Damp Proofing and Waterproofing Insurance
Damp proofing is sold as a trade and bought as an opinion. The customer is paying you to work out what is wrong before anybody touches a wall, and the treatment that follows is really just the consequence of that judgement.
Which means the biggest risk in the business is not the injection or the tanking. It is being wrong about the cause. Condensation dealt with as rising damp produces a course that was never going to fix anything, and the customer's loss is the wasted work, the correct work, and everything that carried on deteriorating in between.
None of that is damage your hands caused, so a public liability policy has nothing to say about it. That is the single most important thing on this page.
How Much Is Damp Proofing & Waterproofing Insurance?
Cover for a sole trader on general trades public liability typically starts at about £5.76 a month, roughly £69 a year. That is the entry point rather than the average: one person, liability only, with nothing for tools, employees or the job itself. Employ anyone and employers' liability becomes a legal requirement, and from there the price is driven by wageroll and by the work you take on rather than by the trade.
What moves the price is the same in every trade: turnover, how many people work under your direction, the work you take on, and your claims record. We are a broker, so we take it to several insurers rather than quoting one. Call 02382 000820 for a realistic figure.
What Damp Proofing & Waterproofing Insurance Covers
Public Liability Insurance
Injury and damage to other people's property. Most of this work happens in occupied homes, so decoration, flooring and contents are what get damaged.
Employers' Liability Insurance
Required by law and included as standard. Cellars, roof voids, confined spaces and chemicals are what underwriters focus on here.
Professional Indemnity
The cover that matches what you actually sell. It answers claims about the survey, the diagnosis and the specification, which is where the expensive losses in this trade come from.
Contract Works Cover
Membranes, tanking, drainage and replastering before handover. On basement work both the values and the exposure to water during the job are significant.
Tools & Equipment Cover
Injection kit, pumps, meters and dehumidifiers. Drying equipment often sits in a customer's house for weeks, which is worth confirming is actually covered.
Your Guarantee Has Nothing Behind It Unless You Arrange It
Liability policies exclude efficacy, which in plain terms means they do not pay because a treatment failed to do what you promised. Your twenty or thirty year guarantee is a promise made by your company, and if your company is not there in year fifteen, the customer has a worthless piece of paper.
That is what insurance backed guarantee schemes exist for, and they are a separate purchase. If long guarantees are part of how you win work, this is the thing that makes them mean something, and it is worth being able to tell a customer that on the doorstep.
Where The Money Actually Goes Wrong
Rising damp, penetrating damp, condensation and a leaking pipe can all look similar on a wall and need completely different answers. Choose the wrong one and you have sold work that could never have succeeded.
The claim that follows is for the cost of the wrong treatment, the cost of the right one, and the damage that continued while the wrong one was in place. Professional indemnity is the only cover that responds to any of it, and a lot of damp specialists carry only public liability and are therefore uninsured for the most likely serious claim in their trade.
Basements, And The Problem With Slow Failures
A failed basement waterproofing system floods a room somebody has spent a lot of money finishing, and putting it right means taking the whole installation out again.
There is a second issue behind that. Liability policies are generally built around damage that is sudden and accidental, and waterproofing fails gradually by its nature. Damage that accumulated over months may fall outside cover altogether. It is worth asking your insurer that question directly rather than finding out during a claim.
Specialists Facing A Diagnosis Claim
A misdiagnosis claim is uncomfortable because it is about judgement rather than workmanship, and it usually arrives with a surveyor's report attached that says so.
What helps is process. A recorded survey method, moisture readings kept on file, photographs, and a written recommendation the customer signed rather than a verbal conversation on the day. Contractors who work that way defend these claims and contractors who do not, generally cannot.
If you are facing one, or your professional indemnity renewal has become difficult because of one, call 02382 000820 before you accept terms.
What We Need To Quote
- Turnover across damp proofing, basement work, timber treatment and replastering
- Whether you survey and produce written reports
- Whether purchasers, lenders or solicitors rely on those reports
- What guarantees you give, how long, and whether they are insurance backed
- Whether you waterproof habitable basements
- What chemicals you use and how they are applied
- Five years of claims, including guarantee claims you settled yourself
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this policy.
- Plasterers and drylinersReplastering after a damp course is usually part of the same job and the same guarantee.
- Professional indemnityThe cover that answers a misdiagnosis claim, which public liability will not.
- Tradesman insuranceTools cover, and the conditions on theft from a van overnight.
- Contractors all riskCover for the job itself while it is in progress, before it is handed over.
Common questions
How much is damp proofing insurance?+
Damp proofing is rarely priced as its own trade. General trades public liability starts at about £5.76 a month, roughly £69 a year, for a sole trader, and damp specialists sit above that for a reason worth understanding: your real exposure is not the injection, it is the diagnosis. Professional indemnity is the cover that answers a misdiagnosis claim and it is priced separately from liability. Call 02382 000820 and we will quote both.
Does my insurance cover the guarantees I give customers?+
No, and this is the most important thing on the page. Liability policies exclude efficacy, meaning they do not pay because a treatment failed to achieve what you promised. A twenty or thirty year guarantee is your company's promise, and if the company is gone the customer has nothing. Insurance backed guarantee schemes exist precisely to fill that gap and are bought separately.
Do damp proofing contractors need professional indemnity?+
If you diagnose and specify, which is most of the trade, then yes. The commonest serious claim is misdiagnosis, and the customer's loss is the wrong treatment, the right treatment and the damage that continued in between. None of that is damage your work caused, so public liability does not respond to any of it. Carrying only public liability leaves your likeliest big claim uninsured.
Am I covered if a basement I waterproofed floods?+
It depends what is being claimed. Taking out and replacing the failed system is rectification and is not insured. Damage to flooring, plaster, contents and electrics may be a public liability claim, although gradual damage over months can fall outside a policy that only answers sudden and accidental events. If the specification was wrong rather than the workmanship, it becomes a professional indemnity matter.
How long should I keep professional indemnity after retiring?+
Longer than you would expect, because guarantees here run for decades and defects surface slowly. Professional indemnity is claims made, so the policy in force today is what answers a claim about a survey you did years ago. Once you stop trading there is no renewing policy, which is what run off cover is for. Six years is a common minimum and longer is often sensible in this trade.
Other trades we cover
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