Roofing Contractor Insurance UK: Hot Works, Height & Asbestos
Reviewed by John Miller, Director & Principal Broker — 25 August 2026
What this guide covers
- Why is roofing so hard to insure?
- How do we place a roofer the market has refused?
- What does each policy section actually do?
- What is the hot works warranty and why does it void claims?
- Did the Insurance Act 2015 change how warranties work?
- Which covers does your roofing business need?
- Do policies really cap your working height?
- What happens when you find asbestos on a strip?
- Is your roofing firm underwriting-ready?
- How are labour-only subcontractors treated?
- Who insures the roof while you are working on it?
- How adverse is your roofing risk profile?
- What drives a roofing contractor's premium?
- What do roofing claims actually look like?
- How should a roofer handle a fire or fall claim?
- What if you have already been refused cover?
Why is roofing so hard to insure?
Roofing contractor insurance is difficult to place because a single job routinely combines three of the exposures underwriters least want to see at once: working at height, naked flame on a combustible structure, and asbestos in any roof built before 2000. Falls from height remain the leading cause of workplace death in Great Britain, and roof work is the most over-represented activity within construction. Torch-on felt work attaches a hot works warranty to the liability policy, and breach of that warranty is one of the most common reasons a roofing claim is rejected. Cover is available — including for contractors already refused or loaded — but it is manually underwritten rather than scheme-rated.
Ask a generalist broker to place a roofing contractor and watch what happens. The trade code alone triggers automatic referral or decline in most online systems, before anyone has looked at your health and safety record, your accreditations or your claims history. That is not a judgement on your business. It is a system rejecting a category.
The category has earned some of its reputation. HSE data for 2024/25 shows falls from height caused 35 worker deaths in Great Britain and remained the leading cause of workplace fatality, as it has been in nearly every year since 2001/02. Across construction over the five years to 2024/25, falls from height accounted for more than half of all deaths — an average of around 21 per year — and within construction, roof work is consistently the most over-represented category.
One statistic in that data should concern every roofing business owner more than the headline. Over 65% of fatal fall injuries were to self-employed workers — 23 self-employed against 12 employees. Self-employed workers made up 40% of all fatal injuries while representing just 15% of the workforce. Given how much roofing is delivered through labour-only subcontract arrangements, that is not an abstract statistic. It is a description of how your workforce is structured.
This guide is written for roofing contractors placing or defending cover in 2026. It sits alongside our guides to scaffolding insurance and asbestos removal contractor insurance, and complements our construction insurance and contractors combined product pages. If your work is inspection and survey rather than installation, see roof inspection business insurance instead.
Key facts at a glance
- Falls from height caused 35 worker deaths in 2024/25 and remain the leading cause of workplace fatality in Great Britain. Construction's fatal injury rate is 1.65 per 100,000 — roughly five times the all-industry rate.
- Over 65% of fatal falls were to self-employed workers. Labour-only subcontract is the norm in roofing, and it is exactly the arrangement that creates employers' liability arguments at claim stage.
- The hot works warranty names RC7 by reference. Many wordings require a permit "in the form set out in Loss Prevention Recommendation RC7 published by the Fire Protection Association" — an external document most roofers have never read.
- The standard fire watch is 60 minutes continuous after all flame is extinguished, with combustibles cleared to 10 metres and extinguishers at the point of work. Some insurers and principal contractors require longer, plus a further check two hours later.
- Standard liability wordings frequently cap working height at 10 or 15 metres. Exceed the cap and there is an argument that the loss falls outside cover entirely.
- Operating without employers' liability insurance can attract a penalty of up to £2,500 for every day uninsured, plus up to £1,000 for failing to display the certificate on request.
- The Insurance Act 2015 changed warranty consequences. Breach now suspends cover rather than discharging the policy outright, and a breach relevant to one type of loss does not automatically defeat a claim for an unrelated loss.
The Insurability Framework™
Roofing is the textbook case for the Insurability Framework: a legitimate, skilled, essential trade that automated systems decline on trade code alone. Here is how each pillar applies to a roofing contractor specifically.
