Plumbing Insurance

  • Plumbing Insurance cost is increasing fast due to claim numbers
  • Many insurers have already increased excess on water damage claims
  • Some insurers avoiding plumbers with policy exclusions
  • Without knowledge the risk of getting overcharged is high

CoverTradie can help you get the right cover at cost effective rates.

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Get peace of mind that you & your family are well covered

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Insurance For Plumbers

Plumbers Insurance isn’t rocket science. You just need a good understanding and plenty of experience to know how to get it right.

The information below can be helpful and give you a good start.

Firstly, The most commonly asked question by start up plumbers is:

What Insurance does a plumber need

At a very basic, for any business there are three main types of risks to manage:

  • Liability – for causing damage to others property or causing an injury
  • Property – risk of loss to your property like theft of Tradie Tools or Ute
  • Personal Injury – risk of injuring yourself at a worksite
  • Other risks depending on complexity of your business

Let’s look at them one at a time.

Plumbers Liability Insurance

Plumbers Liability Insurance is what protects you from financial claims of property damage and injury to others.

If you want to make sure you are properly covered for those claims, you need to keep an eye on the policy conditions:

Commonly observed conditions are like:

  • Height restrictions (3 Storey limit)
  • Higher excesses on water damage claims
  • Very high ($25,000 excess) on worker to worker injury claims (ask us what this means)
  • Clean claims history etc.

Don’t just assume all policies or insurers are the same.

You want to make sure you have the right Plumbers Liability Insurance.

Public Liability Insurance for Plumbers

Claim Examples:

  • On a job to replace a dishwasher, the insured accidentally scratches the timber floor which results in a $2,000 claim
  • A plumber was trying to drill through a timber wall which had an invisible rot. On application of force, the long drill bit has violently gone through damaging the air-con unit on the outside. $2,500 claim by property owner.

Plumbing Public Liability Insurance comes in handy in both these situation. Minor claims but imagine your plumbing work fails in an apartment that is 10 storey’s high which floods the entire floor and a couple of storeys below it.

The repair bill is likely to be very high and that’s why insurers put height restrictions on policies.

Common Excesses:

Every insurer we deal with has got a different view of the risk plumbers carry and apply different excesses to claims. Some of the example excess are below:

Here in this example, there is an excess of $1,000 for Public Liability however an excess of $25,000 applies of there is an injury to a subcontractor on site.

Various excesses applied to Plumbers Liability Insurance.

In the next one, we can see the insurer has a slightly different view point. This insurer charges a much higher excess for water damage claims which is $5,000.

Their standard excess is also higher than the previous example but their injury to contractors excess is lower and sits at $10,000.

Plumbing Insurance excess deductible charged by one of the insurers.

These variations in the policy can have an impact on the cost you incur for your Plumbers public liability insurance.

It is important to understand that going after a cheap public liability Insurance for plumbers may not be a great idea because there are hidden costs in the form of excesses and policy exclusions.

Plumbing Insurance Victoria

Victoria is a little unique when it comes to Plumbing Insurance. The public liability insurance for plumbers in Victoria needs to have consumer protection coverage built into it.

On 20th June 2002, the Victorian government prescribed the minimum level of insurance that plumbers are required to have in two Ministerial Orders. You can read the detail here – Licensed Plumbers General Insurance Order 2002.

Plumbing Insurance Cost

If you want to know how much does plumbing insurance cost, then we have to do a proper quote for you however we are confident to say Plumbers Liability Insurance Cost is higher than most other common trades.

We did a quick check of some prices to see what it costs to get a $10 Million limit cover for a business with a turnover of $100,000.

Plumbing Insurance cost was the highest compared to other trades.

Plumbing Insurance Cost comparison with other trades

Plumbing Business Insurance

There are other risks in your business that need to be covered.

These risks relate to your property like Tools of Trade, Tradie Van or Ute, Excavator or general stock.

If your business carries white goods from warehouse to customer premises, those items can be and should be covered under a Marine Insurance policy.

They can be covered under different types of policies.

Income Protection Insurance for Plumbers

Male workers in trades and construction section have the highest rates of injuries out of all other occupation groups in Australia.

Not all injuries are likely to be severe but some are that can prevent you from carrying on with your work and preventing you from earning your income.

You can get Income Protection Insurance for Plumbers to prevent your loss of income.

Graph showing comparison of injury statistics for various occupations in Australia
Injury statistics ABS
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