Plumbers insurance in Birmingham

Plumbing in Birmingham means working above other people more often than beside them. The city has a very large stock of flats — tower blocks, mid-rise estate blocks, converted city-centre buildings and student accommodation — alongside miles of Victorian terraces and back-to-backs and a huge belt of interwar and post-war municipal housing. A great deal of the work is on a system that is shared with the neighbours.

That is where the money goes wrong. The severe claim is not a scald or a fall; it is escape of water in a stacked building. One compression joint that lets go on the sixth floor does not damage one bathroom, it damages a column of homes below it, and the claim arrives with a managing agent, a block insurer and half a dozen leaseholders attached.

Apex is a Bristol-based commercial broker. We arrange plumbing and heating cover on the basis of what is underneath the pipework, not just the size of the firm, placed by a named broker who will present the risk to insurers who understand water damage.

Key covers for plumbers

• Public liability — injury or damage arising from your work. For a plumber this is overwhelmingly escape of water, and in a block that means several properties from one failure — commonly £2m–£5m, and higher where main contractors or managing agents require it.
• Employers’ liability — legally required for employed staff and labour-only sub-contractors, including apprentices and mates.
• Tools and equipment — theft of press tools, power tools, testing equipment and gas kit from a van, which in dense city streets is usually parked where you cannot see it.
• Contract works — materials and installed work in progress on larger jobs and refurbishment contracts before hand-over.
• Gas work — cover follows Gas Safe registration for the categories you hold, and unregistered work is not covered however competent you are.
• Professional indemnity — where you size, design or specify a system, or issue reports and certificates that others rely on.
• Personal accident — optional cover if injury stops you working.

Birmingham buildings, Birmingham risks

The city’s housing is unusually varied in age and unusually vertical for a city outside London. Both facts drive the plumbing risk.

• Tower blocks and mid-rise flats. Communal risers, shared stacks and boosted cold-water systems, with the whole column of flats below any joint you disturb. Access is controlled, work is booked through a housing team or agent, and evidence of cover is checked before you get a key.
• Victorian terraces and back-to-back stock. Old lead, iron and early copper, solid walls with no easy routes, and pipework that has been altered by four generations of trades. Half the job is discovering what is actually there.
• Interwar and post-war estates. Large volumes of similar housing produce programme work — boiler replacement, cylinder swaps and rewires of the heating system — under contracts with social landlords and their maintenance partners.
• City-centre apartments and student housing. Occupied, managed and finished to a standard where water damage is expensive. Managing agents set the rules of engagement and want the paperwork before you start.

Escape of water in a stacked building

One failure, many properties. In a house, a leak damages a ceiling. In a block, it damages the flat you worked in, the flats below it, the common parts, and sometimes the commercial unit at street level. This is the single reason a plumber’s public liability limit should be set against the building rather than against the invoice.

Communal systems and shared responsibility. Risers, stacks and boosted mains are usually the freeholder’s, not the leaseholder’s. Working on the boundary between the two is where liability arguments start, and where a clear record of what you were instructed to do earns its keep.

Old pipework and asbestos. In the older terraced and estate stock you will meet lead, steel and old boiler and pipe insulation. Disturbing the wrong lagging is a health and safety problem before it is an insurance one, and it needs to be part of how you plan a job, not something you find at eleven o’clock.

Compliance considerations for plumbers

Gas Safe registration for any gas work, with the registration covering the specific categories you actually carry out rather than a general listing.

Water fittings regulations and byelaws — backflow prevention, fluid categories and notification of certain installations to the water undertaker.

Unvented hot water storage competence — the discharge arrangement and safety devices are where the severe scalding and water-damage claims come from.

Building Regulations notification for controlled work, either through a competent person scheme or through the local authority.

Work at Height Regulations 2005 and asbestos awareness — both routinely engaged when lifting floors, working in loft spaces and disturbing old boiler and pipe insulation.

What can go wrong

A joint fails after you leave a flat and water runs through several homes below — public liability, with the block insurer and multiple leaseholders involved.

A drain-down goes wrong on a communal riser and floods common parts and a ground-floor commercial unit — public liability, with business interruption attached.

Water damage in an occupied student block during a term-time repair — alternative accommodation and lost rent claimed alongside the physical damage.

A gas appliance is left in an unsafe condition, or work is carried out outside the categories your registration covers — a regulatory problem and, in the second case, an uninsured one.

A van is broken into overnight on a residential street and stripped of press tools and testing kit — tools cover, subject to overnight security conditions.

Old pipe lagging is disturbed without an asbestos check on pre-2000 stock — an enforcement and liability exposure that no policy makes go away.

Frequently asked questions

How much public liability do I need if I work in blocks of flats?

More than the job would suggest. The right question is not what your contract is worth but what sits below the pipe. Where you work on risers and stacked flats, we would normally be looking at the higher end of the usual range, and managing agents and social landlords often specify a minimum anyway.

Is escape of water actually covered by public liability?

Yes, where the damage results from your negligent work — that is the core of a plumber’s policy. What it does not do is pay to put right your own defective workmanship, so the failed joint is your cost and the ruined ceilings below are the insurance claim.

Does my policy cover gas work?

It follows your Gas Safe registration and the categories on it. Work outside those categories is generally not covered, however competent you are, so if you have added a category or you have an apprentice working towards one, tell us.

A housing association wants me on their approved list. What will they check?

Typically the public liability limit, the employers’ liability certificate, Gas Safe registration and confirmation that the policy actually names plumbing and heating work. Some also ask for professional indemnity where you are asked to design or report.

Do I need employers’ liability for a self-employed mate?

In nearly all cases yes. Someone working under your direction on your job, with your materials, counts as an employee for compulsory insurance purposes even if they invoice you.

I sometimes size and specify systems. Is that covered?

Not by public liability. Design, sizing and written recommendations that a client relies on fall under professional indemnity. If you do more than install what someone else drew, it is worth having.

Related

• Plumbers insurance
• Public liability insurance explained
• Employers’ liability insurance explained
• Underinsurance check
• Areas we cover