Underwriter Intelligence
A roofing underwriter is deciding two things: will this contractor set fire to somebody's building, and will somebody fall off. Everything else is detail. Knowing that a documented hot works permit system, evidenced height training and a clear subcontractor position are the three answers that matter lets us build a submission that leads with them instead of burying them behind turnover figures.
Difficult Risk Expertise
Roofers with a fire claim, roofers working above 15 metres, roofers doing strip-and-recover on pre-2000 industrial units, and roofers already refused by two or three markets are routinely declined by standard schemes. These are placeable through specialist markets and Lloyd's-side capacity, but only on a manually underwritten submission built to answer the specific decline reason.
Risk Assessment
The losses that ruin roofing firms are usually uninsured rather than underinsured — a height cap nobody noticed, a hot works warranty breached by a subcontractor, contract works cover that stopped at practical completion while the JCT contract said otherwise. These gaps get identified before they become the reason a claim fails.
Claims Advocacy
A roof fire produces an insurer investigation focused squarely on whether the warranty was complied with. Having someone who understands what the warranty actually requires — and what the Insurance Act 2015 says about the consequences of partial compliance — changes the conversation from a rejection letter to a negotiation.
What does each policy section actually do?
A roofing programme normally runs on a contractors combined policy bringing together public liability, employers' liability, contract works, plant and tools. Each section answers a different claimant, and the most expensive errors come from assuming one section covers a loss that actually belongs to another — particularly the boundary between public liability and contract works.
| Policy section | What it answers | Typical roofing scenario | Where roofers get caught |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public liability | Injury to third parties or damage to their property | Torch-on work ignites a roof void and the building is destroyed; a slate falls and injures a passer-by | Hot works warranty breach; height cap exceeded; £5m limit inadequate for a commercial rebuild |
| Employers' liability | Injury to employees — compulsory by law | Operative falls through a fragile rooflight; long-term hand-arm vibration from cutting | Labour-only subcontractors assumed outside EL when the working reality says employment |
| Contract works | Damage to the works themselves before handover | Storm strips a partially completed re-roof; water ingress damages the building interior overnight | Sum insured set at contract value not reinstatement; existing structure cover omitted entirely |
| Plant, tools & equipment | Theft or damage to owned and hired-in kit | Tools stolen from a van overnight; hired-in access equipment damaged on site | Overnight vehicle exclusions; hired-in plant continuing hire charges not covered |
| Professional indemnity | Financial loss from negligent design or specification | Falls advice on build-up or drainage design; specifying an unsuitable membrane system | Assumed unnecessary until a design-and-build contract requires it at £2m |
| Products liability | Injury or damage after the work is completed | A roof fails two years post-completion and damages the building below | Frequently sub-limited or excluded where the contractor also supplies materials |
One point deserves emphasis because it is repeatedly misunderstood by building owners as well as contractors. A contractor's public liability policy is not a substitute for the building owner's own insurance. Contractors are liable in law for the damage they negligently cause, not automatically for consequential loss or the full cost of a new building — and a £5 million or £10 million limit does not stretch far against a commercial rebuild plus business interruption.
What is the hot works warranty and why does it void claims?
A hot works warranty is a condition attached to your liability policy requiring specific fire precautions whenever you use a gas torch, hot bitumen, grinder or any naked flame. It typically requires a written permit, combustibles cleared to 10 metres, extinguishers at the point of work, and a continuous fire watch of at least 60 minutes after all flame is extinguished. Failure to comply with the fire watch timing is among the leading causes of rejected claims in this trade.
Here is the part most roofers do not know. Many wordings do not simply describe the required precautions — they incorporate an external document by reference. A typical clause requires that a hot work permit in the form set out in Loss Prevention Recommendation RC7, published by the Fire Protection Association, is completed jointly by the person carrying out the work and the insured's nominated safety officer before work commences, and that the precautions shown on the permit are complied with at each stage.
