Income Protection For Thatchers
Thatching is a small trade doing difficult work, and both halves of that matter.
The roofs are steeper than almost anything else a roofing trade climbs, the materials are handled by hand in large bundles, and the knowledge takes years to acquire. There are not many thatchers, and they are not evenly spread around the country.
So an injury has an unusual consequence: the work does not get reallocated, it waits.
The short answer
Thatching is skilled heritage work carried out on some of the steepest roofs in the country, by a trade with very few practitioners. An absence is harder to cover than in a common trade, because there is often no local thatcher free to take the job on, and customers wait rather than switch. Income protection replaces part of your earnings while you cannot work.
What actually stops you working
- Falls from steep pitches, which are steeper than conventional roofing and often on old buildings
- Shoulder and arm injuries from dressing the coat with a leggett, hour after hour
- Back injuries from lifting and positioning bundles of reed or straw at height
- Knee damage from kneeling and bracing on a slope all day
- Respiratory problems from dust, mould and spores in stripped material, particularly on old coats
- Hand and wrist injuries from spars, hooks and continual gripping
- Wasp and insect stings in ridge and eaves work, which occasionally means a serious reaction
Sick pay, if you get any
Almost every thatcher is self-employed, often a sole trader or a very small firm with an apprentice. That means no sick pay at all, and a diary of committed jobs with deposits taken and scaffold booked. The exposure is larger than the lost day rate, because the commitments carry on.
Why the definition of incapacity decides it
Own occupation is close to essential in a trade this specialised. A thatcher with a shoulder that will not work overhead can do a great many jobs and cannot thatch, and the skill has no partial version. An any occupation definition would conclude you are fit for work while a career built over fifteen years is unusable.
A Partly Stripped Roof Does Not Wait Comfortably
This is the practical exposure that makes an absence in this trade more expensive than the lost earnings suggest.
A re-thatch in progress means an open or temporarily covered roof on somebody's home. If you go off mid-job, the building needs keeping weathertight, the scaffold stays up and keeps being charged for, and the customer has a half-finished house. None of that pauses.
Cover can be sized to take account of continuing business costs as well as personal income, which is worth doing here specifically. The alternative is finding another thatcher willing to take over a job somebody else started, which is both difficult and the kind of arrangement that ends in a dispute about who was responsible for what.
Spores And Old Coats Are A Genuine Exposure
Stripping an old coat is the dustiest work in the trade and the part most likely to cause a condition rather than an injury.
Decades of accumulated material, bird and rodent debris and mould come out in clouds, and respiratory problems from spore exposure are well recognised. It is cumulative, which means it tends to appear in middle age after years of exposure rather than after one bad week.
Two things follow. Protection while stripping is worth taking seriously, because the condition does not reverse. And if you already have anything respiratory on record, it is better declared and underwritten than omitted, because it is precisely the sort of history that gets examined if a claim is ever made.
If you stop
Customers with a booked thatch generally cannot find anybody else nearby, so the job slips rather than moving. That keeps the work but creates a different problem: scaffold already erected and being charged for, materials ordered and stored, deposits taken against work not done, and a building partly stripped and under temporary cover while you recover.
What A Household Is Left With In This Trade
Self-employed thatchers have no death in service, so whatever has been arranged privately is the whole of it.
There is also a specific feature of a trade this small: the business is the person. A thatching business with a reputation and a waiting list has very little value without the thatcher, because what the customers were waiting for was them.
That makes the sum assured a straightforward calculation rather than a judgement about selling a business. The mortgage, any debt, and the years of income a household would need, with nothing to offset it.
A Lump Sum In A Trade With Few Alternatives
The usual ending here is cumulative: shoulders, back and knees that have done thirty years of steep roofs, or a respiratory condition from stripping.
The difficulty is that thatching skills transfer narrowly. Unlike a general builder, a thatcher cannot easily move into adjacent work, because the adjacent work is also physical and the specialism is the whole value.
A lump sum buys the time to find the genuine routes out, which do exist: teaching and apprenticeship training, heritage consultancy and conservation advice, materials supply, and surveying thatch for insurers and owners. All need establishing and none pays from day one.
If You Have An Apprentice
Thatching is one of the trades where training the next person is both normal and slow, often years rather than months.
That has a practical consequence during an absence. An apprentice cannot simply carry on unsupervised, so their wages continue while their productive work does not, and losing them to another trade undoes years of investment.
Cover sized to include that wage bill as well as your own income is worth considering. Where you work through a limited company, executive income protection and relevant life cover can both be arranged company-paid, which is usually more efficient than funding them personally.
Common questions
Can a thatcher get income protection?+
It is worth asking. Steep roof work at height is a real consideration for an insurer, and acceptance and terms are their decision rather than ours. Having the panel look at the actual work usually beats assuming the answer.
Should my cover include business costs?+
In this trade it is worth considering seriously. A re-thatch in progress means scaffold on hire, materials bought and a customer's roof open, and none of that stops because you are signed off.
Is spore exposure from old thatch a real risk?+
Yes, and it is well recognised. Stripping an old coat releases decades of accumulated dust, mould and debris, and the resulting respiratory problems tend to appear after years rather than after one job. Anything already on record is better declared than left off.
What happens to my booked work if I am off for months?+
Customers usually wait, because there is rarely another thatcher free nearby. That sounds reassuring and creates its own costs: deposits held against undone work, scaffold still up, and materials stored. Those are the figures to think about when sizing cover.
How is my income assessed when the work is seasonal?+
From accounts across a full year rather than a run of good months, because thatching is weather dependent and uneven. Agreeing a defensible figure at the outset is better than having it examined at claim stage.
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.