Carpenters
Insurance

Tailored cover for carpenters and joiners

Carpenters insurance is a combination of various business insurance policies that are needed by chippies to make sure they are covered correctly.

Regardless of whether you do domestic carpentry work, commercial carpentry, or even multi-story carpentry work we can provide you with a tailored carpentry insurance solution.

Trust an insurance broker that has placed hundreds of policies and specialises in insurance for carpenters and other trade contractors.

Don’t spend countless hours shopping around for insurance cover, we provide you the most competitive carpentry insurance options the first time.

Professional
tailored advice

Competitively
priced policies

Comprehensive
cover options

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What you need to know about

Carpenters Insurance for carpentry businesses and contractors

Insurance for carpenters can generally be quite straight forward however, there are a number of conditions that you need to know about before purchasing any kind of business insurances.

We specialise in carpentry insurance and can make sure that you are getting the best cover for your business while also getting competitive pricing.

As a trade contractor, you know that cheap isn’t usually good and good isn’t usually cheap. The same goes with insurance policies.

We will help you navigate your way through fine print and make sure that the policy you purchase is right for your financial situation and actually worth the weight of the paper its written on.

The carpentry work that you are doing will determine what carpenter insurance policies you need to have in place.

The most common insurance for carpenters are:

Our focus is on delivering you quality advice, removing the overload of phone calls and paper work to make sure that you have a dedicated insurance advisor that you can count on.

We keep our paperwork to a minimum so its simple, quick and straight forward.

Need a Broker who can assist with Insurance for carpenters? We've got you covered.

We understand that running a carpentry business and being on the tools all day can make it hard to handle the admin work. Let us take care of it for you. All of our Brokers here are to work with you to make the process simple and easier to manage.
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What insurance policies do carpenters need?

Carpenter public liability insurance can be a little confusing from an insurance perspective. 

Not for us it isn’t, as we know the questions to ask about your business to know that you’re covered correctly. 

One of the biggest issues that we see with carpentry insurance is whether you are declining your builders license or not. 

Public Liability insurance for carpenters is generally categorised into whether you hold a building license or you do carpentry work that doesn’t require a builders license. 

There is a big difference between the type of work that you’re covered for or not. 

Carpenter insurance packages will usually have an option to include portable equipment insurance.

You’ve spent a lot of money on getting a good amount of high quality tools to do your job so it’s important to insure them for replacement value. 

We’ve spoke with many carpenters that have gone to their ute in the morning and their tool box has been raided.

This usually leads to a morning of running around to Bunnings and replacing your gear so you can keep working. 

With most tools of trade policies having quite a low excess, if this did happen to you we can generally get this covered by the insurer and you’re back on your feet without a significant cost to you.  

Your motor vehicle is like your portable office and tool box all in one. 

If you’ve spent money and time getting things like signage, storage and comfort upgrades so you can run your business from your car then you should have a good insurance policy to match. 

Most standard policies don’t give you anywhere near enough cover for a vehicle that is used commercially. 

Most policies are just designed for mum and dad use. That’s where commercial motor insurance for carpenters can really help.

If you’ve taken on a build project and have outlayed significant costs to get the project completed your construction insurance will protect the project up until its completed.

Construction insurance for carpenters is designed to cover the project whilst it is under construction.

For example, you’re 40% through a new build, a fire came through the area and completely destroyed the site. A construction policy is designed to cover the property damage and get you back to the same period of construction that you were at prior to the fire.

This will usually cover expediting costs, replacement of materials, cover for the additional labour costs required as well as also offering a defects liability period as well.

We all know about income protection insurance for carpenters but we can tell you right now, many people don’t have this cover in place. 

We’ve heard about the horror stories of people being injured on a job site so it’s important for you to consider how you and your family would cope if this happened to you. 

What happens when you can’t work, the projects can’t get completed or your just working on a minimal margin because you’ve had to contract out all of the work. 

If something happens to you on a job site, make sure you have some form of income protection policy in place. 

We have a policy that will typically cover you for a 2 year period if an accident or illness was to occur. 