RC7 is the recognised authority on hot work risk control, and it is the document your policy is measuring you against. If you have never obtained a copy, you are complying with a standard you have not read. RISCAuthority and the FPA also run a Hot Works Site Induction Toolkit and a Hot Work Passport training pathway, and CITB maintains a roofing-specific training standard covering hot working permits and insurers' requirements — all of which are evidence an underwriter will credit.
The fire that starts after you leave
The 60-minute fire watch exists because most hot works fires do not start during the work. They start afterwards, when a smouldering ember in a roof void or joist finds something combustible. That is why the requirement is a competent person remaining in the area, watching for smouldering, discolouration, smoke or unusual smells, with an extinguisher to hand — not simply finishing an hour before you leave. Many insurers and principal contractors now also require a further check around two hours later.
The commercially useful point: cold-applied liquid membranes and EPDM single-ply systems eliminate open flame entirely. Moving away from torch-on where the specification allows removes the warranty exposure and is a genuine rating argument at renewal, not just a safety improvement.
Did the Insurance Act 2015 change how warranties work?
Yes, substantially — and most roofing contractors have never been told. Under the Insurance Act 2015, breach of warranty no longer automatically discharges the insurer from all liability. Section 10 makes breach suspensory: cover is suspended while the breach continues and revives once it is remedied. Section 11 provides that breach of a term designed to reduce a particular kind of risk does not defeat a claim for a loss of an entirely different kind.
Before the Act, a technical breach of a warranty could discharge the policy outright from the moment of breach — even if the breach had nothing to do with the loss. That was the source of a great deal of injustice in trades like roofing, where a paperwork failure on one job could destroy cover for an unrelated claim months later.
The current position is more balanced, and it matters in two practical situations:
- Remedied breaches. If a hot works permit system lapsed for a period and was then reinstated, losses occurring after remedy are not automatically outside cover simply because of the earlier lapse.
- Unrelated losses. If your hot works warranty was breached but the claim is an operative falling from a roof, section 11 gives a strong argument that the fire-related term is irrelevant to a fall-related loss.
What has not changed
None of this helps where the warranty breach caused the very loss claimed. If the fire watch was not kept and the building burned down as a result, the Act does not rescue the claim. The Act is a defence against technicality, not against causation — and the duty of fair presentation under the same Act still requires you to disclose every material circumstance clearly and accessibly at placement.
Which covers does your roofing business need?
Requirements diverge sharply by the kind of roofing you do. A domestic pitched-tile firm, a commercial flat-roof contractor using torch-on, and a heritage leadwork specialist face different exposures and are underwritten by different markets. Select the closest match below.
Cover Checker: what your roofing model needs
General information only — not personalised advice, not a recommendation and not a quotation. Cover is subject to insurer acceptance and underwriting.
Select a roofing model above to see the cover profile.
Do policies really cap your working height?
Yes. Standard liability wordings commonly restrict cover to work carried out no more than 10 or 15 metres above ground level. Exceed the stated height and the insurer has an argument that the loss falls outside the policy entirely. Unrestricted height cover is available but must be specifically negotiated — it is not the default, and most roofers never check.
The height cap is one of the quietest and most dangerous restrictions in tradesman policies. It rarely appears on a schedule summary. It sits in the wording, and it is only found when someone reads the policy after an incident. Ten metres is roughly a three-storey building — well within the range of ordinary commercial work.
Two related restrictions travel with it. Some wordings exclude work on structures over a stated number of storeys regardless of the height in metres, and some exclude work involving specified access methods such as rope access or mobile elevating work platforms unless declared. If you have moved into taller commercial work since your last renewal, that is a material change requiring disclosure — not something to leave until the next renewal questionnaire.
From recent placement conversations
The one that sticks with me is a contractor who had grown steadily from domestic pitched work into three and four-storey commercial refurbishment over about four years. Good firm, good record, no claims. He had renewed the same policy every year through a comparison site and had never had a reason to read the wording. It capped him at 10 metres. Four years of commercial work, arguably outside cover the entire time, and nobody had ever asked him what height he worked at. He hadn't done anything wrong — he'd just never been asked the one question that mattered. Check your height clause before you need it.
