Stone, Marble and Granite Worktop Insurance

This is the most important thing happening in this trade and it deserves stating plainly rather than as a general dust warning.

Natural granite contains crystalline silica. Engineered quartz contains substantially more, and processing it generates respirable dust in concentrations that have produced silicosis in fabrication workers after a few years of exposure rather than a working lifetime, including in young people. The cases reported internationally have been severe, and some jurisdictions have moved to restrict engineered stone work entirely. In insurance terms that is a long tail employers' liability exposure where the understanding of the risk, and the legal environment, are both moving.

So the controls are not optional and they are what an insurer will assess. Wet cutting and wet processing as the default rather than when convenient, on-tool water suppression and extraction, air fed or appropriate respiratory protection with face fit testing rather than disposable masks, workshop housekeeping that removes settled dust by wet methods rather than sweeping, air monitoring where exposure is uncertain, and health surveillance for everybody processing stone. Keep old employers' liability certificates and exposure records, because a claim will be made against the policy in force at the time.

The commercial failures in this trade come from a single property of the material: it is cut once.

A worktop is templated in a kitchen, fabricated to that template, and delivered. If the template was wrong, if a wall was not where it appeared, if a unit moved after templating, if an appliance cutout was positioned from the wrong drawing, or if the layout did not allow for an overhang or a joint, the top does not fit. Unlike timber it cannot be planed, and a cutout cannot be moved. The remedy is refabrication: new material, new machining, another delivery, and a customer without a kitchen for another fortnight.

So the templating process is where the money is protected. Template after units are fitted and fixed rather than from drawings, confirm appliance models and their actual cutout dimensions rather than assuming a standard, record wall conditions and out of square, get the layout and joint positions agreed in writing with the customer including where a joint will be visible, and photograph the template conditions. Where a customer or a kitchen fitter wants templating before units are secured, that is a risk to decline or to record explicitly.

Installation is where the frequent claims happen, and it is a handling problem in somebody's home.

A worktop section can weigh well over a hundred kilograms, is awkward, is fragile in the plane it is weakest, and has to come from a van, through a front door, along a hallway, possibly round a turn, into a kitchen that has just been decorated. The realistic claims are a scraped or gouged wall, a damaged door frame, a cracked floor tile, a broken slab, damage to units or an appliance, and an injury to an installer from the weight. In a flat, add a lift or a staircase.

So the controls are assessment and protection rather than strength. Access measured and assessed before the day rather than discovered on delivery, enough people and lifting aids for the weight, the route protected before anything comes through, suction lifters and A frames used properly, and a decision made in advance where access is genuinely unsuitable. Photograph the route before and after. A gouged hallway on the day a customer's new kitchen is finished is a small claim with a large effect on the relationship and on the final payment.

Breakage is a normal cost of this trade, and the question for insurance is whose material broke and what it broke on the way.

Slabs crack in fabrication at a cutout, in transit if poorly supported, when lifted on the weak axis, and on installation if a substrate is uneven or a top is twisted. Cutouts for sinks, hobs and taps are the recognised weak points, and a crack at a hob cutout can appear weeks after installation under thermal movement. A broken slab is a material and labour loss to the fabricator. But a slab that breaks while being carried into a house may also take out a door frame, a floor or an installer's foot.

So the position worth establishing is how your own stock and work in progress are covered, including part fabricated tops which are worth considerably more than the slab, and how breakage in transit and during installation is treated, since those sit between stock cover and liability. Practically, support slabs properly in transit on A frames rather than flat, lift on the strong axis, reinforce around cutouts as the material requires, and check substrate level before placing a top rather than after it cracks.

Silica is the question an underwriter cares most about. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.