Income Protection for Cladding Installers
Facade work is distinct from roofing in a way that matters, which is the orientation.
A roofer works on top of a building with gravity roughly on their side. A cladding installer works on the vertical face of it, from a platform suspended or climbing up the outside, handling panels that are large enough to act as sails and heavy enough to injure somebody if they move unexpectedly. The weather is not an inconvenience, it is a controlling factor.
Income protection pays a monthly amount while you cannot work. In this trade there is also a commercial point worth raising, which is what the work looks like in five years.
The short answer
Cladding work takes place on the outside face of a building, usually from a mast climber, hoist or scaffold, handling large panels in the wind at height. The risk is the combination: an awkward heavy load, an exposed working platform and weather, all at once. A lot of current work is remediation, which pays well and is a programme with an end date rather than a permanent market.
What actually stops you working
- Falls from mast climbers, hoists, scaffold and edge positions on the building face
- Injuries from handling large panels at height in wind, including being struck or crushed as a panel moves
- Shoulder and back injuries from lifting and positioning heavy panels from a confined platform
- Cuts and hand injuries from sheet metal, fixings and cutting operations on the platform
- Respiratory exposure from cutting and drilling panel materials and from removing existing build-ups
- Hand-arm vibration from sustained use of drills and fixing tools over a career
Sick pay, if you get any
Mostly none, because this trade is dominated by day rate subcontracting on commercial projects. Those arrangements carry no occupational sick pay and no statutory sick pay, so the income stops the day you do. Installers employed directly by a facade contractor may have occupational sick pay. Day rates in remediation work have been strong, which makes the absence of any safety net behind them more consequential rather than less.
Why the definition of incapacity decides it
The clause does the heavy lifting here. An installer with a repaired shoulder or a back injury can do a wide range of ground-level work, and an any occupation definition will say so. An own occupation definition asks whether you can do cladding work, which means handling large panels on an exposed platform at height, and that is a much narrower question with a much more likely answer of no.
A Panel In The Wind Is The Hazard Nobody Outside The Trade Pictures
Ask anybody what is dangerous about cladding and they will say the height. Installers know the answer is the panel.
A facade panel is large, flat and rigid, which makes it behave like a sail. Handling one on an exposed platform forty metres up, in a gust, with a colleague at the other end and limited room to let go safely, is the moment the trade's serious injuries happen. Being struck, crushed or pulled off balance by a load that has caught the wind is a mechanism specific to working on a building's vertical face.
That is why absences in this trade tend to be long when they occur. The injuries are not sprains, they are shoulders, backs and crush injuries, and they take months. It is worth paying attention to how long the benefit pays as well as when it starts.
Good Day Rates With Nothing Behind Them
There is a specific financial pattern in this trade that is worth naming, because it leads people to under-insure precisely when they can best afford not to.
Remediation and facade work has paid well, and day rate subcontracting makes the weekly figure look healthy. What it does not come with is sick pay, death in service, holiday pay or any notice. So a gang member on a strong day rate has a higher income than most people on this site and less protection than almost any of them, and the household's spending has usually adjusted upwards to match the earnings.
That combination is the argument for cover rather than against it. The amount worth protecting is based on what you reliably earn across a year rather than your best month, and it is worth being realistic about gaps between projects when setting the figure. Travel and lodging payments are also worth discussing, since they may be a real part of what you take home.
If you stop
On day rate subcontract work the engagement simply ends, usually the same week, and the gang carries on without you. There is no job held open and no process, so an injury costs the income immediately and the place on the project as well. Getting back onto comparable work after a long absence depends on the state of the programme at the time.
Nothing From Work, And Often A Mortgage Sized To A Day Rate
Day rate subcontractors have no death in service of any kind, so whatever a household would be left with is whatever has been arranged personally.
The complication specific to this trade is that households tend to have committed against a strong day rate. A mortgage, a vehicle and a standard of living set against remediation money is a larger ongoing commitment than the same family would have on a trade wage, and it does not reduce if the earner is gone.
That makes the honest figure bigger than a rule of thumb suggests. It is worth working out against the actual commitments rather than a multiple, and it is cheap to arrange for somebody in their thirties in good health.
The Programme Will End Before Your Career Does
This trade has an unusual feature worth being straight about: a large part of the current work exists because of a remediation programme, and programmes finish.
That matters alongside the physical risk. An installer in their forties is facing both the normal possibility that a shoulder or a back ends the work, and the commercial reality that the volume of facade remediation will not be what it is now. Having a plan for what comes next is sensible regardless of health.
A lump sum on diagnosis funds that change when it is forced by health rather than chosen: supervision, inspection and surveying work within the facade sector, a move into a different trade, or clearing enough mortgage that a lower-paid role works. For somebody with high earnings and no safety net, capital is the thing that converts a crisis into a transition.
If You Run A Gang
Many people in this trade end up supplying a gang rather than working in one, which changes what is at risk.
At that point there are people depending on the work, a contract with a main contractor who expects labour on site, and usually the owner still working on the face as well as organising. An injury takes out the installer and the manager at the same time, and a gang that cannot turn up gets replaced on the programme.
Cover can be arranged against the business's fixed costs as well as your personal income. Where particular individuals hold the tickets or the experience that let you win the work, cover on them is worth considering too, arranged by and paid to the business.
Common questions
Is this different from cover for a roofer?+
The product is the same and the mechanism differs. Roofing is working on top of a building, mostly with gravity in your favour. Cladding is the vertical face, from a mast climber or hoist, handling large panels that catch the wind. The serious injuries here involve the load moving rather than the person slipping.
I am on day rate subcontract. What do I get if I am hurt?+
Nothing, in terms of sick pay, and no statutory sick pay either since that is for employees. The engagement usually ends the same week. That is why cover for day rate installers normally needs a shorter deferred period than for employed workers.
How should I work out the amount to protect?+
Based on what you reliably earn across a year rather than your best month, allowing for gaps between projects. Travel and lodging payments are worth discussing too, since they may be part of what you actually take home. Getting a defensible figure at the outset is much better than at claim stage.
Would a crush injury from a panel be covered?+
Being unable to work through injury is what the cover responds to, however it happened. Injuries from handling panels at height tend to be serious and take months, which is a reason to look at how long the benefit pays rather than just the premium.
What happens when the remediation work dries up?+
That is a commercial question rather than an insurance one, and it is worth planning for. The insurance point is narrower: if your health forces the change rather than the market, a lump sum from critical illness cover funds the move, whereas income protection pays while you cannot work and is not designed for a change of direction.
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.