What happens when you find asbestos on a strip?
Any roof built or refurbished before 2000 may contain asbestos, most commonly in cement sheeting, gutter linings, bitumen products and soffits. Liability policies almost universally exclude asbestos-related liability, so a roofing contractor who disturbs asbestos-containing material is exposed on an uninsured basis unless specific cover has been arranged and the correct licensing position is in place.
The practical risk in roofing is not licensed removal work. It is the unplanned encounter — stripping an old industrial roof and finding cement sheet, or disturbing a bitumen product nobody surveyed. Under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 the duty holder should have provided information about asbestos on the premises, but on smaller commercial and domestic jobs that survey often does not exist.
Three things need to be true before you are protected. There must be a documented pre-works check of asbestos information; there must be a stop-work protocol the moment suspect material is encountered; and your policy position on asbestos must be understood before you bid, not after you strip. If licensed or notifiable non-licensed work is part of your offering, see asbestos removal contractor insurance and our asbestos removal insurance product page — that is a separate placement, not an extension of a roofing policy. HSE guidance on roof work is published in HSG33.
Is your roofing firm underwriting-ready?
Roofing underwriters assess controls before they assess price. The checklist below reflects the evidence a specialist contractor underwriter expects to see. Work through it before you approach the market — each unticked item is either a loading or a decline.
Underwriting readiness checklist
General information only — not personalised advice, not a recommendation and not a quotation. Tap each item you can currently evidence.
- Written hot works permit system in the RC7 form, with completed permits retained for every torch-on job
- Documented 60-minute fire watch procedure, with sign-off recorded and a later re-check where required
- Your policy's working height limit is known, in writing, and exceeds the tallest job you take on
- Work at height training and harness/inspection records current for every operative
- Written position on labour-only subcontractors, with EL treatment confirmed by your insurer
- Subcontractors' own liability certificates collected, checked for limits, and diarised for expiry
- Pre-works asbestos information check documented, with a stop-work protocol for suspect material
- Fragile roof and rooflight procedure, with edge protection specified on every job
- Contract works sum insured tested against reinstatement cost, not contract value
- Trade body membership — NFRC, CORC, LCA, FTMRC or equivalent
- Cold-applied alternatives used wherever specification allows, reducing torch-on exposure
- Overnight tool and plant security arrangements documented, including vehicle storage
How are labour-only subcontractors treated?
Labour-only subcontractors are generally treated as employees for employers' liability purposes because they work under your direction using your materials and methods. Bona fide subcontractors carrying their own insurance and their own risk fall under public liability instead. Getting this classification wrong is one of the most common and most expensive errors in roofing placements.
The distinction is not what the paperwork says. It is what actually happens on site. If you tell them when to arrive, direct how the work is done, supply the materials and the plant, and pay by the day or by the metre under your supervision, the working reality points to employment regardless of the CIS arrangement or the invoice header.
Two consequences follow. First, your employers' liability wage roll declaration must include labour-only payments — under-declaring is a fair-presentation issue that resurfaces at claim stage. Second, where genuinely bona fide subcontractors are used, their certificates must be collected and checked for adequate limits, because if they are uninsured the claim comes back to you.
The HSE statistic bears repeating here: over 65% of fatal falls from height in 2024/25 were to self-employed workers. The population most at risk is precisely the population whose insurance status is most often ambiguous.
Who insures the roof while you are working on it?
It depends on the contract. Under JCT arrangements, insurance of the works may sit with the employer or the contractor depending on which insurance option applies, and cover for existing structures is a separate question again. A roofer who assumes the building owner's policy responds to overnight water ingress on a partially stripped roof will often find it does not.
The exposure is specific to roofing and it is severe. A roof under refurbishment is open. A stripped roof left overnight, or a partially completed membrane, exposes the entire building beneath to weather. Damage to the interior from water ingress during the works is one of the most frequent roofing claims and one of the most frequently disputed, because it sits at the intersection of contract works, public liability and the building owner's own property policy.