Your Insurance for Carpenters Questions Answered

Most head contractors across Australia will usually ask for a copy of your public liability insurance before you are contracted to do work on their behalf.As part of this process they usually request a copy of your insurance policy to ensure that you are covered for the work that you will be doing. 

It is not uncommon for the company to have a minimum limit that they will accept as part of this vetting process.$20,000,000 is currently the “normal” limit now as the costs of claims continue to trend upwards. Some contractors will allow a $10,000,000 limit however, it depends on the contractor and what their requirement is to accept.

Carpenters insurance policies don’t usually includeprofessional indemnity insurance however, some carpentry businesses do require this cover. Professional Indemnity insurance is only generally required if you are doing any design, certification or signing off on building compliance. These policies are usually required by builders and not standalone carpentry contractors working under someone elses building license.

To give you an example of what public liability insurance covers the best way to do this is by giving you an example of a common claim. 

A frequent claim that is lodged on carpenter public liability insurance policies is for injuries to another contractor. 

For example, you are working on a job site with 10 other tradies or more and you injure another contractor while doing your work. This would generally be covered by your public liability insurance policy. 

The other common occurence is damaging property. For example, you’re quoting a repair job at a domestic house and you shatter a window with your ladder. 

Workmanship claims are also quite frequently lodged as well.

This type of insurance is designed to protect you from any legal liabilities that could arise from your management or control of a company – even if you are not the owner of the company. This could include things like wrongful dismissal, discrimination, or even sexual harassment claims.

This type of insurance is designed to protect you from the costs of being audited by the ATO. It can cover things like the cost of hiring an accountant to help with your audit, as well as any legal costs that may be incurred.

There are a few factors to consider when providing you a price estimate. To speak broadly, your premium can typically range between $500 – $1,500 which is most common. Higher premiums are generally charged when you are performing higher risk jobs.For example, working higher than 10 metres, licensed building work, majority or work is structural or formwork. 

You should consider getting your own insurance policy when you register an ABN.

Registering an ABN means that you are planning to operate your own business or perform your own business activities. 

These are the activities that won’t be covered by your employer if you’re employed and any work that you do as part of your business won’t have cover if you dont have a carpenters insurance policy in place.

We specialise in bundling your insurances together. 

We contact multiple insurers to make sure you’re getting the best deal. 

We can also make sure that your renewal dates start or finish at the same time each year so you don’t have to worry about insurances renewing all year round. 

We also work with a number of premium funders that allow you to bundle multiple insurance policies into one simple monthly instalment.

If you are a sole trader, you are not legally required in some states to take out any specific types of insurance. However, it is always a good idea to have some form of personal indemnity insurance in place, as this will provide you with protection in the event that something goes wrong in your business. You might also want to consider taking out management liability insurance if you have employees, or tax audit insurance if you are likely to be audited by the ATO.

What to look out for when buying insurance for carpenters

Licensed Builders

If your carpentry work is done under your own building license then its important to let us know.

Some insurers won’t offer carpentry insurance to chippies who are using their own building license.

We will still be able to source you a competitive policy however, if not declared correctly then you may face issues down the track if you ever need to make a claim.

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Height Restrictions

If you’re working from heights then its important to take note that some insurers impose height restrictions on their policies.

This is a way that they can reduce their exposure and limit their cover to general residential carpentry work only.

Height restrictions will usually be a 10 metre limit which will typically limit you to only double storey dwellings.

If you’re working at higher heights then make sure your personal accident insurance policy doesn’t exclude this.

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Sub-contractors

It is not uncommon for trade businesses to utilise other business owners under a sub-contract agreement.

However, when it comes to your insurance it can make an impact to your cover and the premium that you pay.

Even if you only use a small amount of subbies you still need to let your insurance company know.

Our process is designed to ask these questions so that we can work with you to make sure that your policies are suitable for the work that you’re doing.

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Why Priority Insurance Brokers?

Why should you use Priority Insurance Brokers to arrange your Carpenters Insurance?

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Carpenters Insurance Form

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Carpenters Insurance Form

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