Property Maintenance and Repair Contractor Insurance

The single biggest problem in property maintenance insurance is a policy that covers a narrower business than the one that exists.

A maintenance contractor is engaged to keep properties working, and whatever is wrong gets fixed. The week includes jobs that sit in several different trade categories, and the ones that cause difficulty are predictable: going onto a roof to stop a leak, which is roofing work; doing anything to a gas appliance, which needs registration; electrical work that is notifiable; using heat to free a pipe; and working above whatever height the policy caps. None of those feel like a different business from inside the van, and all of them can sit outside a policy written for general maintenance.

So the declaration has to be honest and complete rather than tidy. List the trades actually carried out including the occasional ones, state the maximum working height you reach, declare heat work, be explicit about gas and electrical work and the registrations held, and say what is subcontracted rather than done in house. It is better to be declined for a specific activity and know it than to hold a policy that excludes the job you were doing when something went wrong, which is how a business ends up uninsured for its commonest work.

Across property maintenance, one type of loss dominates everything else, and it is not injury.

A compression joint that was nearly tight, a push fit not pushed fully home, an isolated system refilled without checking a connection, a cistern overflow left running, a radiator removed for decorating and not capped properly, or a stop tap closed on a worn gland that then leaks. The work is finished, the contractor leaves, and the water runs overnight. In a block or a flat it goes through a ceiling into the property below and then into another one, so a twenty minute repair produces a claim involving three properties, their contents, drying, and alternative accommodation.

So the controls are small and specific. Pressure or fill and check before leaving rather than at the start of the job, a physical inspection of every joint made before packing up, a wait after refilling instead of leaving immediately, isolation left in a known state with the tenant told what is off, and a rule that a repair is not left unattended on its first fill. Where the property is above another, that discipline is worth more than anything else in the risk, and it is worth telling an underwriter that it is your procedure.

Access is a distinct exposure in this trade and it is rarely thought about until it becomes a problem.

A maintenance contractor holds keys, fobs and codes for many properties, enters homes where tenants live, and frequently works alone. That produces several different risks at once: a theft or damage allegation after a visit where nobody else was present, a safeguarding concern where a tenant is vulnerable, a dispute about damage that was already there, a key or fob lost and a block that now needs rekeying, and a tenant injured by something left out while you were in another room. Letting agents and housing providers also impose their own requirements on all of this contractually.

So the protections are procedural and cheap. A key register recording what is held and who has it, with keys not labelled by address, a logged appointment and arrival with the tenant's agreement to entry, photographs of the condition of the area before starting which resolves most damage disputes immediately, two people for visits where a concern exists, and a written statement of what was done left behind. For lone working, a check in arrangement. Agents and housing clients generally ask for most of this, and the ones that do not still expect it after an incident.

Almost every maintenance business uses other trades, and the client almost never distinguishes between them and you.

A letting agent instructs you, you send a gas engineer, an electrician or a roofer, and as far as the agent and the tenant are concerned the work was yours. If that subcontractor causes a flood, leaves an unsafe appliance, or does notifiable work without certification, the complaint and the claim arrive at your door, and your policy responds first. The difficulties are predictable: a subcontractor with no insurance, with insurance that expired, with cover that excluded the work they did, or operating without the registration their trade required.

So the checks need to be a process rather than a favour. Public liability and employers' liability evidenced at engagement and diarised for renewal rather than taken on trust, registration verified for gas and electrical work against the register rather than a card, the work they are permitted to do written down, and their certificates kept with the job record so they can be produced years later. It is also worth telling your insurer what proportion of work is subcontracted, since a business that mostly subcontracts is rated differently from one that mostly does not.

The breadth of what you actually do is what this placement turns on. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.