Three practical points. Contract works sums insured should reflect the reinstatement cost of the works, not the contract value. Existing structures cover should be considered explicitly rather than assumed. And temporary weatherproofing arrangements should be documented — an insurer investigating an overnight ingress claim will ask what sheeting was used and how it was secured. Our guide to contractors all risks insurance covers the mechanics in more depth.
How adverse is your roofing risk profile?
Two variables drive most of the pricing spread: the nature of the work, and the claims and refusal history behind it. The assessor below gives an indicative view of where a submission is likely to land and which market will need to see it.
Risk Assessor: indicative placement tier
General information only — not personalised advice, not a recommendation and not a quotation. Indicative output based on general market behaviour, not an assessment of your business.
Choose both options to see an indicative tier.
What drives a roofing contractor's premium?
Twelve factors do most of the rating work on a roofing contractor. Hot works exposure, working height and claims history dominate, but several of the others are within your control and can be improved before renewal rather than merely disclosed at it.
| Rating factor | Why underwriters care | What improves it |
|---|---|---|
| Hot works exposure | Fire is the severity peril in roofing — a single ignition can total a commercial building | RC7 permit system operated and evidenced; cold-applied alternatives wherever specification allows |
| Maximum working height | Determines both fall severity and whether standard wordings can respond at all | Declare accurately; negotiate unrestricted height rather than assuming the cap fits |
| Claims history | A prior fire or fall claim signals control failure rather than bad luck in this trade | A documented root cause and remediation narrative for every prior loss |
| Prior refusal or cancellation | Disclosable, and it narrows the available panel sharply | Address the specific decline reason in the submission rather than re-presenting unchanged |
| Subcontractor mix | Labour-only arrangements create EL exposure that is frequently under-declared | Written subcontractor policy, certificates collected and limit-checked, wage roll accurate |
| Asbestos exposure | Pre-2000 strip work carries an exclusion most contractors have not read | Documented pre-works information check and a stop-work protocol for suspect material |
| Commercial versus domestic split | Commercial work means higher values at risk and stricter contractual requirements | Accurate turnover split; do not understate commercial exposure to secure a domestic rate |
| Fragile roof work | Rooflights and asbestos cement sheeting are a recurring cause of fatal falls | Written fragile surface procedure with edge protection and crawling boards specified |
| Trade body accreditation | NFRC, CORC, LCA and FTMRC membership implies audited standards | Join and evidence it — a genuine differentiator because it is voluntary |
| Contract works sum insured | Underinsurance triggers average and leaves the contractor funding the shortfall | Size on reinstatement cost of the works, not contract value |
| Design responsibility | Advising on build-up, falls or drainage creates a PI exposure separate from PL | Confirm whether any design duty is taken; arrange PI if so, before signing |
| Tool and plant security | Overnight van theft is the highest-frequency loss in the trade | Documented storage arrangements; understand the overnight vehicle conditions in your wording |
Premium figures circulating in the trade are illustrative only and are not quotations. Two roofing firms with identical turnover can be priced very differently on hot works controls and height alone, which is why manual underwriting rather than a scheme rate is normal once torch-on work is involved.
What do roofing claims actually look like?
The three scenarios below are illustrative composites written for this guide — not real clients and not actual claims. Figures are indicative of how claims of this type develop and are not settlements handled by Miller & Partner. The shape of each claim is more instructive than its headline value.
Composite 1 — The fire watch that finished early
Scenario: A three-man crew completes torch-on felt work to a flat roof above a retail unit at 3:45pm. The permit was issued correctly and combustibles were cleared. The crew waits, then leaves at 4:35pm — fifty minutes after the last flame. At 6:20pm a smouldering ember in the roof void ignites. The unit and two adjoining units are destroyed.
Claim type: Public liability — third-party property damage plus consequential business interruption claims from three tenants.
Indicative development: Rebuild and contents in the region of £1.6 million, with tenant business interruption claims of around £340,000 and investigation and legal costs near £120,000. The insurer's initial position was that the 60-minute fire watch warranty had been breached and the breach caused the loss.
