Plant Insurance
Covering everything from tools to construction plant – hired in or owned
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Tradesman Saver’s Plant Insurance
Our standard cover is:
- £1 million cover for public and products liability (with an option to increase to £2 million or £5 million)
- £10,000 cover for any financial loss (£50K cover optional)
- Worldwide liability cover for temporary work abroad for up to 14 days (excluding the USA and Canada)
Plant insurance from Tradesman Saver begins from the date you choose cover to start. Cover is available for up to £75,000 of own plant and up to £50,000 of hired-in plant. If you need cover beyond this, simply get in touch with us and we can arrange to increase this further.
We do not offer this as a single policy, but short term plant insurance is available as an additional extra for anyone who wishes to take out builders insurance with us. This standard policy provides your business and employees with public liability insurance, offering protection against any injury claims to a customer or member of the public.
It also includes products liability, which secures you if your products or services injure a third party. Our policy also covers financial losses and legal expenses of up to £250,000, as well as accidental death, offering a lump sum in the event of you or a member of your team being fatally injured. Our plant insurance can be purchased as an add-on, alongside other optional insurance covers such as contractors’ all risk, professional indemnity, and wider tools & equipment insurance.
Please note that plant insurance is an optional cover that you can add to your policy alongside cover for your contract works.
What’s included with our Automatic Covers
Learn more about our Optional Covers
How our plant insurance works
Complete our simple quote form with basic details about your business
Get an instant quote & choose any optional covers you may need
Instantly activate your Tradesman Saver policy and view your certificates online
What is plant insurance?
Unlike most other tradesmen, construction workers need some serious machinery to help them get the job done. From diggers to concrete mixers, forklifts to cranes, contractors won’t always own the gear they use. Plant insurance provides critical financial protection against any damage or loss that may happen to your equipment either way. Included as an optional extension under some of our public liability policies, our short-term plant hire insurance is ideal for those working on a construction site, providing cover for everything from fire to vandalism and theft.
Why do you need hired-in plant insurance?
According to the Construction Plant-hire Association, plant worth £100 million is being stolen in the UK each year, and it’s estimated that when the associated costs of the thefts, including the disruption to construction projects and increased insurance premiums are taken into account, construction plant theft is costing the UK construction sector considerably more than this.
If you’re working as a building contractor or a tradesman, then you’ll no doubt spend a lot of time on a client’s site with either your own machinery or plant you’ve hired in for the job. And if it is hired, the hirer will almost always insist the item of plant has insurance cover on it via a hired-in plant insurance policy, because it’ll be up to you to replace or repair any plant machinery that gets lost, broken, or stolen. Tradesman Saver can cover these costs through owned or hired in plant insurance, which covers rented or bought equipment respectively, making it a necessity for tradesmen.
Unlike public liability, plant insurance is not an automatic cover, but it can be added to any standard Tradesman Saver policy if you need it.
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Monthly Instalments
Cashflow is important to every business. Spread the cost by paying in easy monthly instalments.
Instant Cover
No need to wait for your documents. Our tradesman cover starts from the date you select.
Added Protection
Public liability, products liability, financial loss, legal expenses and accidental death cover as standard.
Plant Insurance: What’s Included In Your Cover?
To ensure you get the best possible cover for the lowest price, we include plant insurance under our contract works optional cover. It includes:
- Contract works cover from £50,000 to £500,000
- All risks cover
- Construction plant, tools and equipment from £5,000 to £75,000
- Off-site storage
- Temporary buildings from £5,000 to £25,000
- Hired in plant up to £50,000 for any one item
- Hired in plant annual fees from £2,500 to £50,000
- Immobilised plant
- Plant cover includes JCBs & diggers
- Low-cost monthly instalments available
- Covered while in transit
- Continuing hiring charges
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Plant Insurance: Frequently Asked Questions
Most insurers are unable to offer plant insurance on its own due to the high level of claims that arise from this type of cover. It’s often included as part of a comprehensive public liability insurance package.
If your construction plant is stolen, report it to the police and ask for a crime reference number. Once you have done this, contact our claims department. We will then liaise with insurers on your behalf and let you know the information you need to provide to get your claim moving.
Hired-in plant insurance covers any hired-in plant against theft losses, although you should always check your policy to see whether there are any policy conditions that require certain minimum levels of security when the plant is on site. More expensive items of plant may need to be fitted with tracking devices, for instance.
If any hired-in plant is damaged or stolen, you’ll usually be liable to continue paying the hire charges for the item in question, even if it is no longer available for use.
These continuing hire charges are covered by a hired-in plant insurance policy. However, the maximum we’ll pay is the equivalent to 90 days’ worth of hiring charges.
As well as being at risk of loss or damage when it is on site, construction plant is at risk when it is in transit. Hired-in plant insurance covers the plant whether it is in transit or on site.
Some hirers will offer you a waiver and many contractors will rely on that rather than buying their own insurance, but there are two reasons that this is not always the best option.
First, the hirer’s waiver may only cover a limited range of risks, and may not cover accidental damage to the plant. Having your own insurance may mean that you have more protection.
Second, it may be cheaper to insure any hired-in plant yourself, particularly if you are hiring plant on a regular basis. An annual policy that covers all of the plant that you hire during the year will usually work out cheaper than buying waivers from the hirer each time you hire anything.
Some Other Trades We Cover
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