Income Protection For Machinery Installers
Installing a machine into a building that already exists is a problem of geometry solved with skates, jacks, gantries and patience.
The loads are heavy and unforgiving, the routes are tight, and the floor may or may not take what is being rolled across it. Once the machine is in place, the work changes completely: alignment, levelling and shimming to tolerances measured in fractions of a millimetre.
So the trade combines the heaviest sort of rigging with some of the most precise fitting, and both can be taken away by the same injury.
The short answer
Machinery installers move and set industrial plant into existing buildings, which means rigging loads of many tonnes through doorways never designed for them, then aligning the machine precisely. The hazards are crush and load incidents on the way in and sustained awkward work once it is there. Income protection replaces part of your earnings if it stops you working.
What actually stops you working
- Crush injuries from loads shifting on skates, rollers or jacks
- Hand and foot injuries, which are the commonest in load moving
- Back and shoulder injuries from manoeuvring, lifting and working under machinery
- Falls from height when installing elevated plant, platforms and access steelwork
- Knee damage from working on the floor beneath and beside machines for whole shifts
- Hand-arm vibration from grinders, breakers and impact tools used in preparation
- Loss of fine hand control, which ends the alignment and shimming side of the work
Sick pay, if you get any
Installers work for specialist machine moving and installation firms, sometimes employed and sometimes self-employed on day rates, and often travelling. Employed engineers may have a contractual period; day-rate installers have nothing, and earnings often include substantial travel and subsistence that sick pay would not reflect.
Why the definition of incapacity decides it
Own occupation is the right definition because the trade needs both heavy capability and fine control, and losing either ends it. An installer who cannot rig safely or cannot shim accurately is still employable elsewhere, which is exactly what an any occupation policy would conclude.
Two Opposite Skills, One Career
This trade is unusual in needing capabilities at both extremes, and that matters when thinking about what would actually stop you earning.
Getting a machine in is brute force applied carefully: multi-tonne loads on skates and jacks, with everything depending on judging the route, the floor and the lifting points. Setting it up is the opposite: dial gauges, shims and alignment to tolerances a layman would not believe.
So two quite different injuries end the same career. A back that cannot take rigging work, or a hand that cannot do precise fitting. Most trades have one failure mode; this one has two, which is worth understanding if any offered terms come back with an exclusion on either area.
Travel And Shutdown Work Shape The Income
Machine installation follows customers' shutdowns, which means the work is lumpy and often away from home.
A large share of an annual income can be earned in a handful of intense periods at premium rates with subsistence on top, and much less in between. Being off for six weeks is therefore not six weeks of average earnings, it may be a whole installation window.
That argues for a shorter deferred period than a flat annual figure would suggest, and for insuring a defensible annual average including travel and subsistence rather than either the peak or the quiet months. Agreeing the figure at the outset avoids an argument at claim.
If you stop
An installation is usually booked into a customer's shutdown with production waiting on it, so the window cannot move. The firm sends somebody else, and a day-rate installer who misses a window frequently misses the next allocation too.
What A Household Is Left With In This Trade
Day-rate installers have no death in service, and they are a large part of this trade.
Earnings are usually good, built on specialist rates and travel, which means the sum needed to replace them for a family is correspondingly large.
Where cover exists through a specialist firm, it is worth knowing the figure and remembering it ends with the employment, which in project-based work can change from year to year.
A Lump Sum When Either Half Of The Skill Goes
Because the trade needs both strength and precision, either a back injury or a hand injury can end it permanently while leaving somebody fit for other work.
That is the position income protection handles least well over the long run, once suitable alternative work is judged available at lower pay.
A lump sum funds a move that uses the knowledge rather than the body: installation planning and method engineering, lifting plan and temporary works design, supervision, and project management for machine moves.
Common questions
Can a machinery installer get income protection?+
It is worth asking. Heavy rigging combined with precise fitting is a genuine consideration and acceptance and terms are the insurer's decision. Saying whether you rig, install and align, or both, gets a more accurate answer.
Why do you ask about both my back and my hands?+
Because this trade needs opposite capabilities: multi-tonne rigging and alignment to fractions of a millimetre. Either a back that cannot rig or a hand that cannot shim accurately ends the career, so an exclusion on either area matters.
How should travel and shutdown work affect my cover?+
It usually points to a shorter deferred period, because a large share of earnings can come from a few intense installation windows. Six weeks off may cost a whole window rather than six weeks of average income.
How is my income assessed if it is lumpy?+
From a defensible annual figure including travel and subsistence, averaged rather than taken from the peak or the quiet months. Agreeing it at the outset avoids an argument at claim stage.
I am on day rates. Do I have any sick pay?+
Almost certainly not, which is the main reason cover matters here. Employed engineers at the same firm may have a contractual period, so it is worth checking what actually applies to you rather than assuming.
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.