Lesson: Ten minutes. The permit was right, the clearance was right, the extinguishers were right — and the one element that failed was the element the warranty exists to enforce. Where the breach causes the very loss claimed, the Insurance Act 2015 offers no rescue.
Indicative renewal impact: Cover declined at renewal by the incumbent; re-placed in the specialist market at a premium increase in the order of 250–320% with a fire watch condition precedent and an increased excess.
Composite 2 — The height clause nobody read
Scenario: A contractor who has grown from domestic into four-storey commercial refurbishment renews the same tradesman policy each year through a comparison site. An operative falls approximately 13 metres through a fragile rooflight during a strip and sustains life-changing injuries. The policy contains a 10-metre working height limitation.
Claim type: Employers' liability, with a coverage dispute over the height restriction running alongside the injury claim.
Indicative development: The injury claim developed towards approximately £1.9 million including care costs and loss of earnings. The coverage argument turned on whether the height limitation applied to the policy as a whole or to specified sections, and consumed around £85,000 in costs before it was resolved.
Lesson: The contractor had done nothing dishonest. He had simply never been asked what height he worked at, and had never read the clause. Growth into taller work is a material change requiring disclosure at the time, not at the next renewal questionnaire.
Indicative renewal impact: Re-placed with unrestricted height cover at a premium increase in the order of 140–180%, with evidenced height training made a condition.
Composite 3 — The overnight ingress
Scenario: A re-roof on an occupied office building is left partially stripped over a weekend, sheeted with polythene secured by battens. Overnight rain and wind lift the sheeting. Water enters across three floors, damaging suspended ceilings, IT equipment and a server room. The building owner's insurer pursues the contractor.
Claim type: Public liability and contract works, with an existing-structures gap in the middle.
Indicative development: Interior reinstatement and equipment replacement of approximately £280,000, with the occupier's business interruption claim adding a further £95,000. The contract works section responded to the works themselves but not to the existing structure, leaving a disputed layer that took eight months to resolve.
Lesson: Temporary weatherproofing is a documented procedure, not an afterthought on a Friday. The insurer asked what sheeting was used, how it was secured and who inspected it — and the absence of any record shifted the argument decisively.
Indicative renewal impact: Premium increase in the order of 85–115%, with a temporary weatherproofing condition and an increased contract works excess.
How should a roofer handle a fire or fall claim?
The first forty-eight hours decide most roofing claims. Insurers investigating a roof fire go straight to the hot works permit and the fire watch record; insurers investigating a fall go straight to training records and the subcontractor position. The eight steps below set out the process from incident through to renewal.
- Make the site safe and deal with injuries first. Secure the area, get medical help where needed and prevent further damage. Nothing about the insurance position changes the immediate duty to make the situation safe.
- Notify your insurer the same day. Do not wait for a claim from the building owner or an HSE letter. Liability policies require prompt notification of incidents that may give rise to a claim, and delay is a defence insurers will run.
- Secure the hot works permit and fire watch records. If any hot work was carried out, retrieve the completed permit, the fire watch sign-off and the extinguisher check for that specific job. This is the first evidence an insurer will request after a roof fire.
- Photograph everything before anything is cleared. Record the scene, the access arrangements, edge protection, temporary weatherproofing and the condition of the works. Site evidence disappears within hours once remediation begins.
- Establish who was working and under what status. Identify every operative on site, whether employed or subcontracted, and locate their training records and any subcontractor liability certificates. This determines which policy section responds.
- Report to the HSE where RIDDOR applies. Specified injuries, over-seven-day incapacitation and dangerous occurrences are reportable. A RIDDOR failure alongside a claim materially worsens both the regulatory and the insurance position.
- Route all communication through your broker. Do not discuss liability with the building owner, the main contractor or their insurer directly. Admissions made on site are difficult to withdraw and can prejudice cover under the policy conditions.
