Protection from Events at Work
What is a tradies' Public Liability Insurance?
Imagine you were drilling through a wall and you accidentally hit a concealed shower drainage pipe. Water goes everywhere and now the gyprock and carpet is damaged. This is the sort of situation where a tradies' public liability insurance can come in handy.
Public Liability Insurance is designed to cover claims made against your business where a third party is injured or sustains property damage because of your business activities. In English, this means that the costs that arise from injury to a client or a third party (e.g. member of the public walking by) or damage to their property that were a result of your negligence at work, can be covered.
What does Public Liability Insurance cover?
Some of the exclusions for Public Liability Insurance include:
- Faulty workmanship
We can cover the damages faulty workmanship causes, but not the cost of the actual work itself. E.g. if you were a plumber working on a hot water system, and you accidentally damaging the existing pipes, we would cover the cost of water damage and the pipes, but not the cost of you finishing the hot water system.
- Work on aircraft, hovercraft, drones, or watercraft
We assume you don't get many clients that ask you to work on their plane, but if you did, you wouldn't be covered.
- Damage to your own property
Public Liability Insurance won't cover you if you damage your own property, however you can add Tools of Trade Cover to your policy to cover your tools and other equipment.
- Work related to asbestos
We can't cover you for work involving asbestos.
- Advertising Injury
We can't cover you for acts or omissions with your knowledge of breach of contracts, infringement of trademarks or display of incorrect prices of your goods or services.
***The above includes only some of the limits, conditions, and exclusions of the Legal Liability product. Please refer to the Policy Wording for full limits, conditions, and exclusions.
What doesn't Public Liability Insurance cover?
Some of the exclusions for Public Liability Insurance include:
- Faulty workmanship
We can cover the damages faulty workmanship causes, but not the cost of the actual work itself. E.g. if you were a plumber working on a hot water system, and you accidentally damaging the existing pipes, we would cover the cost of water damage and the pipes, but not the cost of you finishing the hot water system.
- Work on aircraft, hovercraft, drones, or watercraft
We assume you don't get many clients that ask you to work on their plane, but if you did, you wouldn't be covered.
- Damage to your own property
Public Liability Insurance won't cover you if you damage your own property, however you can add Tools of Trade Cover to your policy to cover your tools and other equipment.
- Work related to asbestos
We can't cover you for work involving asbestos.
- Advertising Injury
We can't cover you for acts or omissions with your knowledge of breach of contracts, infringement of trademarks or display of incorrect prices of your goods or services.
***The above includes only some of the limits, conditions, and exclusions of the Legal Liability product. Please refer to the Policy Wording for full limits, conditions, and exclusions.
How much cover do I need?
The amount of public and products liability insurance a tradie business might need ultimately comes down to the risks it faces. Risks can be evaluated by two factors: their likelihood and their severity. A smart tradie will consider whether the risks that they face are high likelihood, or high severity (hopefully not both), and choose the amount of legal liability accordingly.
It’s important to balance the cost of insurance with the potential financial impact of a claim, ensuring you’re neither underprotected, nor overinsured. Paying $200 a month for insurance on a risk that could cost you $100 makes as little sense as not getting insurance to manage a high risk that could cost you thousands, if not millions.
How much does it cost?
The cost of any tradie business's public liability insurance and products liability insurance depends on a few factors:
The risks your occupation faces
A plumber working with gas has different risks at work to a carpenter. Some of these are considered more likely and more severe than others, and due to increased risks, the plumber who works with gas will typically pay more than a carpenter for tradies insurance.
Tradies with more than one occupation
If you work across the definitions of more than one occupation, e.g. a handyman who does some landscaping work, your policy price will be calculated based upon only the occupation with a higher risks - don't worry, you won't be paying for double policies.
The number of employees
The number of employees in the business will also dictate the price of a tradies public liability insurance. Obviously, the more people working, the more that can go wrong (especially with apprentices😅). The more that can go wrong, the higher the cost of covering things going wrong will be.
The amount of coverage
If you choose $5 million of public and products liability insurance rather than $10 million, of course you are going to pay less. However you are not going to pay half, that's not quite how it works either.
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*all data is based upon a sample of VIZ Insurance customers over the last three years