Income Protection For Refractory Engineers

Refractory work is bricklaying in the one place a bricklayer never goes: inside the machine.

Furnaces and kilns are lined with brick and castable that wears out, and replacing it means entering the vessel during a shutdown, stripping the old lining, and rebuilding it. The space is confined, the surfaces are still hot, and the air is full of what the lining was made of.

Shutdowns are costed by the hour, so the hours are long and the pressure is real.

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The short answer

Refractory engineers strip and reline the insides of furnaces, kilns, boilers and incinerators, which means working in a confined space that was recently at hundreds of degrees and is still warm, handling heavy brick and castable. The work happens during plant shutdowns on timescales that do not move. Income protection replaces part of your earnings if it stops you working.

What actually stops you working

Heat stress and collapse from working in residual heat inside a vessel
Respiratory exposure to refractory ceramic fibre, silica and old lining dust
Historic asbestos exposure where older linings and insulation are being stripped
Back and shoulder injuries from handling heavy brick and castable in confined positions
Knee damage from kneeling on brick inside a vessel for whole shifts
Hand-arm vibration from breakers used to strip hard-set linings
Crush and fall injuries from working off staging inside a vessel with one way out

Sick pay, if you get any

Refractory work is done by specialist contractors, with a mix of employed and self-employed engineers who travel to shutdowns. Employed engineers may have a contractual period; travelling self-employed engineers usually have nothing, while earning high rates built on long shutdown hours away from home that statutory sick pay does not touch.

Why the definition of incapacity decides it

Own occupation is the right definition because the usual outcome is a condition that bars confined hot work specifically. A respiratory diagnosis leaves somebody able to do general building work at a fraction of shutdown rates, and an any occupation policy would find that person fit to work.

Shutdown Work Concentrates A Year Into Weeks

This trade has an income shape that matters for choosing a deferred period, and it is unlike a steady trade.

Refractory engineers often earn a large share of an annual income during a handful of intense shutdown periods, working long hours away from home at premium rates. Between shutdowns there may be much less.

So being off sick for six weeks is not six weeks of average earnings, it can be the loss of a whole shutdown and a serious dent in the year. That argues for a shorter deferred period than the headline annual income might suggest, and for a benefit figure based on a defensible annual average rather than on the quiet months.

Old Linings Contain What Old Buildings Contain

There is an exposure in this trade that comes from the age of the plant rather than from the work itself.

Stripping a lining installed decades ago can mean disturbing asbestos-containing insulation as well as refractory ceramic fibre and silica. The controls for that are a matter for the plant's surveys and your employer's arrangements, not for us.

The insurance point is narrow and worth stating. Any respiratory history is relevant to an application whatever caused it, and anything you have been told about an exposure, a referral or a surveillance finding belongs in your answers. Our page on lung conditions sets out what we would ask.

If you stop

A shutdown has a date to come back online and the cost of overrunning is large, so a contractor short brings somebody else in that day. The work is intense and finite, which means an absence can cost a whole shutdown's earnings at once rather than a week's.

What A Household Is Left With In This Trade

Travelling self-employed engineers have no death in service, and they are a large part of this trade.

The earnings being replaced are usually high, built on premium shutdown rates, so the sum needed to replace them for a family is correspondingly large.

Where cover does exist through a specialist contractor, it is worth knowing the figure and remembering it ends with the employment, which in shutdown work can change from year to year.

A Lump Sum When Confined Hot Work Is Over

The ending here is usually respiratory or cardiac, ruling out heat and confinement in somebody otherwise fit.

That is a permanent step down from premium shutdown rates to ordinary building wages, which is exactly the gap income protection leaves once suitable alternative work is available.

A lump sum funds something better than that. Refractory experience goes into supervision, inspection and condition surveys of linings, estimating for shutdowns, and technical sales for refractory suppliers.

Common questions

Can a refractory engineer get income protection?+

It is worth asking. Confined work in residual heat with fibre and dust exposure is a genuine consideration and acceptance and terms are the insurer's decision. Describing the vessels you line and whether you travel to shutdowns gets a more accurate answer.

How should shutdown work affect my deferred period?+

It tends to point shorter. A large share of annual earnings can come from a few intense shutdown periods, so six weeks off may mean losing a whole shutdown rather than six weeks of average income.

What about asbestos in old linings?+

Disturbing asbestos-containing insulation is a real possibility in older plant, and the controls are a matter for the plant's surveys and your employer. For an application, anything you have been told about an exposure or a referral belongs in your answers.

How is my income assessed when it is lumpy?+

From a defensible annual figure including shutdown rates, overtime and subsistence, averaged rather than taken from either the peak or the quiet months. Agreeing it at the outset avoids an argument at claim stage.

Is heat stress actually a reason people stop working?+

Yes, and it is one of the characteristic risks of working inside a vessel that is still warm. It can also unmask cardiac problems, which is part of why fitness for confined hot work is assessed more carefully than for ordinary building work.

Cover that often goes with this

The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.