Insurance for roofers

There is no getting around it: roofing is rated hard. Insurers price the combination of working at height all day, on pitched and often wet surfaces, carrying materials, in all weather. A fall from a roof is not a sprain — it is a life-changing injury or a fatality — and the classification reflects that severity, not just the frequency.

The practical consequences are specific rather than general. Income protection for a roofer is expensive where it is available, is often capped at a two-year benefit period, and is sometimes not offered at all. TPD, if offered, is usually on an any-occupation definition. Waiting periods may be restricted to the longer options.

What roofers are rarely told is where the restrictions stop. Life cover for a roofer is frequently available on terms that are not far off an office worker’s, because the occupation loadings on life cover are much flatter. Trauma cover is usually available too. So a roofer who is told “insurance does not really work for your occupation” has been told something misleading — income protection is the difficult product, not insurance generally.

That matters because of what the New Zealand risk picture actually looks like for a roofer. The fall is covered by ACC: weekly compensation, treatment, rehabilitation, regardless of fault. The bowel cancer at 48, the heart attack, the knees that will not take another ladder — none of those are ACC’s problem, and all of them are the sort of event a trauma lump sum handles well.

A blunt summary, because roofers get sold vague reassurance more often than most.

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

• The benefit period on any income protection offered. Two years is common and it is a very different product from cover to 65.
• Whether the policy is accident-only. In a country with ACC, accident-only income protection can be close to worthless.
• The TPD definition. Any occupation is a hard test for a physically capable roofer with a bad back.
• Height exclusions or restrictions written into the policy, and exactly what they say.
• Whether you also do scaffolding, edge protection or solar work, which may be rated separately again.
• Skin checks and any history of skin lesions, which will be asked about and matters for trauma cover.

Every New Zealand insurer writes cover for a heavily rated occupation 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.

• Appetite for roofing varies more between insurers than for almost any other occupation, and it moves. Knowing who is currently writing it is the whole job.
• Where one insurer offers only a two-year benefit period, another may currently offer five for the same duties.
• Where income protection is declined, an adviser can construct a trauma and TPD package that covers much of the same ground rather than leaving you with nothing.
• A roofer who moves into supervision, estimating or running the crew from the ground can often be re-rated. Most never ask.

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.