Can I do some extra freelance work for the company I work for?

[Paddy1000111]

From my experience running contract/free lance work in aviation you are one of two things in employment:

 

1) Employed by an employer

2) Self employed

 

You get work in one of two ways, you are employed by an employer who pays you and employs you, you are their employee and they deal with your taxes etc. The other way is you work for them as an external contractor and you pay your taxes and they pay you what you invoice them for.

If you're employed by an employer you are on PAYE and you are an employee.

Any work outside of that is contract work. You can call it whatever you want "self employed, subby, Connie, freelance" you are at the end of the day a contracted in worker and you must supply a contract of services. 

I haven't seen any insurer that covers contractors/subcontractors on the policy. They sometimes give a wishy washy thing about them covering personal injury in the event of a subcontractor being injured on site but that's a liability thing and doesn't mean that if your subby damages property or the public they will be covered. 

 

Here's a situation, you employ a subcontractor for a removal. They don't have insurance. They take off a branch and little Timmy, the boy that lives there runs out to see what's happening whilst his parents aren't watching. The branch comes down and snaps little Timmy's spine. The insurance gets involved. First thing they ask is who was cutting, where's their tickets and how long have they worked for you. You say "oh, Dave is a sole trader, we took him on for the day as we needed help". At this point the insurance company says "sweet, we can wash our hands of this, it's down to the sole trader that you employed, it's him making the cuts and you are paying him as a separate company" 

 

If you take on a subcontractor under your wing and use him to represent your company then he is still his own entity and bound by the contract of work. Unless your insurance company explicitly states in your insurance certificate that they will cover all subcontracted companies that work for you as well then you aren't covered no matter what you call yourself 

[Khriss]

CiS is a particular arse as its often used to lighten the tax burden fr larger companies regardless of wether they are in construction or not ( personal experience speaking here) and you will have a big bite out of you. K

[eggsarascal]

5 minutes ago, Paddy1000111 said:

From my experience running contract/free lance work in aviation you are one of two things in employment:

 

1) Employed by an employer

2) Self employed

 

You get work in one of two ways, you are employed by an employer who pays you and employs you, you are their employee and they deal with your taxes etc. The other way is you work for them as an external contractor and you pay your taxes and they pay you what you invoice them for.

If you're employed by an employer you are on PAYE and you are an employee.

Any work outside of that is contract work. You can call it whatever you want "self employed, subby, Connie, freelance" you are at the end of the day a contracted in worker and you must supply a contract of services. 

I haven't seen any insurer that covers contractors/subcontractors on the policy. They sometimes give a wishy washy thing about them covering personal injury in the event of a subcontractor being injured on site but that's a liability thing and doesn't mean that if your subby damages property or the public they will be covered. 

 

Here's a situation, you employ a subcontractor for a removal. They don't have insurance. They take off a branch and little Timmy, the boy that lives there runs out to see what's happening whilst his parents aren't watching. The branch comes down and snaps little Timmy's spine. The insurance gets involved. First thing they ask is who was cutting, where's their tickets and how long have they worked for you. You say "oh, Dave is a sole trader, we took him on for the day as we needed help". At this point the insurance company says "sweet, we can wash our hands of this, it's down to the sole trader that you employed, it's him making the cuts and you are paying him as a separate company" 

 

If you take on a subcontractor under your wing and use him to represent your company then he is still his own entity and bound by the contract of work. Unless your insurance company explicitly states in your insurance certificate that they will cover all subcontracted companies that work for you as well then you aren't covered no matter what you call yourself 

I'm afraid you are also wrong. Before you come back check with a legal brief wether or not a freelancer needs insurance. I'm not interested which industry ring a brief and ask.

[Steve Bullman]

8 minutes ago, Paddy1000111 said:

From my experience running contract/free lance work in aviation you are one of two things in employment:

 

1) Employed by an employer

2) Self employed

 

You get work in one of two ways, you are employed by an employer who pays you and employs you, you are their employee and they deal with your taxes etc. The other way is you work for them as an external contractor and you pay your taxes and they pay you what you invoice them for.

If you're employed by an employer you are on PAYE and you are an employee.

Any work outside of that is contract work. You can call it whatever you want "self employed, subby, Connie, freelance" you are at the end of the day a contracted in worker and you must supply a contract of services. 

I haven't seen any insurer that covers contractors/subcontractors on the policy. They sometimes give a wishy washy thing about them covering personal injury in the event of a subcontractor being injured on site but that's a liability thing and doesn't mean that if your subby damages property or the public they will be covered. 

