As a tradie, getting your insurance sorted correctly is paramount. The last thing you want is for your claim to be denied because you didn’t have the right cover, or you undervalued one of your assets. If you reckon you need to double check your cover, get in touch with the pros here at Cactus – we can make sure you avoid the below pitfalls!

Miscalculations in your sum-insured

Imagine that you head to your locked shed to grab your tools for work, only to discover that some opportunist has broken in and stolen them. You make a claim, but you’re only compensated for the much lower amount you set when you took out your cover and you have to cough up the rest to replace your tools. Not ideal.

Undervaluing assets is one of the most common errors tradies make when it comes to insurance. Although you might have got it right in the beginning, if you’ve upgraded your tools or added more to your collection since but haven’t updated your cover to reflect these changes, you could be more out of pocket than you’d like!

Mixing business and personal

Some private insurance policies may not cover damage/loss to your personal vehicle or tools if they are used for work purposes at the time of the incident.

For example, you’re heading to work in your truck that’s got all your tools in the back. You get into an accident and need to claim on your personal vehicle insurance for the repairs on your truck. You put in a claim, only for it to be denied because it’s determined that you’re using your vehicle for work purposes given that you’ve got your tools inside.

It’s very frustrating when this particular thing happens, they’re your tools and it’s your personal truck so why wouldn’t your personal vehicle insurance cover it? To stop yourself being caught out, make sure that if you will be using your personal vehicle to carry tools or for other work purposes, you get commercial cover sorted.

Not having faulty workmanship cover

You’re working on a job and one of your team causes damage to a window while sanding the frames. No problem, you’ll just claim on your liability insurance. But your claim is denied because you don’t have a faulty workmanship extension in place.

Any number of things can happen on site and it’s important that you’re covered for every possibility, no matter how unlikely. What might not seem like that much of a priority now could be an issue later on (Murphy’s Law and all that). Make sure that you know exactly what your insurance policy covers you and your team for and that you add on any extensions you might need.