5 Things Every Scaffolder Should Know About Their Insurance Policy

Insurance can be a difficult subject to understand (and its usually not the most exciting one), but failing to get your head around it can prove very costly.

Below we have highlighted 5 of the most common issues that we come across on Scaffolding Insurance Policies. Read more to keep yourself up to date!

1. Make Sure Your Business Description Is Accurate

Does it say what you do ?– You are a scaffolder not a builder  - if it doesn’t say that in the business description, chances are, the insurer does not fully understand what you do and you are probably not covered.

2. Check There Is No Height Limit

You wouldn’t believe it but you would be amazed at just how many insurance policies that we see for Scaffolding companies have a height limit on them.  Many standard construction liability policies  include a height limit as standard but if the underwriter does not take it off, then the policy is next to useless.  

3. Know Who Your Insurer Is

Are they based in the UK, are they regulated by the Financial Services Authority? If not, have the consequences of dealing with an unregulated insurer been explained to you?

It’s not all bad. Unregulated insurers are often cheaper and they often favour the higher risk trades such as Scaffolding.  But history tells us that non-regulated insurers fail far more often than regulated ones. That initial saving doesn’t look quite so good if you must stump up to buy another policy half way through the year. Or worse still, you have a large claim against your company and the insurer is no longer around to pay up or defend you. For that reason, a lot of Principals will not accept them and if you must move to a more established insurer there is no credit for cancelling.