Insurance for plumbers

Plumbing is a licensed trade with a broad risk range inside it. A maintenance plumber replacing cylinders and fixing taps in suburban houses is a very different underwriting proposition from a drainlayer working in trenches behind an excavator, and most plumbing businesses do some of both. Registration with the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board and a current practising licence generally help the classification, because a licensed tradesperson has documented skills and clearer redeployment options.

The physical pattern of the work is awkward more than heavy. Kneeling under sinks, working overhead in ceiling spaces, crawling under floors, lifting cylinders and manhandling cast iron. The injuries that follow are knees, shoulders, wrists and lower backs, and they accumulate. A plumber in their fifties who can no longer kneel is not the victim of an accident, which is precisely why ACC is usually not the answer.

There is a long-tail illness question in plumbing too. Working in older New Zealand housing stock means periodic contact with asbestos-containing materials in lagging, linings and old vinyl. Insurers ask about it. Documented, properly managed exposure with the right controls is a conversation, not automatically a decline — but it is a conversation, and it is better had with an adviser who knows which insurers ask about it in what terms.

The realistic list of what stops a plumber earning, in rough order of how often it happens and how long it lasts.

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

• How your work splits between maintenance plumbing, new build, gasfitting and drainlaying, and which one your class was set on.
• Whether excavation, confined space or trench work has been disclosed. It rates differently and it will be asked at claim.
• Any exclusion offered for an existing knee, back or shoulder problem, which is the exact body part your trade depends on.
• Whether the benefit period runs to 65 or stops at five years.
• Whether the TPD definition is own occupation or any occupation.
• What the policy does if you move from being on the tools to running the business.

Every New Zealand insurer writes income protection for plumbers 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.

• Whether drainlaying and excavation move you a band varies by insurer, and the difference can be worth more than the premium comparison itself.
• Where an old knee or back injury attracts an exclusion, an adviser can test which insurers will time-limit it or accept it outright.
• Asbestos exposure questions are worded very differently across the market. How the answer is framed matters.
• Business expenses cover and key person cover are routinely absent from plumbing businesses that carry real fixed overheads.

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.