Roofers insurance in Leeds

Leeds is a back-to-back city, and that single fact shapes almost everything about roofing in it. Whole districts of the inner city are built as terraces that share not only party walls but continuous, unbroken roof planes, valley gutters and rainwater runs across four, six or ten houses at a time. Add the stone-built through-terraces, the converted mill and warehouse blocks with their long low-pitch and flat expanses, and the suburban stock beyond, and the trade is largely about maintaining and re-covering Victorian slate on buildings that were never designed to be dealt with one house at a time.

That is why the real exposure in Leeds sits next door rather than underfoot. You are working on a roof that is physically continuous with somebody else’s home. Take a run of slate off, disturb a valley, get a flashing wrong, and the water does not respect the boundary on the deeds. The claim that follows is not your customer’s ruined ceiling; it is the two households either side who did not hire you and did not agree to anything.

On top of that sits the rented and student stock. Great swathes of the inner terraces are landlord-owned and let room by room, which means constant leak-chasing, patch repairs and turnaround work for agents and portfolio landlords who will ask for your certificates before you get the keys. Apex is a Bristol-based commercial broker and places roofing cover built around that reality, through a named broker rather than a form.

Key covers for roofers

• Public liability — the central cover here, because so much Leeds roofing work sits directly against property you were not hired to touch: water into the house next door through a shared valley or a continuous roof plane, damage to a neighbour’s render or glazing, and injury to somebody in the street below. £5m to £10m is the normal expectation on managed and social-housing work, subject to underwriter assessment.
• Employers’ liability — compulsory once you employ anyone, including the labour-only sub-contractors that most Leeds re-roofing squads are built from.
• Tools and equipment — theft of ladders, rippers, nail guns, gas equipment and towers from the van or from a terraced street where there is nowhere secure to leave anything.
• Contract works — a stripped Victorian roof against storm, fire and vandalism before hand-over — and on a back-to-back that stripped area may be over more than one household.
• Hot works — torch-on felt, bitumen and heat-based methods on mill conversions, dormers, box gutters and flat extensions, subject to permit and fire-watch conditions.
• Professional indemnity — where you specify the build-up or the remedial approach yourself — common on flat-roof and mill-conversion work, less so on a like-for-like re-slate.
• Personal accident — optional cover if an injury stops you working.

Leeds roofs and why they claim

Insurers price the building underneath the trade. These are the Leeds-specific patterns worth putting in front of an underwriter, because they explain both the frequency and the shape of the claims.

• Back-to-back and through terraces — Leeds retains an unusually large stock of back-to-back housing alongside conventional through-terraces. Roofs run continuously across several properties, so the physical boundary of your job and the legal boundary of your customer’s property are different things. Almost every serious water-ingress claim in this city starts there.
• Shared valleys and box gutters — long terraced runs are drained by valleys, secret gutters and box gutters serving multiple houses. Blocked or disturbed, they back up and put water into ceilings several doors down from where you were working.
• Welsh slate on open battens — much of the original covering is natural slate on battens with little or no underlay. Once it is off there is nothing between Pennine rain and the plaster below, which puts a hard limit on how much you can safely open up in a day.
• Stone, mills and warehouse conversions — the gritstone terraces and the converted mill and warehouse buildings bring heavy stone slate, large low-pitch expanses and flat roofs over occupied apartments and commercial floors. Hot works over an occupied building is a different underwriting question from hot works over an empty one.

Rain, run-off and working over occupied homes

Pennine rainfall and short windows. Leeds gets meaningful rain across the year and the wet spells are persistent rather than brief. That compresses stripping and covering into short windows and leaves work in progress exposed more often than the programme assumed. Contract works cover and a realistic sequencing plan are worth more here than optimism about the forecast.

River and surface-water flooding. the Aire valley and the low ground through the city have flooded seriously in living memory, and heavy rainfall regularly overwhelms Victorian rainwater goods and drains. For a roofer, the practical consequences are water finding routes it does not normally take, and the temptation to attribute every subsequent leak to whoever was last on the roof.

Nobody moves out. terraced re-roofing in Leeds is almost always carried out over an occupied home, and often over several. Dust, debris, disturbed loft insulation and the odd dropped tool land in somebody’s living space. This is what pushes the sensible public liability limit up and makes the third-party property section the busiest part of the policy.

Compliance considerations for roofers

The Work at Height Regulations 2005 govern every job, and on steep Victorian pitches with no underlay the planning, edge protection and access arrangements are what an investigation would look at first.

CDM 2015 duties apply on larger contracts, including social-housing and framework re-roofing programmes where you may hold contractor or principal-contractor status.

Hot-works permits and a fire watch after you finish are standard insurer conditions, and on mill conversions and flat roofs over occupied premises they are usually conditions precedent to liability.

Party-wall and neighbouring-owner considerations arise constantly on back-to-back and terraced work, where the roof plane and the ownership boundary are not the same line.

Asbestos is present in older flat-roof build-ups, cement products and mill and warehouse roofing across the city; know what you may disturb and what must go to a licensed contractor.

What can go wrong

Water tracks along a shared valley into the two houses either side of the one you were working on — public liability responds to their damage, subject to policy terms.

A stripped section of terrace is caught by heavy rain overnight and ceilings come down in an occupied home — contract works for your unfinished work, public liability for the occupier’s loss.

A slate or tool falls from a street-side scaffold on to a parked car or a pedestrian — public liability responds.

A torch used on a flat roof over an occupied mill conversion ignites the deck or the timber below — a hot-works claim, decided on permit and fire-watch compliance.

A landlord alleges that a leak in a neighbouring let started with your patch repair months earlier — the sort of disputed causation claim that is why you want an insurer who defends properly.

Frequently asked questions

Why are roofers refused cover?

Height and heat put roofing in the highest-hazard group most insurers keep, and many decline the trade without looking at the individual business. That is a market problem. We place roofing with the underwriters who write it on purpose rather than the ones who avoid it.

Is torch-on and hot work covered?

Yes, subject to conditions — normally a permit and a fire watch for a set period after you stop. In Leeds the case that matters is torch and bitumen work on flat roofs and mill conversions over occupied flats and commercial floors, and we make sure the wording covers that rather than an idealised empty site.

What about CDM 2015 duties?

On larger jobs, including social-housing and framework re-roofing programmes, you may carry contractor or principal-contractor duties under CDM 2015. Your liability cover should reflect the role you have actually taken, so tell us when the status changes.

Are my tools covered?

Ladders, rippers, nail guns, gas kit and towers can be covered against theft from site, van or premises. On terraced streets with no secure storage the overnight-storage condition is the clause to read before you agree to it.

Do I need employers liability?

Yes — legally required if you employ anyone, including labour-only sub-contractors working under your direction, which is how most re-roofing squads in the city are put together.

My work is one house but the roof runs across four. Who is liable if the neighbours get water?

You may well be, and that is precisely the exposure to insure. On a Leeds back-to-back or through-terrace the roof is a shared physical structure, so opening up one property can put water, debris or damage into the neighbouring homes. Public liability is what responds to their loss, which is why we normally push for a higher limit on terraced work than the bare contract minimum.

Related

• Public liability insurance explained
• Employers’ liability insurance explained
• Contractors’ all risks
• Construction and trades
• Underinsurance check
• Speak to a broker