Income Protection For Forklift Engineers

Most mobile plant engineers deal with diesel. This trade deals with two things diesel engineers do not.

LPG cylinders are changed by hand, and the gas is heavier than air so it collects at low level, which matters in a pit or a corner of a warehouse. Traction batteries are large, contain acid, and give off hydrogen while charging, which is why charging areas are ventilated and ignition sources controlled.

Neither is exotic and both are specific. Describing which you work with is worth a line on an application, because an engineer servicing electric fleets in a charging room has a different exposure from one working on diesel telehandlers in a yard.

The risk that is hardest to control in this trade is not the truck being repaired.

A warehouse aisle has other trucks, pedestrians and racking, and the operation usually keeps running while one machine is being fixed. The engineer is a stationary person in a space designed for moving vehicles, relying on the customer's segregation and on being seen.

For cover purposes the point is simple: the sudden serious injuries in this trade come from being struck or crushed rather than from the tools, and they produce long absences. That is what the benefit level and a short deferred period are for, particularly for self-employed engineers.

Engineers employed by dealers and manufacturers often have death in service; self-employed mobile engineers have none.

The mobile side is usually where the better money is, because the callout work is theirs, and it is also where there is nothing behind the household.

So the sum worth covering is the mortgage, van and tooling finance, and the years of income a household would need, measured against what callout work actually earns.

The characteristic serious events are a crush injury from a mast or truck and a hand injury from component work, both survivable and both frequently permanent.

That rules out mobile engineering while leaving other work available on lower pay, which is where income protection becomes least effective in the long run.

A lump sum funds the change, and whether a policy responds to a specific loss depends on what it lists and how it defines loss of use, which varies and is worth reading. Experience moves into service management, parts, technical support and training.

A one-engineer mobile business is a van, a stock of parts and a list of customers who expect somebody within hours.

Van finance, insurance, tool and diagnostic equipment costs and parts stock continue through an absence, while the customers quietly find somebody who answers.

Cover can be sized to include those continuing costs as well as personal income, and it is worth considering whether it should stretch to subcontracting the urgent calls so the customer base survives rather than only the cash flow.