Income Protection for Groundworkers
Groundworks is where the serious accidents happen, and anybody who has worked a site knows it.
Deep excavations, machines working alongside people on foot, concrete being poured, buried services nobody has accurately plotted, and all of it in the wettest, coldest part of the programme because groundworks comes first. The injuries in this trade are more likely to be sudden and severe than the gradual wear that ends most other trades.
Income protection pays monthly while you cannot work. For a groundworker it is worth arranging with the serious scenario in mind rather than the sore back.
The short answer
Groundworks is the heaviest phase of a build and the one with the most serious accidents: excavations, heavy plant, buried services and concrete, usually in winter. A self-employed groundworker has no sick pay. Income protection replaces a monthly amount while you cannot work, and because this trade carries a genuine risk of a life-changing injury rather than just a worn joint, the benefit period deserves as much thought as the premium.
What actually stops you working
- Being struck by plant, which is the defining serious risk where machines and people share ground
- Excavation collapse and the crush injuries that follow
- Back injuries from manual handling of kerbs, slabs and drainage
- Hand-arm vibration from breakers and compaction plant
- Knee and hip damage from working on uneven, broken ground in all weather
- Hearing loss, which is under-claimed and genuinely common in this trade
Sick pay, if you get any
None for the self-employed. Groundworkers are usually paid by the day or by the metre on a programme that is already behind, so there is no retainer and nothing owing once you stop turning up. The gang carries on without you.
Why the definition of incapacity decides it
Groundworks is almost entirely physical, so an injury that leaves somebody able to do sedentary work has still ended their trade. The gap between what an any occupation definition calls fit and what a groundworker needs to be is wider here than almost anywhere, because there is no office half of this job to fall back on. If you buy one thing carefully, buy the definition.
This Is Where The Serious Injuries Are
Most of this site is about wear: shoulders, wrists, backs that give out after twenty years. Groundworks is different and it deserves saying plainly.
The risks here are sudden and severe. Machines and people working the same ground, excavations that can collapse, loads being lifted over people, buried services that are not where the drawing says. These produce crush injuries, serious fractures and worse, and they happen in a moment rather than over a career.
That changes what you are insuring for. A plasterer is mainly insuring against a wrist that gradually stops working. A groundworker is insuring against both that and the possibility of an injury that ends the trade permanently in a single afternoon, which argues for a longer benefit period and for thinking about what happens if you never go back to groundworks at all.
There Is No Light Version Of This Job
Groundworks has almost no sedentary component, which makes the incapacity definition unusually important.
A builder can run a job from the van. A decorator can do small, low jobs. A groundworker cannot do a reduced version of digging, laying drainage or pouring concrete, and sites are not places where somebody recovering from a serious injury can safely potter. The work is physical from start to finish, in bad weather, on broken ground.
So when an insurer asks whether you are able to work, the honest answer for a recovering groundworker is usually no for a long time, and whether the policy agrees depends entirely on whether it is measuring your occupation or any occupation. On a trade with this injury profile, that clause is doing more work than anything else in the contract.
If you stop
Groundworks sits at the front of the programme, so a gang that loses a man is holding up everything behind it and will replace you the same week. There is no job to come back to in the way there might be for a finishing trade, because by the time you are fit the job has moved on to the trades that follow you.
Common questions
Is groundworks considered high risk for income protection?+
It is one of the more heavily rated construction trades, because it combines heavy plant, excavations and manual handling, and insurers differ from one another on how they price it. That variation is the reason to go through a broker rather than one provider: the same details can come back very differently. What we cannot do is promise acceptance or tell you in advance where a given insurer will place the trade.
What usually injures groundworkers?+
Unlike most trades, the serious risks here are sudden rather than gradual: being struck by plant where machines and people share ground, excavation collapse, and loads lifted over people. Alongside that sits the ordinary wear of handling kerbs and drainage, vibration from breakers and knees damaged by broken ground. It is the combination of both profiles that makes the trade worth insuring properly.
Why does the incapacity definition matter so much here?+
Because there is no light version of groundworks. A builder can run a job from the van and a decorator can take small low jobs, but nobody does a reduced version of digging, laying drainage or pouring concrete, and a site is not a safe place for somebody half recovered. A policy that asks whether you can do any job will often say you are fit; one that asks whether you can do groundworks will reflect reality.
Do groundworkers get sick pay?+
Not if you are self-employed. Work is usually paid by the day or by the metre on a programme that is already behind, so there is nothing owing once you stop turning up and no retainer. The gang carries on without you, and because groundworks is at the front of the programme the job will have moved on to following trades by the time you are fit.
Should I insure for longer because of the injury risk?+
It is worth considering, yes. In most trades the realistic scenario is being off for months with something that heals. In groundworks there is a genuine possibility of an injury serious enough that you never return to the trade, which is a different financial problem. When choosing the benefit period, think about what would happen if the answer were permanent rather than temporary, and we will show you what the longer options cost.
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 buildersWho books your gang, and what happens when they stop.
- Income protection for bricklayersThe trade that follows you, with its own wear.
- Life coverThe cover that answers the worst outcome rather than the long one.
- Talk to an adviserAsk about longer benefit periods for a trade like this.