FCA authorised · FRN 7249520117 325 0027Quote & buy →
Nailsea grew enormously through the post-war decades as a commuter town for Bristol, and its roofs show it. The great bulk of the housing here is 1960s and 1970s estate building: shallow-pitch roofs covered in concrete interlocking tiles, with flat-roofed garages, porches, dormers and rear extensions attached to them. That stock is now at the age where the battens, the underlay and the fixings fail well before the tiles do, and that is the daily work.
Around it sits an older core of stone and rendered buildings with clay tile and natural slate, a low-lying moor landscape on the North Somerset Levels where drainage ditches and standing water are simply facts of the geography, and a farming hinterland with large agricultural buildings. The town sits close enough to the Severn estuary to feel it: open country and long fetch mean exposed roofs take wind that a sheltered inland town would not.
Insurers price the fall first. But the claims on this kind of work come from two specific places. The first is the flat roof, where torch-on felt meets fifty-year-old timber and a soffit that has been dry since it was built. The second is the fragile roof — profiled cement sheeting and rooflights on agricultural and industrial buildings that will not carry a person’s weight, and which on older buildings will often contain asbestos. Apex arranges cover that reflects how the trade actually works across this stock, placed by a named broker who will present your risk properly to insurers who understand it.
Three quite different kinds of roof sit within a few miles of each other here, and each generates a different claim.
The fragile roof is the one that kills people. Profiled cement sheeting and rooflights on agricultural and industrial buildings will not carry a person, and they look exactly like the parts that will. Falls through fragile roofs and rooflights account for a disproportionate share of serious roofing accidents nationally. Crawling boards, harnesses, netting and a genuine assessment of what you are standing on are the controls, and an underwriter will ask about them directly.
Asbestos on older farm buildings. A great deal of older agricultural and industrial sheeting is asbestos cement. Working on it, near it, or disturbing it puts you into the asbestos regulations and frequently into a restriction in your own policy wording. Check what your policy actually says about asbestos before you price the job, not after you have started it.
Heat on flat roofs over dry timber. Torch-on felt applied to old timber decking, close to fascia and soffit voids that have been dry for decades, is the classic domestic roofing fire. The fire-watch period after you pack up is the condition most often ignored and the one most likely to lose a claim.
The Work at Height Regulations 2005 — edge protection, access equipment selection, and the duty to plan and supervise rather than improvise.
Hot works permit and fire-watch conditions imposed by insurers where torch-on felt or hot-air welding is used; these are policy conditions, and breaching one is the quickest way to lose a fire claim.
CDM 2015 duties on larger contracts, where you may carry contractor or principal contractor obligations.
The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 — cement sheeting, bitumen products, rooflights and older insulation board all sit in scope.
Scaffold and access discipline — compliant design, handover documentation and inspection records, plus a highway licence wherever scaffold, a hoist or a skip stands on the public highway.
An operative falls through a fragile cement sheet or a rooflight on an agricultural building — employers’ liability responds, with HSE involvement effectively certain.
Torch-on work on a flat garage or extension roof ignites dry timber in the soffit or the decking, and the fire spreads to the house — a hot works incident, where the permit and fire-watch conditions decide the outcome.
Wind lifts a partly stripped covering overnight and rain damages the interior — contract works and liability territory, and the question will be how it was secured.
Asbestos cement sheeting is disturbed during work on an older shed — a regulatory problem and quite possibly a gap in the policy wording.
You must check the wording rather than assume. Many trade policies restrict or exclude work involving asbestos, and a great deal of older agricultural and industrial sheeting is asbestos cement. Separately, fragile roof work is assessed carefully by underwriters because of the fall risk.
A fragile roof is one that will not safely support a person’s weight — typically older cement sheeting, some steel sheeting in poor condition, and almost all rooflights. Insurers care because falls through fragile roofs and rooflights are one of the most common causes of death and serious injury in the trade.
Typically yes, subject to conditions — usually a hot works permit and a fire-watch period after you finish, with restrictions on working close to combustible material. Garage, porch and extension roofs on this kind of estate housing are attached directly to the house with dry timber all around, so those conditions exist for a very good reason.
Because working at height and hot works are two of the highest-severity exposures in the trades, and many mainstream insurers avoid the trade rather than underwrite it individually. It is a market access problem rather than a comment on your firm, which is why roofing usually needs a broker with specialist and wholesale routes.
It changes what you should be thinking about on the contract works side. Open country to the estuary means real wind loading on a partly completed roof, and a covering that lifts overnight produces interior damage that is your problem rather than the weather’s.
Tell us about your business and we’ll place it on the specialist market — or leave your number and a named broker calls you back, usually the same working day.
