Faulty Workmanship Coverage

We all take care in our work. Whether we’re building a house or (in our case) helping out a tradie with their insurance, we never plan on anything going wrong.

But no matter how careful we are, how long we’ve been doing it for or how qualified we are, sometimes we simply stuff up and things go wrong.

For a tradesman this is commonly known as faulty workmanship or defective work, and here at Tradesman Insurance we are often asked if there is a way to protect against this with insurance.

Is Defective Work Covered?

The good news for tradies throughout Australia is that faulty workmanship and defective work are covered by public liability insurance.

Of course all insurance policies can differ in their wording and it’s important to check your own policy (or get your broker to), but generally it will be covered in some form.

What Can Be Claimed?

Whilst defective work is covered by public liability insurance, there are only certain costs which can be claimed, whilst others cannot be claimed.

What can be claimed is the cost of any property damage or personal injury that occurs as a result of the defective work.

What cannot be claimed is the cost of repairing or rectifying the defective work. This is something that cannot be insured against, and the cost of this will have to be covered by you or your business.

Claim Example

To help to explain how defective work is covered by insurance we will look at an example of typical claim.

A bricklayer builds a wall that fails and results in damage to a vehicle as well as injury to a person exiting the vehicle at the time of the failure.

After investigation it is found that the wall failed due to defective work completed by the bricklayer, and he is therefore found to be liable for the damage to the vehicle as well as the injury to the person.

Thankfully the bricklayer had public liability insurance, which covered the costs of repairing the vehicle as well the medical costs incurred by the injured person.

The policy did not cover the cost of rebuilding the wall, so the bricklayer had to cover this cost himself.

Whilst the bricklayer was still out of pocket in the end, the costs he incurred where far smaller thanks to the insurance he had in place.

More Information

If you already have a public liability policy in place, you should check your policy wording or consult your insurance broker to see if your policy includes cover for defective work.

If you would like to be covered for defective work but don’t have any public liability insurance in place, the best way to get started is to request a quote and see how much it will cost to get yourself covered.

The costs involved in a faulty workmanship or defective work claim can pose major risk for tradesmen, and the best way to protect against this risk is with the right insurance.