Income Protection for Locksmiths
The craft looks sedate and the working conditions are not.
Emergency work comes when it comes, which means being called out at two in the morning to a door in the rain, kneeling on a step with a torch, working with fine tools while cold. The customer is standing over you having had a bad night, and on break-in jobs there may be damage, police involvement and distress in the mix.
Income protection pays a monthly amount while you cannot work. For a locksmith it is the whole safety net, because there is nothing else.
The short answer
Locksmithing is mobile call-out work, much of it out of hours, performed kneeling or crouched at a door, alone, often with somebody present who is locked out, upset or occasionally hostile. The physical problems come from the position and from carrying tools; the pattern problem comes from broken sleep across a career of night call-outs.
What actually stops you working
- Knee, hip and lower back problems from kneeling and crouching at door level on hard surfaces, repeatedly
- Hand and wrist conditions from fine manipulation, drilling and sustained tool work in cold conditions
- Cuts and hand injuries from drilling out cylinders, handling damaged doors and broken glass
- Road traffic risk, given the mileage and the proportion of driving done at night or when tired
- Assault or confrontation on call-outs, including at properties where a dispute or a break-in is involved
- Chronic sleep disruption and fatigue from out-of-hours call-outs across a career
Sick pay, if you get any
None, in almost all cases. Locksmiths are typically self-employed sole traders or run small businesses, so there is no occupational sick pay and no statutory sick pay. The van, tools, stock of cylinders and hardware, and any trade association or marketing costs continue. For somebody dependent on emergency call-out work, being unavailable also means being dropped from the call lists that generate the work.
Why the definition of incapacity decides it
The clause matters because the work needs hands that are precise and a body that can kneel at a door. A locksmith with a knee that cannot take kneeling, or a hand condition affecting fine manipulation, is otherwise well and employable, which an any occupation definition will treat as fitness. An own occupation definition asks whether you can work as a locksmith.
Kneeling At A Door Is The Posture Of The Trade
Every working position in this job is at the height of a lock, which is to say low, and that is what accumulates.
Fitting, repairing and drilling a cylinder means kneeling or deep crouching on a doorstep, a path or a concrete floor, holding a position precisely while working with both hands, for anything from ten minutes to an hour. Over a career that produces knee, hip and lower back problems in much the same way paving work does, by a quieter route.
Because it builds gradually it tends to be documented before anybody considers insurance, and anything already in your records when you apply will be asked about and may affect the terms. That is the standard argument for arranging cover early, and it applies with full force to a trade whose working position is fixed by where locks live.
Night Call-Outs Are A Health Exposure And A Driving Risk
The out-of-hours work is the profitable part of locksmithing and it carries two costs that are worth naming.
The first is sleep. Being on call and being woken at unpredictable hours, then working a normal day, is sustained sleep disruption rather than a shift pattern, and over years that is associated with chronic fatigue and a range of longer-term health effects. The second follows from the first: a significant share of the driving in this trade is done at night, tired, often to unfamiliar addresses.
Neither is a reason to avoid the work, and both are reasons the cover exists. Income protection responds to being unable to work whatever the cause, so a condition that develops from the pattern is assessed like any other, and a road traffic injury is assessed on whether you can do your occupation afterwards.
If you stop
Emergency work is immediate by definition, so a customer locked out will call the next locksmith on the list and that is the end of it. Where your work comes through insurers, letting agents or a national call network, being unavailable for weeks generally means being dropped from the rota, and getting back on it is harder than getting on it the first time.
Sole Trader, So Nothing Unless You Arrange It
Self-employed locksmiths have no death in service, so whatever a household would be left with is whatever has been put in place personally.
What a locksmith leaves is relatively straightforward: a van, tools, stock and a reputation with the agents, insurers or networks that send work. The work relationships have value only while somebody can service them.
The figure is the ordinary one: the mortgage or rent, what the household needs each year and for how long, plus clearing any van and equipment finance so a family is not left with payments on a vehicle full of tools they cannot use.
Capital If Kneeling Or Fine Work Stops Being Possible
The realistic ending is knees that will not take the kneeling or hands that have lost the fine control the work depends on.
Either leaves somebody capable of working and unable to do this, which is the position income protection serves least well once they are judged fit for other employment.
A lump sum funds the alternative, and locksmithing has routes that involve less kneeling: security systems and access control, surveying and specification, training, or running a business with employed locksmiths doing the call-outs. Each needs capital or a period on different money.
If You Employ Locksmiths Or Hold Contracts
A locksmith business with employed engineers and contracts has obligations that run independently of your own availability.
Contracts with letting agents, housing providers or insurers often have response time commitments, and failing them puts the contract at risk rather than just the individual job. Wages, vans and stock continue meanwhile.
Cover can be sized against those fixed costs and response obligations as well as your personal income, so the contracts can be honoured while you are off. Where you are the only person with particular skills or accreditations, cover on a key person is worth considering, arranged by and paid to the business.
Common questions
What do I get if I cannot work?+
Nothing by way of sick pay, and no statutory sick pay either since you are self-employed, while van, tool and stock costs continue. If your work comes through call lists or contracts, being unavailable for weeks usually means being dropped from them, which is a second loss.
Would a knee problem be covered?+
Being unable to work through illness or injury is the test, and knee, hip and back problems from kneeling at door level are the main gradual route out of this trade. The definition matters: own occupation asks whether you can work as a locksmith, which means kneeling and fine manipulation.
Does night call-out work affect my cover?+
Tell us your pattern, because what the job involves is part of the picture. We would not guess at how any particular insurer views out-of-hours work; what we can do is go through your situation and tell you what is actually available to you.
Would an assault on a call-out be covered?+
Income protection responds to being unable to work through illness or injury however it arose, which includes both a physical injury and any psychological aftermath. Call-outs to properties involving disputes or break-ins are a real part of this work.
I have contracts with letting agents. What should I cover?+
Your income, and the cost of keeping response commitments met while you are off, because failing those puts the contract at risk rather than just one job. That is worth sizing separately from your personal income.
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.