We carry the covers a rooflight subcontractor is expected to carry on commercial work, and we confirm the policy details and the sums insured in writing for your specific job rather than publishing a figure on a web page. The reason is practical: the level a building requires is set by your contract, your landlord or your main contractor, not by us, and a number printed on a website tells you nothing about whether the policy was in force last Tuesday. Ask for current certificates before anybody goes on your roof. Ask it of every trade, not only us.
The covers a roofing subcontractor is asked for
A commercial client or a main contractor’s approval process will normally ask for the same short list. Public liability, covering injury to third parties and damage to third party property. Employers’ liability, covering our own people. Contract works or all risks cover, which deals with the works themselves while they are part-built and vulnerable. Professional indemnity where a firm has taken on design responsibility rather than working to somebody else’s specification.
Those four are the standard set. A pre-qualification questionnaire will ask for the insurer, the policy number, the period of insurance and the limit of indemnity for each, and it will usually want a copy of the certificate rather than a statement that cover exists.
Employers’ liability is a legal duty, not a choice
Any business in Great Britain with employees must hold employers’ liability insurance under the Employers’ Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, and the statutory minimum limit is five million pounds. In practice the market commonly writes the cover at ten million. The certificate has to be displayed or made available to employees, and it is the one document a client can reasonably expect any employer on their site to produce without hesitation.
Public liability is not compulsory in law. It is compulsory in commerce. No sensible building manager lets an unknown trade onto an occupied roof without seeing it, and most commercial contracts specify a limit that the subcontractor has to meet before an order is placed.
Why we confirm the figures for your job in writing
Limits of indemnity are usually stated per occurrence, and the limit that suits a domestic loft conversion is not automatically the limit a distribution centre’s contract demands. Rather than advertise a figure, we tell you what is in force at the point of quoting, send the certificates with the quotation if you want them, and tell you plainly if a contract asks for a level above what we hold so you can decide before anybody commits.
That is a more useful answer than a badge. Cover changes at renewal, contracts vary, and a written confirmation dated to your job is the thing your own risk people will actually want in the file.
What to check on a certificate before work starts
Four things are worth reading properly. The period of insurance, because cover lapses and certificates get reused. The business description, because a policy written for general building may respond differently to work on a roof. The territorial limits, which rarely matter in Oxfordshire but occasionally do. And the limit of indemnity, checked against what your contract actually asks for rather than what looks like a large number.
If a certificate is more than twelve months old, it is out of date. If the business description does not mention the work being done, ask the question before the scaffold arrives rather than after a claim.
Exclusions that catch people out on a roof
Liability policies for roofing trades often carry endorsements that change what is covered and under what conditions. Hot works are the usual one: torch-on and hot bitumen work commonly attracts a warranty requiring fire watch arrangements and set periods after the last flame. Height restrictions appear on some policies. Cover for damage to the part of the property being worked on can be narrower than a client assumes, which is exactly where contract works cover earns its place.
Our own scope reduces some of this. We install and replace rooflights, so there is no torch-on or hot bitumen work in our part of the job. Where a covering has to be dressed back and made good around a new kerb by a roofing contractor, that work and its insurance sit with them, and we will tell you where the line falls before the order goes in.
Where professional indemnity actually comes in
Professional indemnity responds to a claim arising from advice or design rather than from workmanship. On a rooflight package it becomes relevant if the installer is the one determining, for example, the smoke ventilation free area, the fire performance requirement or the structural opening size, instead of installing to a design somebody else has taken responsibility for.
On most of the commercial work we do, the specification comes from an architect, a building surveyor or the client’s own maintenance team, and we install to it. Where you do not have a designer and want us to propose sizes and unit types, we will say what we are proposing and what we are not taking responsibility for, in writing, so the boundary is clear.
Your own policy and the building itself
The building’s insurer has an interest too. Most commercial property policies contain conditions about contractors’ work, unattended openings and heightened risk periods, and some require notification before roof work of any scale. It is worth a call to your broker, particularly on a phased job across a large roof where openings recur over several weeks.
Two of our working rules help here. Nothing is left open overnight: an opening formed in the morning is closed and weathertight before we leave the site. And on a run of units, only one opening is live at a time. Both reduce the exposure your policy would otherwise be carrying.
Insurance, guarantees and warranties are three separate things
Insurance responds to a loss. It is not a guarantee of workmanship and it is not the manufacturer’s warranty on the product. Our workmanship carries a ten-year guarantee, given by us, covering the installation itself: upstand and kerb detailing, flashings and laps, fixings and the interface with the covering. The unit’s own performance, sealed unit failure and actuator life, sits with the manufacturer under whatever warranty VELUX, Fakro, Keylite or Roto issue for that product.
A guarantee backed by an insurance policy is a different product again, sold by third parties, and if a contract requires one it needs raising early because it cannot be added afterwards. The wider paperwork picture on a commercial job is covered on our page about insurance, warranties and commercial paperwork.
Getting the paperwork moving early
Approval processes are slower than roofs. If your organisation runs a contractor approval system, send us the questionnaire when you first make contact rather than when you want dates, because the documents take time to assemble and the diary does not wait for them. We work across Oxford and twenty-five miles by road, and fifteen years in the trade means the pack is a familiar exercise rather than a scramble.
Call 01865 704245 or email info@heritageskylightsoxford.co.uk with the building, the number of units and the contract requirements, and we will tell you straight away whether we can satisfy them.
Helpful reading on this
Costs, comparisons and the questions we are asked most.
Tell us about your roof
We start with the building, the covering and the slope. Then we tell you what will suit it, and what it will cost, as a fixed written number.
- Surveyed before it is priced
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
- Building Control notification handled
- New installations and replacements