just starting up, then you can build your policy over time to reflect the needs of your business.

Our insurance advisors have many years of experience arranging insurance for contractor businesses. Below are just some of the types of businesses we can find cover for. If you work in a niche trade or work across a number of specialisms – we can usually tailor a package suitable for your profession.

• Builders Insurance
• Electrician Insurance
• Plumbers Insurance
• Property Developers Insurance
• Pest Control Insurance
• Locksmith Insurance
• Carpenters & Joiners Insurance
• Civil Engineering Insurance
• Plus many more

It may be your business requires specialist cover related to higher risk activity you may undertake, for example, we could access specialist covers which are designed to protect you working at unrestricted heights and depths. Our relationships with specialist contractor insurers means we can access insurance protection that you may struggle to find easily elsewhere.

The cost of your contractor insurance will depend on your business activities and the amount and type of covers you require to protect your business. Like any other insurance, generally the more cover you require the higher the premium.

The value you gain from having the right cover in place is a huge benefit to your business. A contractor insurance policy is a product that you have paid for that you may never get to use, but also a product that you hope that you will never need to call on.

By speaking with an insurance professional at Premierline, you’ll be able to discuss your insurance needs and get advice on the different insurance covers that can protect all aspects of you construction activity. They’ll be on hand to assist with any queries you have whilst keeping the terms and conditions of your policy easy to understand.

This is dependent on whether your subcontractors are labour only subcontractors, or bona fide subcontractors.

Labour only subcontractors work directly under your supervision and use equipment, tools and materials that you have provided, and may use their own portable hand tools. As they work directly under your supervision, they are, in the eyes of the law, treated as employees of your business, therefore employers liability insurance becomes a legal requirement.

Tool insurance can offer protection for your business equipment up to a value of your choice. Different insurers will offer varying levels of cover so you can tailor it to your needs.

All insurers will ask that you take reasonable steps to protect your property from theft or damage. Leaving expensive hand tools or power tools on site is risky, however if reasonable precautions have been taken to secure them, for example, locking the building that you are working in and controlling access through limited key holders, then these could potentially be covered.

Contractors all risk, sometimes referred to as contract works insurance, construction all risk insurance or builders risk insurance provides cover for risks on work that is underway on a building or construction site.

A contractors all risks policy, as the name suggests, typically covers the risks normally associated with a construction project.

Contractors all risk insurance is generally worth considering if you or your business undertakes construction contracts which span over time which means you are on-site for many weeks or months.