 

Here's a situation, you employ a subcontractor for a removal. They don't have insurance. They take off a branch and little Timmy, the boy that lives there runs out to see what's happening whilst his parents aren't watching. The branch comes down and snaps little Timmy's spine. The insurance gets involved. First thing they ask is who was cutting, where's their tickets and how long have they worked for you. You say "oh, Dave is a sole trader, we took him on for the day as we needed help". At this point the insurance company says "sweet, we can wash our hands of this, it's down to the sole trader that you employed, it's him making the cuts and you are paying him as a separate company" 

 

If you take on a subcontractor under your wing and use him to represent your company then he is still his own entity and bound by the contract of work. Unless your insurance company explicitly states in your insurance certificate that they will cover all subcontracted companies that work for you as well then you aren't covered no matter what you call yourself 

Again, the confusion lies in the term sub contractor. This has been done to death on arbtalk. Very few self employed guys are sub contractors, and this certainly isn't what the OP would fall under.

[Steve Bullman]

One last post, broken down.

 

Do you sub contract to a company, provide your own vehicles, tools, and staff, Price and undertake the job independantly from the main contractor? If yes you need insurance, if no, then you don't.

 

Are you self employed and work for companies as part of their teams providing labour(ground or climbing) and your own gear? No you don't need insurance, you will be covered under theres. That includes their employers liability too.

[Paddy1000111]

1 minute ago, eggsarascal said:

I'm afraid you are also wrong. Before you come back check with a legal brief wether or not a freelancer needs insurance. I'm not interested which industry ring a brief and ask.

Well I've worked for companies before, let's call them wefixplanes. Wefixplanes was working on a commercial airliner which needed a modification done on a wing spar. Wefixplanes didn't have enough manpower to do all the work so they took on 4 freelance workers who were skilled and done the modification countless times before. One guy ****************ed up and drilled a hole in the wrong place, it caused around 500k of damage. Wefixplanes was furious because they would have to go to the customer and explain why the wing is coming off of their multi-million pound jet liner. They asked the subcontractors for their insurance details so they can work it out and they said "oh, we should be covered by your insurance" to which they said "nope, you were to have your own insurance, it was in the contract you Signed here"... The 4 lads (luckily not me) as a heft deal to pay and I think eventually worked out a repayment plan. 

 

I'm sorry, but it comes down to your insurance company and the insurance policy fine print. It doesn't matter what you call it. 

 

Bare in mind you're either an employee of a company or an external company being subcontracted. There is nothing in-between, especially with the ir35 rules now.

[Moose McAlpine]

4 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

Are you self employed and work for companies as part of their teams providing labour(ground or climbing) and your own gear? No you don't need insurance, you will be covered under theres. That includes their employers liability too.

 

When i worked in freight and had my own company this is what i was told too. I had to have employer's liability to cover anyone working for me. (As in assisting me, not doing my work in their own vehicle.) Even if they were self employed or just helping they would fall under "employed" and as such i needed to provide the insurance to cover them.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Moose McAlpine

[eggsarascal]

2 minutes ago, Paddy1000111 said:

Well I've worked for companies before, let's call them wefixplanes. Wefixplanes was working on a commercial airliner which needed a modification done on a wing spar. Wefixplanes didn't have enough manpower to do all the work so they took on 4 freelance workers who were skilled and done the modification countless times before. One guy ****************ed up and drilled a hole in the wrong place, it caused around 500k of damage. Wefixplanes was furious because they would have to go to the customer and explain why the wing is coming off of their multi-million pound jet liner. They asked the subcontractors for their insurance details so they can work it out and they said "oh, we should be covered by your insurance" to which they said "nope, you were to have your own insurance, it was in the contract you Signed here"... The 4 lads (luckily not me) as a heft deal to pay and I think eventually worked out a repayment plan. 

 

I'm sorry, but it comes down to your insurance company and the insurance policy fine print. It doesn't matter what you call it. 

 

Bare in mind you're either an employee of a company or an external company being subcontracted. There is nothing in-between, especially with the ir35 rules now.

Without signing that contract which stated they needed their own insurance they would have been covered by the main contractors insurance, as freelancers.

 

The bloke with the drill knew, or should have known he'd signed that right away.

 

Again, ring an employment solicitor and ask. It will probably be free advice.

[Paddy1000111]

5 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

One last post, broken down.

 

Do you sub contract to a company, provide your own vehicles, tools, and staff, Price and undertake the job independantly from the main contractor? If yes you need insurance, if no, then you don't.

 

Are you self employed and work for companies as part of their teams providing labour(ground or climbing) and your own gear? No you don't need insurance, you will be covered under theres. That includes their employers liability too.

I get what you are trying to say but there is no such thing as a self employed person who provides labour as part of a team. That doesn't exist in employment law especially since ir35 and the law around what HMRC call "disguised employees". The IT sector was rife with it. 

 

You are either an employee and on PAYE or you are a subcontracted company that has a work contract. There is no middle ground, and I appreciate there used to be years back but there isn't anymore in the world of employment law. Some of you may have insurance policies that cover any subcontracted company you employ to do work for you but I've yet to see one and it's not going to be every contract, that's for darn sure

[Steve Bullman]

@simon wilson care to comment?