casual labour insurance

[RogerS]

I have a young lad who comes and gives me a hand from time to time at the cottage.

I'm wondering where I stand from an insurance point of view?
Do I need insurance for him if he has an accident?
If he does something that injures someone else?
If so, what sort of insurance and any suhhestions as to who provides such/premiums etc?

How does this differ from the gardener who comes and cuts the grass?

Many thanks

Roger

 

[White House Workshop]

It depends on your contractual relationship with the young lad, I would think. If he's just popping round to work with you then your householders insurance should cover it, but if you're paying him to come round you need business insurance.

Your gardener should be covered by his own insurance as it's his business...

 

[Russell]

my home insurance covers people who are employed by me to work in my home such as a cleaner or gardener. I am not sure it would cover use of woodwork machinery but labouring etc I would have thought fine.

 

[RogerS]

It depends on your contractual relationship with the young lad, I would think. If he's just popping round to work with you then your householders insurance should cover it, but if you're paying him to come round you need business insurance.

Your gardener should be covered by his own insurance as it's his business...

Interesting....But what sort of business insurance ? If I'm renovating a property for my own use then it's not really a business ! Do you see my problem?

 

[Terry Smart]

Hi Roger

Firstly I'd check with your household insurers. If that doesn't solve it for you then I think this would all come down to whether or not, legally speaking, you are 'employing' him. There is a definition of this available which you might be able to find here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/employment-status/index.htm. I don't think it matters whether you are a business or not, you can employ someone as a private individual.

Of course, if you are employing him, there are all sorts of other issues that will make this far more complicated than necessary...

Certainly the gardener cutting the grass should have public liability insurance along with employee liability insurance if he employs anyone, as said earlier, but he is a self-empoyed person subcontracting to you and therefore such matters are his responsibility, not yours.
I'd have though in this simple case your household insurance would cover things like accidental damage caused to your property, but if you make yourself liable for any injury caused to him by offering insurance that could open up a whole new can of worms!
What you really need is a form of employee liability insurance, perhaps a phone call to a business broker asking about how to provide this for a casual labourer (although I don't think even this is an accurate description, see the same link as above) might point you in the right direction.

Does this help or make things even more complicated???

 

[Dave S]

Roger,

I wonder if self-build / renovation experts might be the best placed to advise.

I'm guessing you already are aware of these links, but just in case:

Build It (has a chatroom and 'ask our experts' feature)

www.ebuild.co.uk (has a forum - link on RHS)

Homebuilding and Renovating Magazine (Also has a forum)

Dave

 

[RogerS]

Some good advice and links, thanks guys.

Initial investigation shows household insurance does not cover this. Quick peek at Axa seemed to start me going down a very circuitous route...their website questions seemed to be coming from the perspective of me and the lad working on other people's property rather than my own. Asks if woodworking machinery is involved! If I describe my occupation as property developer then it tells me that the policy is not suitable and suggests I look at Van Insurance!! But if I put in builder then it's quite happy. Not sure I see the difference but there you go. Have a sense that the questions might be tailored as you progress through the form and based on answers given but no time to investigate whether or not this is the case.

It also asks if I've had a Health and Safety assessment. Can I do this myself? Seem to remember a thread on this so must research later. Common sense not good enough these days, I guess. I know that I need to do this when I change a lightbulb.

But the three links given by Dave are showing promise.

Maybe I'll get SWMBO some dungarees

 

[DavidE]

Roger,

The law says that as an employer you have a duty of care to carrry out risk assements for any work. Of course you can do generic ones for repetetive tasks. However, you only need to keep a record of these assesments if you employ over five people. The HSE website on risk goes into a lot more detail. It also covers qualification (they just expect you to know the tasks/work and understand a little about how to present the info in an assesment) to do the assesments etc. (The FAQ page is quite good)

http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/

Thanks, David