Protect your construction business correctly

The basic cover you’ll need is Liability insurance. This means Public Liability (so you can work on site) and Employers Liability (which is mandatory by law if you have PAYE employees or even just labour only sub-contractors).

You can extend this type of insurance to cover loss/damage to your tools and plant and hired-in plant and materials on site (this is called Contractors All Risk insurance).

If you are a Limited Company, we would also recommend Directors Liability insurance (which can cover the directors personally if they get sued instead of the limited company itself).

A sensible insurance to include would also be Personal Accident, in case you or one of your team get physically hurt and are unable to work (and it also saves you paying them yourself whilst they are off work).

Cyber insurance is becoming more important too, just in case you get hacked and get money stolen from your bank account.

Give us a ring. No two businesses are the same, so we will talk you through what you need and gather what information we need to get you a quote. Smaller businesses can be quoted pretty much instantaneously, whereas larger, more complex businesses make take a few days.

It depends on so many factors but the main ones are where you are based, what your business does and what size it is. We have clients paying us premiums in the range of £100 to £100,000 per annum.

Usually for micro-businesses (sole traders with no staff) we would usually recommend a per capita policy, which is the cheapest way of getting the cover you need. For larger businesses we would recommend a more flexible type of policy, which is based on your estimated wageroll and turnover.

Different legislation applies between the Tax Office and Health & Safety, and as far as insurance is concerned, if a subcontractor is providing labour only and is working for you, then YOU are responsible for Health & Safety on site. So, if a person gets hurt, it’s YOUR Employers Liability insurance which will pick up any claim.

Should you need to make a claim, make Prizm Solutions your first port of call. As your broker, we are here to help. If your call is out of hours, all insurers operate 24/7 claims lines, and we’ll inform you of these when you take out the policy.

At Prizm, we primarily deal with Aviva, AXA, NIG, Royal Sun Alliance, Jensten, QBE, MI Commercial, Eaton Gate, NBS Underwriting, Zurich, Allianz, Victor, NBS, Touchstone, Breeze, Commercial Express, Syndicate 538, Focus, DUAL, HCC, HSB, Yutree, Phoenix, Corin, Markel and Lloyds underwriters although the companies offering this insurance may change as the market changes.