Insurance for electricians

Electricians occupy a useful middle position in the occupation tables. The work is skilled, it requires registration with the Electrical Workers Registration Board and a current practising licence, and much of it involves fine work with hand tools rather than sustained heavy lifting. Insurers notice all of that. A registered electrician doing domestic rewires and light commercial fit-outs frequently rates a band or two better than a builder doing framing.

The risks that make electrical work sound dangerous — shock, arc flash, burns — are dramatic but they are accidents, and in New Zealand accidents are ACC territory. Weekly compensation, treatment and rehabilitation all come from the scheme regardless of fault. That does not make the risk unimportant, but it does mean it is not the risk you need to buy cover for.

The exposure worth insuring is the ordinary one. An electrician is as likely as anyone else to be diagnosed with cancer, to have a cardiac event, or to develop a back or shoulder problem from years of working overhead and in ceiling cavities. None of that is an accident and none of it is ACC’s problem.

There is also a trade-specific version of disability worth thinking about. Fine motor control and sensation in the hands are working capital for an electrician. Nerve damage, a serious burn or a crush injury can leave you perfectly employable in general terms and completely unable to do your own trade.

The band is not fixed by the qualification. It moves with what you actually do with it.

• Domestic and light commercial fit-out and maintenance — usually the lightest rating available to the trade.
• Industrial and plant maintenance, with confined spaces, machinery and shutdown work — often a band heavier.
• Solar installation, which means regular roof work. Insurers frequently rate roof-based work closer to roofing than to electrical.
• High-voltage, line and network work, which is treated as a separate and heavier risk by most insurers.
• Mine, tunnel or offshore electrical work, which is usually rated on the site rather than on the trade.
• Running the business rather than doing the work, which can rate you lighter if it is genuinely most of your week.

If your work mixes several of these, describe the mix. Insurers will usually band on the heaviest significant component, so knowing that a small amount of roof work moves you is worth knowing before you apply rather than after.

These are the details that decide whether the cover does what you expected. Read them before you compare on price.

• Whether your solar or industrial work has been disclosed, and how it has been banded.
• Whether you are offered a benefit period to age 65 — many electricians are, and it is worth confirming.
• The TPD definition, and whether own occupation is available at your class with any insurer on the panel.
• Hand and nerve injury: check that no exclusion has been applied to an old injury that would matter most to your trade.
• If you are self-employed, whether business expenses cover is in place for the van, the lease and the apprentice.
• Minimum hours requirements, which bite if you drop back to part-time or seasonal work.

Every New Zealand insurer writes income protection for electricians to its own wording, and the words are where the money is. Two policies that look identical on price can pay very differently when it matters. Closing that gap is the entire job of an adviser.

• Registered trades are sometimes eligible for definitions and benefit periods that the generic manual class does not get. It has to be argued at application.
• Different insurers treat regular solar and roof-mounted work very differently, and the difference can be a full occupation band.
• Where an old hand or shoulder injury threatens an exclusion, an adviser can approach the insurers most likely to accept it rather than accepting the first exclusion offered.
• For a self-employed electrician, an adviser will usually look at ACC CoverPlus Extra and private cover together rather than in isolation.

There are three ways to buy life cover in New Zealand, and they are not equivalent. You can buy direct from one insurer, which means you see one product range and one underwriting appetite. You can buy through your bank, which usually means a single insurer’s product sold under the bank’s brand, often with narrower definitions. Or you can go through an adviser, who quotes several insurers at once and is required to put your interests first.

The premium you pay is the same either way. Insurers build adviser commission into their pricing whether or not an adviser is involved, so going direct does not get you a discount — it just removes the person whose job is to argue your corner at application and at claim time.

• An adviser can see which insurer is currently taking your health history on standard terms, and which one will load or exclude it.
• An adviser can structure cover across two insurers if that produces a better outcome than putting everything with one.
• An adviser handles the underwriting back-and-forth, and is the person who chases the claim when a family is least able to.
• An adviser has to document why the recommendation suits you, which is a written record you can hold them to.

We are a referral service, not an insurer. We do not quote premiums and we do not sell policies. What we do is put you in front of one licensed New Zealand adviser who can compare the market properly.

1. 1

   You tell us what you are looking at

   The form takes about a minute. Nobody asks for your medical history on a web form — that conversation happens with the adviser, properly, and only once you have decided to proceed.

2. 2

   An adviser calls you

   A licensed New Zealand adviser talks through your situation: who depends on you, what you owe, what you already have in place, and what you are actually worried about.

3. 3

   They compare the market

   The adviser quotes across the major insurers, checks which of them will take your health history on the best terms, and puts the options side by side in writing.

4. 4

   You decide, in your own time

   There is no obligation and no cost to you. If the answer is that you already have enough cover, a good adviser will tell you that.