Glaziers and Window Fitters Insurance
The thing most glaziers get wrong about their insurance is assuming the pane they drop is covered. It is not, or at least not by the policy they think.
While you are carrying and fitting it, that unit is in your charge rather than being somebody else's property, and public liability specifically excludes exactly that. It needs to sit under goods in transit or contract works instead, and plenty of glaziers hold neither.
Everything else is more predictable: heavy awkward lifting, work above pavements on shopfronts, and the compliance question that comes with fire rated glass.
How Much Is Glaziers & Window Fitters Insurance?
Cover for a sole trader glazier with up to £2m of public liability typically starts at about £6.70 a month, roughly £80 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 Glaziers & Window Fitters Insurance Covers
Public Liability Insurance
Injury and damage to other people's property, including anybody hurt by broken glass and damage to the building around the opening. £2m domestic, £5m for commercial and anything above a public footway.
Employers' Liability Insurance
Required by law once anyone works to your instructions, and included as standard. Lifting injuries and cuts are frequent; falls are the severe ones.
Goods In Transit And Breakage
Glass and frames between supplier, yard and site, and while being manoeuvred into position. Bespoke and oversized units are worth scheduling given what they cost and how long they take to remake.
Contract Works Cover
The installation before handover, which matters on commercial facades glazed over several weeks.
Tools & Equipment Cover
Suction lifters, manipulators, cutting and sealing kit and access towers. Handling equipment is specialist and worth listing.
Deciding How To Handle Breakage
Small breakages are frequent enough in glazing that claiming for all of them damages a renewal more than it helps. That makes it a decision rather than an accident: either carry a higher excess and treat glass as a cost of doing business, or insure it properly and accept the rating that follows.
Either is defensible. What is not is assuming public liability handles it and finding out on the day you drop a templated shopfront pane that took six weeks to make.
Shopfronts Mean Working Above The Public
A shopfront job puts you directly above a pavement with people walking underneath, and dropped glass in a high street has nothing to do with the size of your contract. That alone justifies £5m or £10m even where a client has asked for less.
Shopfront work usually also means out of hours access. Check what your policy says about working in premises when they are closed, and about alarms being isolated while you are in there.
Fire Rated Glass Is A Whole Assembly
A fire resisting screen is certified as a complete system, glass, beads, seals and fixings together. Substitute one component and the certification may no longer describe what is actually in the opening.
If that comes out after a fire, the exposure runs a very long way past the value of the glazing, and it is closer to a professional liability than to a workmanship complaint. If you fit fire rated systems, tell us so it is written in rather than assumed.
Glaziers With A Breakage Or Injury Record
Two patterns cause trouble at renewal here. A run of breakage claims, which reads as handling rather than bad luck, and a lifting injury, which reads as a manual handling problem.
Both have concrete answers. Mechanical handling equipment for larger units, two person rules with a stated weight threshold, and a change to how units are moved on site are all things an underwriter recognises immediately.
If your renewal has moved sharply, ring 02382 000820 with the detail rather than working through a comparison site that will only see the numbers.
What We Need To Quote
- Turnover across domestic replacement, commercial glazing and shopfronts
- Whether you fit fire rated glazing
- The biggest single pane you handle, by size and value
- How high you work and whether over public areas
- Whether you manufacture or only install
- Whether you use mechanical handling equipment
- Five years of claims, breakage included
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this policy.
- Shopfitters and fit-outShopfronts arrive on somebody else's programme with the centre's rules attached.
- Carpenters and joinersDoors and frames sit across both trades on most jobs.
- 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 glaziers insurance?+
A sole trader glazier typically pays from about £6.70 a month, roughly £80 a year, for up to £2m of public liability alone. Domestic replacement work sits near that. Shopfronts do not, because you are working above a public pavement and should be carrying £5m or £10m, and because the panes are bigger and breakage is a real cost that public liability does not touch. Call 02382 000820.
Is glass I break during installation covered?+
Not by public liability. While you are handling it the unit is in your charge rather than third party property, which is excluded. Breakage needs goods in transit or contract works behind it. Many glaziers deliberately carry small breakages themselves with a higher excess, because claiming for them repeatedly costs more at renewal than it recovers.
What public liability limit do window fitters need?+
£2m is usually enough for domestic replacement. £5m is what commercial contracts, shopfronts and main contractor sites expect, and £10m turns up on larger commercial work. Because working above a public pavement raises the exposure regardless of the contract value, shopfront work justifies the higher limit whatever the client has asked for.
Do I need extra cover for fire rated glazing?+
Raise it specifically. Fire resisting screens are certified as complete assemblies including beads, seals and fixings, so substituting a component can mean the certification no longer describes what is installed. If that emerges after a fire the exposure runs well past the glazing itself, and it sits closer to professional liability than to ordinary workmanship.
Are misted sealed units an insurance claim?+
No. A failed sealed unit is a product failure and belongs to the manufacturer's warranty or your own guarantee. Liability insurance answers for damage and injury, not for a product not performing as promised. If the failure lets water into the wall and damages plaster and flooring, that consequential damage may be a claim even though the unit itself is not.
Other trades we cover
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