Income Protection for Tilers
Tiling wears out knees the way scaffolding wears out shoulders, and for the same reason: the job is one position, held for hours, for years.
Floors are laid kneeling. Walls are cut and set from a crouch. Add the weight of boxes of porcelain carried up stairs, and the dust from cutting, and the picture is a trade that damages a small number of specific things very reliably.
Income protection pays monthly while you cannot work, which for a self-employed tiler is the only thing between a knee operation and a serious problem.
The short answer
Tiling is done on your knees for most of the day, so knees are what end it, usually years before anything else goes wrong. A self-employed tiler has no sick pay, and because the work is priced by the room or the metre, stopping halfway through a bathroom means no invoice rather than a reduced one. Income protection replaces a monthly amount while you cannot work.
What actually stops you working
- Knee damage, including bursitis and cartilage problems, which is the defining injury of the trade
- Wrist and forearm strain from cutting, buttering and setting all day
- Back injuries from carrying boxes of tile, which are far heavier than they look
- Silica dust from cutting porcelain and stone, which is a long-term lung risk
- Hand problems from constant contact with adhesive and grout
- Eye injuries from cutting without protection, which happens more than anybody admits
Sick pay, if you get any
None for the self-employed. Tiling is also usually priced by the room or the square metre, so a bathroom that is half tiled produces no invoice at all, and the tiler who finishes it will charge properly for matching somebody else's setting out.
Why the definition of incapacity decides it
A tiler with a ruined knee can drive, sit and do most jobs. They cannot kneel on a floor for six hours, which is the work. That is the gap an any occupation definition ignores and an own occupation definition is built for, and in a trade where the injury is this predictable it is the clause worth paying attention to.
Knees Are The Clock On This Trade
Most tilers know roughly how long they have left and very few have insured it.
Kneeling on a hard floor for hours compresses the joint and inflames everything around it. It starts as something that aches in the evening, becomes something that needs a brace, and ends with a consultant explaining that the cartilage is not coming back. Knee pads help and do not stop it. The trade has a working life and the knees set it.
That predictability is an argument for arranging cover early rather than late. A knee that has never been to a doctor is a straightforward thing to insure. A knee with three years of physiotherapy behind it is a conversation about exclusions.
The Dust Nobody Mentions
Cutting porcelain and stone releases silica, and the long-term risk from it is real and widely ignored in this trade.
A wet cutter controls it. A grinder in a small bathroom with the window shut does not, and that is how a lot of tiling actually gets done when a cut has to be adjusted on the spot. The damage is cumulative, takes years to appear, and is not reversible when it does.
It matters here because income protection responds to illness as well as injury, so a respiratory condition that stops you working is treated like a damaged knee. It also means being straightforward about any existing breathing problem when you apply, since that is what decides whether a later claim is simple.
If you stop
Tiling sits late in a bathroom or kitchen job, so your dates are already compressed by everybody else's delays. A customer with a room that cannot be used will not wait weeks, so the job goes to whoever is free and the builder who recommended you finds somebody more available.
A Van Of Tools And A Reputation
Tiling leaves almost nothing behind, which makes the arithmetic simple and unforgiving.
There is no premises, no stock worth anything and no round. The customer list is a few builders who will ring somebody else by the end of the week. Deposits taken for materials on upcoming jobs may have to be returned. What the household loses is the entire income, immediately.
So life cover is the whole plan rather than part of one, and the sum assured should be built from the mortgage and the years of dependants left rather than from a figure that sounded about right.
A Lump Sum Is How You Get Off Your Knees
The characteristic ending in this trade is a joint rather than an illness, and it arrives while the person is otherwise completely healthy.
A tiler told at forty-five that the knees are finished is fit, experienced and unemployed. What is needed then is not a few months of income, it is capital: retraining, a move into estimating or merchanting, or enough off the mortgage that a lower wage works.
Critical illness pays on specified conditions rather than on worn cartilage, so it will not answer every version of this and it is worth understanding exactly what is covered. Where it does pay, it is the money that funds the next thing rather than the gap.
Common questions
Do self-employed tilers get sick pay?+
No. There is no employer and no statutory sick pay. Tiling is also normally priced by the room or the square metre, so a bathroom that is half tiled produces no invoice at all, and the tiler who finishes it will charge properly for matching somebody else's setting out. Income protection pays a monthly amount regardless of what you managed to complete.
What usually stops a tiler working?+
Knees, by a long way. Kneeling on hard floors for hours compresses the joint and inflames everything around it, and it progresses from aching in the evening to a brace to a consultant explaining the cartilage is not coming back. Wrists and forearms follow from cutting and setting all day. Knee pads slow it down and do not prevent it, which is why arranging cover before there is a medical history matters.
Is silica dust from cutting tiles a real risk?+
Yes, and it is the long-term one in this trade. Cutting porcelain and stone releases silica, and a wet cutter controls it while a grinder in a small bathroom with the window shut does not. The damage accumulates over years and is not reversible. Income protection responds to illness as well as injury, so a respiratory condition that stopped you working would be treated like any other cause.
Should I arrange cover before my knees give trouble?+
It makes a material difference. A knee with no medical history is straightforward to insure; one with physiotherapy and a scan behind it usually means an exclusion or a loading on exactly the thing most likely to stop you working. Since the knees in this trade are close to a known timetable rather than a random risk, arranging cover early is one of the few genuinely cheap decisions available.
Would it pay if I could still work but not kneel?+
That depends entirely on the definition. A tiler with a ruined knee can drive, sit and do most jobs, so an any occupation policy will generally find them fit for work. An own occupation policy asks whether you can do tiling, which given the job is done on your knees is the question that reflects your income. Check that clause before you compare premiums.
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 flooring fittersThe other trade that lives on its knees.
- Income protection for plasterersWet trades, wrists and the same timing pressure.
- Critical illness coverA lump sum on diagnosis, and what it actually covers.
- Talk to an adviserArrange it while your knees have no medical history.