- Build the remediation narrative before renewal. Document the root cause, what has changed in your procedures and the evidence it has not recurred. A claim presented with a remediation story renews very differently from a bare loss-run entry.
What if you have already been refused cover?
A refusal is not the end of the placement, but it changes how the risk must be presented. Roofing is declined on trade code alone by many automated systems, so a refusal often says more about the distribution channel than about your business. The decline reason has to be answered directly rather than worked around, and further uncoordinated approaches actively damage your position.
Two things matter most once you have been turned down. First, every additional declinature is itself disclosable and narrows the panel further — shopping around independently after a refusal is the single most common way roofing contractors make their own placement harder. Stop approaching markets directly and let a broker sequence it.
Second, the decline reason is the submission. If cover was refused after a fire claim, the submission needs the root cause and the change in your permit system. If it was refused on height, it needs the training records and the access methodology. If it was refused on trade code alone, it needs to reach an underwriter who reads submissions rather than a system that filters them.
This is the core of what we do. Our guides to insurance for businesses refused cover, business insurance with a claims history and contractor insolvency insurance set out the wider approach, and the Insurability Framework explains the structured method behind it.
John Miller — Director & Principal Broker
John has spent over 13 years placing construction and contracting risks that standard markets decline, including roofing contractors working at height, firms carrying a fire claim from torch-on work, and businesses refused on trade code alone. Former number one Account Executive at Brown & Brown and number one Salesperson at AXA, with direct access to Lloyd's syndicates and specialist construction MGA schemes.
More about John • enquiries@millerandpartner.co.uk • 01792 001350
Glossary of terms
- Average (condition of)
- Where a sum insured is less than the true value at risk, the insurer reduces the claim payment proportionately. The mechanism by which underinsurance becomes an uninsured loss.
- Bona fide subcontractor
- A subcontractor working under their own direction, with their own insurance and their own risk. Falls under public liability rather than employers' liability.
- Condition precedent
- A policy term that must be satisfied before the insurer's liability arises at all. Stricter in effect than an ordinary condition.
- Contract works
- Cover for the works themselves during construction, before handover. Distinct from liability cover for damage to third-party property.
- Duty of fair presentation
- The obligation under the Insurance Act 2015 to disclose every material circumstance a prudent underwriter would want to know, in a clear and accessible manner.
- Existing structures
- The building already in place, as distinct from the works being carried out on it. Frequently a gap between the contractor's and the owner's policies.
- Fragile surface
- A roof element that will not safely bear a person's weight — typically rooflights, asbestos cement sheeting and some liner panels. A recurring cause of fatal falls.
- Hot works
- Any activity generating heat, sparks or naked flame — torch-on roofing, lead burning, grinding, disc-cutting, hot bitumen.
- Hot works warranty
- A policy term requiring specified fire precautions during and after hot work, typically including a permit, clearance of combustibles and a continuous fire watch.
- Labour-only subcontractor
- A subcontractor supplying labour while working under your direction with your materials and plant. Generally treated as an employee for employers' liability purposes.
- Permit to work
- A formal written authorisation issued before high-risk work begins, setting out the precautions required and who has signed them off.
- RC7
- Loss Prevention Recommendation RC7, published by the Fire Protection Association — the recognised authority on hot work risk control, and the standard many policy wordings incorporate by reference.
- Reinstatement cost
- The cost of rebuilding or replacing as new, including professional fees and debris removal. The correct basis for a contract works sum insured, not contract value.
- RIDDOR
- The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, requiring specified workplace incidents to be reported to the HSE.
- Strip and recover
- Removing an existing roof covering and replacing it. The activity most likely to disturb asbestos-containing materials on pre-2000 buildings.
- Suspensory warranty
- Post Insurance Act 2015, a warranty whose breach suspends cover while the breach continues rather than discharging the policy permanently.
- Torch-on
- Applying bitumen membrane using a gas torch. The most common source of hot works fire exposure in roofing.
- Working height limitation
- A policy restriction limiting cover to work below a stated height, commonly 10 or 15 metres. Frequently overlooked until a claim.
