Income Protection for Dry Liners
A sheet of plasterboard weighs more than people think and is always going somewhere awkward.
Ceilings are the worst of it: boards lifted overhead, held in position, and fixed while your arms are above your shoulders. Walls are kinder and still involve carrying sheets through a building all day. The work is fast, repetitive and priced by output.
Income protection pays a monthly amount while you cannot work, and in a trade paid by the metre the financial drop is immediate and complete.
The short answer
Dry lining is lifting plasterboard above your head, repeatedly, on price. Shoulders and backs are what give out, and because the work is paid by the metre there is no slow gear: going at eighty per cent earns eighty per cent. A self-employed dry liner has no sick pay. Income protection replaces a monthly amount while you cannot work.
What actually stops you working
- Shoulder injuries, particularly rotator cuff damage from overhead boarding
- Back problems from carrying and lifting sheets through buildings
- Neck strain from working with the head tilted back for long periods
- Hand and wrist injuries from knives, screwguns and board edges
- Dust exposure from cutting and sanding board and compound
- Falls from hop-ups, stilts and towers, which are used constantly in this trade
Sick pay, if you get any
None for the self-employed, and price work makes the edge sharper. You are paid for boards fixed, so the income does not taper when you slow down, it stops when you stop, and a part-boarded ceiling is not something anybody pays for.
Why the definition of incapacity decides it
A dry liner with a damaged shoulder can do a great many things that do not involve holding eighteen kilos above their head. An any occupation definition will find them fit; an own occupation definition asks whether they can do dry lining. Given that overhead work is not an incidental part of this trade but the core of it, that distinction is the whole value of the policy.
Everything Happens Above Your Shoulders
Plenty of trades do some overhead work. Dry lining is overhead work, and the difference is in the hours.
A ceiling is boarded with arms raised, holding weight, repeatedly, for a whole day, and then the next day. The rotator cuff was not designed for it, and the damage accumulates through aching into something that needs an injection and eventually surgery. Mechanical lifters help where there is room for them and a great deal of boarding happens where there is not.
Because the damage is gradual rather than sudden, what was declared at application carries weight at claim. A shoulder that already clicks is worth mentioning when you apply rather than hoping it settles.
Price Work Has No Slow Gear
Being paid by output changes how injuries happen, and it is worth being honest about the mechanism.
If you earn by the board, working carefully for a fortnight means earning less for a fortnight, so the natural response to a sore shoulder is to carry on. That is how a strain becomes a tear. The financial structure of the trade pushes people past the point at which they should have stopped, and it is the single biggest reason shoulder problems in this trade present late.
Insuring that properly means choosing a deferred period you could actually survive, because the pressure to go back early is financial, and cover that starts sooner removes some of it.
If you stop
Dry lining sits in the middle of a programme with the taper, the plasterer and the decorator all waiting, so a gang that loses somebody brings in a replacement immediately. On price work there is no notice and nothing owing beyond what you have fixed.
Price Work Leaves Nothing Owing
Dry lining produces no asset of any kind, which makes the position very simple.
There is no round, no premises, no stock and no customer list. On price work there is not even a notice period: what you have fixed is what you are owed, and that is the end of it. A family is left with whatever was in the account and the last payment.
Life cover is therefore the entire plan, and it is worth revisiting as the mortgage changes rather than being set once, because nothing else is moving in the background to take up the slack.
A Shoulder Is A Capital Problem
The trade is ended by a joint rather than an illness, and a joint is exactly what monthly cover handles least well.
A rotator cuff that will not take another year of ceilings finishes dry lining while leaving somebody fit for most other work. Monthly benefit pays while you are unfit and stops when you are declared fit, which can be long before you could earn the same money doing anything else.
Capital funds the change: retraining, moving to supervision or estimating, or reducing the mortgage so a different job works. Critical illness pays on specified conditions rather than on worn joints, so it is worth understanding exactly what is covered before relying on it for this.
Common questions
Why do dry liners get shoulder problems?+
Because the work is done above shoulder height holding weight, repeatedly, for whole days. Boarding a ceiling means arms raised and loaded, and the rotator cuff was not designed for it. The damage accumulates through aching into something that needs an injection and eventually surgery, which is why arranging cover before the shoulder has a medical history matters.
Does price work affect my cover?+
It affects two things. The income evidence, because insurers generally base the benefit on earnings and price work varies, so it is worth discussing before you apply rather than at claim. And the deferred period, because there is no slow gear: you are paid for boards fixed, so the money stops when you stop rather than tapering.
Can I claim for a shoulder that has been building for years?+
Gradual conditions can be claimed for and are assessed more carefully than sudden injuries, with what was declared at application carrying real weight. A shoulder mentioned honestly when you applied has been considered and priced; one appearing for the first time in your records after a claim becomes the focus of the investigation. Declare the clicks and aches.
Do dry liners get sick pay?+
Not if you are self-employed, which most are. Price work means nothing is owing beyond what you have fixed, there is no notice period, and a part-boarded ceiling is not something anybody pays for. Income protection pays a monthly amount regardless of output, which is the point of it in a trade like this.
Is dust from boarding a risk worth mentioning?+
Yes, if it has ever caused you a problem. Cutting and sanding board and jointing compound produces dust, often in unventilated rooms, and a respiratory condition severe enough to stop you working would be treated like any other medical cause. As with anything health related, declaring accurately at application is what makes a later claim straightforward.
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.
- How income protection worksDeferred periods, how claims are paid and what it costs.
- Income protection for plasterersThe trade that follows you, with the same ceilings.
- Income protection for decoratorsOverhead work and the same shoulders.
- Critical illness coverA lump sum on diagnosis, and what it actually covers.
- Talk to an adviserMention any shoulder trouble before it has a history.