As a contractor, you should know by now that anything can happen within any business day and it usually does. You have a great deal of responsibility on your shoulders and it is up to you to make sure that the contract is completed in full and on time. In order for any of this to happen you need to rely on other people and it would be impossible to complete any given contract all by yourself. This is why you need to protect yourself from any eventuality because things will and do occur on any building site and even though you have the best health and safety record in the business, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t an accident waiting to happen just around the corner.
This is why it is essential that you make sure that you have contractors insurance that will cover you for the vast majority of eventualities and even though you try to protect what may or may not happen and you put the necessary fix in place, things just happen through no fault of your own and so it always makes sense to cover your back at all times. The following are just some of the things that could occur on any given job at any given time.
- Industrial accidents – When you think of all of the plant and machinery that is currently used for any of your contracts then it doesn’t bear thinking about what could occur. It really doesn’t matter how much you train your staff and use a staffing agency because the time will come when one of them will be distracted and they will get hurt as a direct result. If an employee is badly hurt or loses a limb then you will be directly responsible for the outcome and if you don’t have the right insurance in place then you’re going to have to put your hand in your pocket and pay. This could amount to a significant amount of money and may cancel out everything that you have worked hard for up until this point.
- Offsite accidents – Just because someone that you hire or you sub contract out isn’t injured while working directly on the work site, it doesn’t mean that you are still not liable for any outcomes. If you hire these people then you are accountable for them and so anything that occurs while they do their daily work, the responsibility stops at your door. You take out insurance for every other aspect of your life so it is difficult to understand why some contractors refuse to take out the right contractors insurance to protect themselves for all eventualities. You shouldn’t have to be sold on the merits of having a policy in place because you already understand what will happen if you don’t.
You are in a position of responsibility and so it is your job to make sure that everything is in place to make a success of every contract that you complete. One way to cover yourself from most eventualities is to make sure that you have contractor insurance in place to provide everyone with the protection that they need.
