Cheap Bricklayer Insurance

Liability insurance is not the first thing a bricklayer thinks of!

The weather might well be; we've all laid the facings just to watch the heavens open and wash cement all over the bricks (yes I've laid a fair few in my time since I started in the building trade in the late 1960s). Then again is it warm enough? In winter I used to keep a propane cylinder and a big burner handy to defrost the sand before we could could put a mix on, then we had to protect everything with blankets covered in Visqueen to keep the frost off before we left at night. That was after the bricks had actually arrived of course; I lost track of the number of times we sat all morning waiting for a delivery only to find they'd sent the wrong ones yet again.

No, insurance was not on our minds much. When it was we really blessed it.

S%&$ Happens

A friend of mine had a labourer who nearly had an arm ripped off. He was cleaning the mixer with a bucket of water and a few half bricks and he stuck a spade in to loosen some lumps at the back whilst the drum was rotating. Problem was it was a customer's spade and it had a D-handle. You can imagine the rest. One of my own labourers was rushing up a ladder carrying a hod full of bricks and he dropped it - I still don't know how - and it was only his mate's hard hat (which I had only just got them to wear ) which saved a possibly nasty accident. I was on a site when an entire twenty foot scaffold collapsed onto a lorry because (a) the ground was soft and the boards under the verticals sank, (b) it had no braces because it was right next to the road and (c) it wasn't tied into the new brickwork. Luckily it wasn't my job, nobody was hurt and the contracter was well insured.

Accidents don't cause themselves

It didn't matter how often I stressed safety first but I still used to see men climbing up unsecured ladders without a 'human sandbag' at the bottom to steady it, cutting bricks with an angle grinder with the goggles still loose around their necks, unloading bricks from a wagon by throwing them two at a time to someone else. All this on a site with deep footings that people could fall into, mud they could slip in, discarded bricks they could trip over. It's a wonder any of us survived.

However; in all my years as a builder I never made a single insurance claim and I was very glad about that, but I knew lots of other people who did. And without that insurance most of these would have been forced out of business.

Insurance can sooth the financial pain

Anyway enough of this. I resented paying too much for my premiums which is why I've looked into the cheapest way of buying insurance; and I might just have found it. Just as we can reduce car insurance by comparing prices from many sources, we don't just deal with one insurer, or even one insurance provider with multiple insurers to call on. We deal with multiple insurance providers. Also: every business is different, with unique risk profiles (which is what the insurers base their premiums on) which means that off-the-shelf policies are unlikely to suit everyone. So, we recommend talking to an insurance provider who can get to understand your business, and then look through policies offered by different insurers to find one suited to your own circumstances.

What you'll need

You'll need Employers Liability Insurance if you employ anybody (this is a legal requirement) and Public Liability Cover is always recommended to protect everybody else except you and your employees. Most main contractors will insist on it anyway.

You can often get both of these wrapped up in one insurance package. Why not get a quote now!

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