Maybe it’s never happened to you, maybe you’re just too careful to ever let it happen, but it’s something we all worry about, isn’t it? You’re carrying some drywall into your client’s home to patch up their wall, and you knock over a two hundred dollar trophy case, or you track something all over their beautiful Persian rug, or you slip and the drywall goes crashing through their sliding glass door.
Even if you’re not working in homes where people live, you worry about a stray 2×4 breaking a neighbor’s window, or maybe someone pops a tire on a busted hurricane tie one of your guys left laying around in a driveway or something.
Being a self-employed tradesman means that if something goes wrong, you eat the costs. You don’t have an employer whose insurance will cover anything that happens, you have clients, and if something goes wrong, they’re probably going to be the ones asking for a payout.
Having a solid tradesman’s liability policy in place can not only ensure that you are covered in case something goes wrong, it can also take the edge off, bringing you peace of mind so that you can be at ease while you work, knowing that everything is taken care of, and nothing short of extreme negligence is going to put you on the hook for repairs and replacements that you cannot afford.
The only question is when to buy your policy. The answer to that is simple: If you’re waiting until you have a job to go to before you buy your insurance, then you’re waiting too long.
When putting in a bid for a gig, the tradesman charging twice as much will always win the job over the tradesman who doesn’t have a good tradesman’s liability policy in place. If you don’t currently have any work lined up, it may feel like you’re spending money on a “maybe,” but it’s better to think of it as an investment into your next job. Even if you’re not in the least concerned over any damages you might do while on the job site, your client might not have the same level of confidence in your abilities. You don’t want to pay for damages out of pocket, and your clients don’t want to risk choosing between suing a self-employed contractor or eating the costs themselves. You might never need to cash in on your liability policy, but you’ll secure a lot more work if you have it.
