FCA authorised · FRN 7249520117 325 0027Quote & buy →
Thornbury sits on the ridge above the Severn levels in South Gloucestershire, and a roofer working from here covers three quite separate kinds of building in the same week. There is the small historic core, with clay tile, double roman and natural slate on stone and rendered buildings, some listed and much of it in a conservation area. There is the large ring of post-war and modern estate housing that the town grew into, covered in concrete interlocking tile with flat-roofed garages and extensions attached. And there is the farming country running down to the estuary, where the roofs are big, exposed sheets of profiled cement and steel.
Those three produce entirely different jobs and entirely different claims. Conservation work is about matching materials and detailing under consent. Estate housing is about stripping, re-battening and refelting shallow pitches, plus heat work on flat extensions. Agricultural work is about very large areas, remote sites, and roofs that will not hold a person’s weight.
The exposure that dominates is the fragile roof. Falls through cement sheeting and rooflights on agricultural and industrial buildings are among the most common causes of death and serious injury in this trade, and a substantial amount of the older farm sheeting in this area will contain asbestos — which is both a regulatory problem and, on many trade policies, a restriction in the wording. Second to that is wind: the Severn estuary gives long, open fetch, and exposed rural roofs take it. Apex arranges cover that reflects how the trade actually works across this ground, placed by a named broker who will present your risk properly to insurers who understand it.
Three building types within a few miles, each with a different failure mode and a different claim behind it.
Falls through fragile roofs are the trade’s worst outcome. Cement sheeting and rooflights on agricultural and industrial buildings will not carry a person, and from the ground they look no different from the parts that will. This is one of the most common causes of fatal and life-changing injury in roofing nationally. Crawling boards, staging, harnesses, netting and an honest assessment of the covering before anybody steps on it are what an underwriter will ask about, and what an HSE investigation will ask about too.
Asbestos in older farm sheeting. Corrugated asbestos cement was used extensively on agricultural buildings, and much of it is still there. Working on it or disturbing it engages the asbestos regulations, and a great many trade policies carry an asbestos restriction. Read your wording before you price agricultural work at scale.
Wind uplift on an exposed site. With the estuary and open levels providing long fetch, wind loading on this ground is meaningfully higher than in a sheltered valley. Fixing specifications matter on new work, and on strip-and-recover work the state you leave a roof in overnight is the difference between a normal job and a contract works 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 a farm building — employers’ liability responds, with HSE involvement effectively certain.
Asbestos cement sheeting is disturbed during a strip or a repair — a regulatory problem, and quite possibly a restriction in the policy wording.
Wind lifts a partly stripped covering overnight on an exposed site, and the building and its contents are damaged — contract works and liability territory.
Torch-on work on a flat extension roof ignites dry timber in the soffit, and the fire reaches the house — a hot works incident, where the permit and fire-watch conditions decide the outcome.
Check your wording rather than assume it. Asbestos restrictions are common in trade policies, and a large proportion of older agricultural sheeting in this area is asbestos cement.
Because falls through fragile roofs and rooflights are one of the leading causes of death and serious injury in roofing. Underwriters are not really asking whether you do the work; they are asking how you decide what you can stand on, and what you use when the answer is nothing — crawling boards, staging, netting, harnesses and edge protection.
It affects the contract works side more than the liability side. Long open fetch off the estuary means a partly stripped roof is exposed to real uplift, and a covering that goes overnight takes the building’s contents with it.
Two considerations. Materials and detailing are governed rather than chosen, so repairs must match and consent may be needed — and if you are the one specifying, that is professional advice and professional indemnity territory.
Typically yes, subject to conditions — usually a hot works permit and a fire-watch period after you finish. On this kind of estate housing the flat roof is attached directly to the house with dry timber all around it, which is precisely the situation those conditions exist for.
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.
