Tradies Risk Management Checklist
Are You Hiring Equipment?
If you want to avoid having to pay the hire company’s damage waiver charges every time then you can arrange your own annual policy to cover hired equipment. This could add up to a reasonable saving depending on the amount you spend on hireage each year and the value...
Annual Contract Works Insurance Explainer – What Are You Getting?
If you’re a builder with an annual contract works policy (instead of taking out individual policies for each build) it’s important you understand which type of annual policy you have. Any misunderstanding of how your particular policy works could leave you exposed....
How Cover For Legal Expenses Works
Most liability policies cover the legal costs related to a claim under that particular policy, ie. for defending the claim against you. For example, if you are sued for causing damage to someone’s house, and this damage is covered by public liability insurance, then...
Contract Works Insurance Covers Subbies Too!
Well, it should do. Regardless of who arranges it generally sub-contractors can and usually are included under the policy. That means it doesn’t matter if it’s the builder, the owner or a subbie who damages the works, the contract works policy will cover it. Who pays...
Be Aware of the Building Defects Exclusion
This is an exclusion in most construction and liability policies these days. It stemmed from the leaky homes crisis and effectively excludes any claim where water has penetrated a building through its external envelope. This sucks for trades who are working on this...
Retentions Regime Under Review Again!
The protection of retentions has been an issue in the construction industry for years, not just in New Zealand but globally. Amendments to the Construction Contracts Act a few years back put obligations on head contractors to protect those retentions by holding them...
Why Take Out Statutory Liability Insurance?
In the year to August 2020 the construction industry was second for injuries that resulted in more than a week off work. It was 5,070 events. That’s over 100 per week! WorkSafe Prosecutions In Construction - 2020 and 2021 In 2020 there were 9 prosecutions of...
Avoiding Stuff Ups With Your Insurance – Liability & Indemnity for Contractors
With a large customer base operating in the construction trades we deal with a lot of liability claims. There are some issues that, while not common, could trip you up if you are not aware of them. The Right Occupation Liability and professional indemnity policies...
What are the insurance requirements when building modular / prefab / offsite / transportable?
There are almost as many names for this type of construction methodology as there are ways of doing it. With construction occurring across multiple sites and transport involving expensive building components there are some intricacies to the insurance programme that...
The cost of cyber crime to construction businesses is growing fast
Have you taken the simple steps needed to protect your identity, email, banking and business data from identity thieves, hackers or ransomware? Scammers are targeting builders because they are more likely to send invoices for large one-off amounts that can be...
Supplies are Running Low: Is Your Extra Stock Covered By Your Insurance?
On my recent road trip catching up with builders around the lower North Island pretty much everyone raised the issue of supply of materials. This included merchants out of stock, much longer lead times on ordering materials and cost increases across the board. Some of...
Are you doing everything your contract requires you to?
A lot of insurance is tied to contracts, so it’s critical you understand what’s in your contract and comply with the requirements in there. Even if you use a standard contract, things might change and you need to be on top of this, or you might end up in hot water....