Rhino Trade Insurance

As jobs go, being a self-employed plumber is a pretty good gig. You can set your own hours, earn a great salary and you’re active all day long.

But like everything in life, it also comes with downsides. The main issue with being self-employed – especially in a risky industry like plumbing – is that your business is completely unprotected financially should something adverse happen while you’re working.

Let’s take an in-depth look at the risks that plumbers face and the best way to protect yourself.

Definition of Plumbers Insurance

So, what is plumbers insurance? If you’ve never heard of it, that might be because it’s usually referred to as 'business insurance’ or simply ‘trade insurance’.

To be even more confusing, insurance for plumbers is not one single insurance policy. It actually refers to a group of policies that a plumber would need to have in place to protect them against financial loss while in the line of work.

If you work for yourself, there’s no manager or HR team looking out for you. This is why it’s the plumber themselves who takes out the insurance policies to protect their business. These policies are all important to protect a plumber’s livelihood. Some are required by law, some may be conditions of client contracts and some are just plain common sense.

We’ll go into them individually in a minute, but as an overview, plumbers insurance policies would include policies to protect your plumbing business against the financial blow from things like accidents at work, third party injury, theft and property damage.

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Importance of insurance for plumbers

As we mentioned, it’s important for any self-employed plumber to take out insurance so that if something happens while they’re on the job, they’re protected financially.

Unlike jobs when you’re on someone else’s payroll, being a self-employed tradesperson doesn’t come with safety nets such as sick pay, protection from personal liability or resources should HMRC open a tax investigation. It’s safe to say that as a self-employed plumber, you’re on your own should things get messy.

While having plumbers insurance won’t stop adverse events from happening, what these policies will do is provide you with a generous financial backing to settle anything from a third-party injury claim, missed income due to illness, to paying to rectify damage if a client acted on your advice which turned out to be less-than-accurate.

Risks of Working Without Insurance

The main risks of working as an uninsured self-employed plumber are as follows:

Personal Injury Claim

Everyone knows what a personal injury claim is, thank to those annoying adverts you used to get every five minutes on TV and radio. And even though they made us want to tear our ears off, they were highly effective in spreading the message that for every accident, there’s someone who is liable.

Unfortunately, if the accident has taken place while you’re seeing customers or working on a job, that person is you.

You might wonder how common personal injury claims actually are. In the trades business, which comes with more than its fair share of risk, they’re quite common and many tradespeople will be on the receiving end of at least one claim during their career.

It’s impossible to say what a personal injury claim could cost you, as each circumstance is different. But when you factor in that a claim can be made up of costs such as medical fees, covering lost income for the injured party, legal bills and compensation for inconvenience and/ or suffering, you can imagine that the total can rack up considerably.

Property Damage Claims

Plumbing can be a messy business, and sometimes things can go a bit south despite your best efforts. Working inside a customer’s home with your full set of tools means you’re risking accidental damage or soiling to their possessions, not to mention what can happen when you come across unexpected leaks, gas pipes or electrics.

An uninsured plumber has only one option to repair the damage in a circumstance like this, and that would be to foot the bill for the repairs themselves. Again, there is no way of knowing exactly how much this would cost but you can be sure that it’d be several thousand, if not tens of thousands of pounds.

Loss or damage of your stuff

Things like your work van and your tools and equipment are precious resources as a self-employed tradesperson. There’s no company to replace things on your behalf if they get damaged or stolen – it’s up to you to do this and the cost of replacing tools or vans can end up eclipsing your monthly or even quarterly profits.

Reputational Damage

To be blunt, working without insurance is a sure-fire way to present yourself as a cowboy tradesperson. Being uninsured sends a message to the customer which is – “I don’t plan for all eventualities, and if something does go wrong, I’m likely to ride off into the sunset leaving you to pick up the pieces.”

It’s true that you could go your whole career dodging claims, but from the customer’s point of view they won’t want to take any risk when they can hire someone with insurance in place. It just gives potential customers peace of mind and reassurance that you’re able to put right any damage that may occur.

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Types of Insurance for Plumbers

So, what types of insurance exist for plumbers? Here are some of the main policies that make up plumbers insurance:

Public Liability Insurance

If a customer or third party is injured as a result of your work, or if you accidentally cause damage to their property while working, you’ll need a strong PL policy to pick up the pieces.

Personal Accident Insurance

Having an accident at work (or even outside of work) can lead to a period of recovery for a plumber – without income. Sick pay doesn’t exist for self-employed plumbers, but Personal Accident Insurance does. This cover will pay out a lump sum to cover your expenses while you recover.

Employer’s Liability Insurance

Required by law, this insurance will pay out if an employee of yours is injured or has their property harmed while working for you. If you’re a solo operator without employees then you won’t need this one.

Income Protection Insurance

Not being able to work, even for a few weeks, will wreak havoc on a self-employed plumber’s finances. Income Protection Insurance will pay out a monthly payment to cover costs like mortgage, bills and essentials to keep you ticking over until you can return to work.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

If you give professional advice or designs as part of your services as a plumber, you should have protection in place for if a customer loses out financially as a result of them going awry. We all make mistakes, but only smart plumbers have Professional Indemnity Insurance to cover their backs should a client decide they’d like compensation.

Tax Enquiry Insurance

If you’re self-employed, you’ll know that the taxman takes a keen interest in your business and requires things like annual self-assessments, VAT returns and IR35 declarations – not to mention employee tax and NI – on a regular basis. Getting this wrong can mean a lengthy and stressful investigation into your business conducted by HMRC. Tax Enquiry Insurance will pay for a 5-star legal defence and do the hard work for you in the background while you continue to earn your living.

Tools Insurance

Tools are a plumber’s bread and butter. What would you do without them? If your tools were lost, stolen or damaged then you’d need to replace them immediately, which many tradespeople can’t afford to do all at once. Tools insurance means you can claim back the cost of your kit without it impacting your ability to work – or your bottom line.

Van Insurance

Similarly, as a plumber you’re reliant on your work vehicle to get you and your equipment to jobs. Like tool theft, van theft is on the increase in the UK, so it’s never been more important to protect your van. Remember, your van needs a separate insurance policy to any vehicle you have just for personal (non-commercial) use.

Luckily, all of these policies (and more) can be picked up as part of a combined, personalised insurance package with Rhino Trade Insurance, the trade insurance experts.

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Benefits of Insurance for Plumbers

Financial Protection

This is the number one reason to get insured as a self-employed plumber.

There simply isn’t a safety net out there that will help you settle things financially if you find yourself in hot water for whatever reason. As we’ve explored, there’s plenty that can go wrong while working as a plumber. Anything from an injured customer, illness or injury on your part, a tax enquiry, stolen tools, or professional mistakes can be seriously expensive and ultimately cost you your entire business.

Peace of Mind

As we mentioned, there’s a chance that you won’t ever need to make a claim on your plumbers insurance policies. However, knowing that they’re there gives you serious peace of mind when it comes to going about your job in the knowledge that if you need to settle a claim, defend yourself in court or replace your van or tools, then you’re covered.

Competitive Advantage

Another huge bonus of being fully insured as a plumber is that you will be more appealing to potential customers. Being able to advertise your services as fully insured is a big draw for most clients – in fact many won’t work with tradespeople at all who haven’t got the right insurance. For example, trade associations, local clients and large corporations will likely have certain trade insurance policies as a condition of their contracts. So, having plumbers insurance means you’re more likely to be hired and secure those lucrative jobs.