Frequently asked questions
Most declines happen automatically on trade code before anyone reviews the business. Roofing combines working at height, naked flame on combustible structures and asbestos on pre-2000 buildings, so many automated systems refer or refuse the whole category. A refusal from an online system usually says more about the distribution channel than about your firm.
It is a policy term requiring specified fire precautions whenever you use a torch, hot bitumen or grinder. It typically requires a written permit, combustibles cleared to around 10 metres, extinguishers at the point of work and a continuous fire watch of at least 60 minutes after all flame is out. Many wordings incorporate the RC7 permit format published by the Fire Protection Association by reference.
The standard requirement is a continuous 60-minute fire watch after all naked flames are extinguished, with a competent person watching for smouldering, discolouration, smoke or unusual smells with an extinguisher to hand. Some insurers and principal contractors require a longer period plus a further check around two hours later, so check your specific wording.
No, not since the Insurance Act 2015. Section 10 makes breach suspensory — cover is suspended while the breach continues and revives once remedied. Section 11 means breach of a term aimed at one kind of risk does not defeat a claim for an unrelated loss. None of that helps where the breach caused the very loss claimed.
Very often, yes. Standard liability wordings commonly cap cover at 10 or 15 metres above ground level, and some also restrict work by number of storeys or by access method. Unrestricted height cover is available but must be specifically negotiated. Check the clause before you need it, and treat growth into taller work as a material change requiring disclosure.
Generally not. Liability policies almost universally exclude asbestos-related liability, so disturbing asbestos-containing material on a pre-2000 roof leaves you exposed on an uninsured basis unless specific arrangements are in place. Document a pre-works asbestos information check and operate a stop-work protocol for suspect material.
Usually yes. Labour-only subcontractors work under your direction using your materials and methods, so they are generally treated as employees for employers' liability purposes regardless of the CIS arrangement. Their payments must be included in your wage roll declaration, because under-declaring resurfaces as a fair-presentation problem at claim stage.
The claim comes back to you. Where you engage bona fide subcontractors, collect their liability certificates, check the limits are adequate for the work and diarise the expiry dates. An uninsured subcontractor causing third-party damage on your job leaves your policy as the only one in the frame.
It depends on the contract. Under JCT arrangements, insurance of the works may sit with the employer or the contractor depending on which insurance option applies, and existing structures are a separate question again. Never assume the building owner's policy will respond to overnight water ingress on a roof you have opened up.
£5 million is a common minimum but is frequently inadequate for commercial work, because a rebuild plus the occupier's business interruption exhausts it quickly. £10 million is the practical standard for commercial roofing, and principal contractors on larger schemes often require more. Check the contract requirement before you price the job.
Employers' liability cover is compulsory once you have any employee. Operating without it can attract a penalty of up to £2,500 for every day you are uninsured, with a further penalty of up to £1,000 for failing to display the certificate on request. Labour-only subcontractors will usually count as employees for this purpose.
Yes, but it needs a specialist placement rather than a scheme quote. The submission has to address the root cause directly — what failed in the permit or fire watch system, what has changed, and what evidence exists that it has not recurred. Approaching multiple markets independently after a refusal makes this harder, because each additional declinature is itself disclosable. Our construction insurance service covers the wider sector.
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About this guide
This guide is general information about insurance for UK roofing contractors. It is not advice, and it is not a recommendation or a quotation. Any cover described is subject to insurer acceptance, the full policy wording, and underwriting.
The case studies are illustrative composites written for this guide — they are not real clients and not actual claims, and the figures are indicative of how claims of this type develop rather than settlements handled by Miller & Partner. Premium ranges and limits referred to are illustrative and are not quotations. The interactive tools in this guide provide general information only and do not constitute personalised advice, a recommendation or a quotation.
Legislation, regulations, HSE statistics and guidance are stated as at the publication date shown at the top of this guide. Policy terms including hot works warranties and working height limitations vary between insurers — always read your own wording rather than relying on the general descriptions here. For our regulatory status, please see the footer of this website.
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