self employed

[Pete Mctree]

You only need to have your tickets etc when you want some of there money.

[felixthelogchopper]

thats YOUR business cards mate..they do go a bit soggy tho

 

All counts as extra fibre, mate

[hamdogg]

So basically when im doing my own job and i pay a trained arborist for a days work to help me on lets say a day rate as he is self employed with his own insurance, i cant do that? It doesnt add up somehow?

[Rupe]

You can do that, but if its your job then you need the insurance not the guy you have chosen to get in for the day. You need to have insurance to cover who you have chosen to do the work because that choice IS YOUR work method and needs insuring.

 

If you choose to hire in a muppet who smashes everything in site, then its your insurance, so choose wisely and get someone good but you still cover them.

 

If your main job is not tree work and therefore you dont have the correct insurance then you need to hire in a company to do the work, i.e. bona fide subcontractors, and then you leave them to it. But they need to have seen the job first and agreed a price, in writting and then they carry out the risk assessments etc and then they CHOOSE the method of carrying out the work.

 

You insurance will still need to have an inclusion for hiring in sub contractors, because if anything goes wrong the client will go to you first, therefore even with a completly subcontracted tree company doing the work with their own insurance you still have some liability if you are making some money from the deal.

 

 

So, in you example above, yes you can hire in a trained arborist for a day and he is self employed with his own insurance but if it goes wrong its down to you to sort out, you cant pass the buck to an individaul that you have "employed" for the day.

[Rupe]

hmmm by that token how come insurers are happy to insure individuals who climb - even the insurers must know that there needs to be two people present during climbing operations......

 

Yes, thats whats going wrong IMO. I spoke to an insuracne company and they said if someone phones them and say they are working a "subby" then they will happilly sell them insurance for tree work.

 

A few years ago it was impossible to get PL without EL because the insurers knew there had to be two poeple on site and one must be employing the other. I do not know why this has changed but individuals are now buying PL insurance and working as self employed climbers and in nearly every case this is a waste of time and money.

 

Thats why I try and get people to stop using the word "subby" because even when used as nickname for self employed its still suggest seperate working conditions.

[Rupe]

I came up with an analogy that explains my reasoning behind advising self employed people why they dont need seperate insurance when working for an insured company.

 

Bare with me and I will try and word it so it makes sense!!

 

Imagine you are driving along the road with a passenger. You are fully qualified and insured to drive that vehicle. The passenger also has a full driving license and insurance to drive any vehicle.

 

You get to an awkward junction, you look right and the passenger looks left, he says all clear and its all clear yourside aswell so you pull out. Just then a car comes fast (but not speeding) from the left and there is a collision.

 

 

Now is that the fault of the passenger? Do you try and claim on his insurance? After all he said it was safe to pull out. Surely he should have his own insurance to cover him for telling you it was safe to pull out?

Or do you recognise that you were driving and therefore its your insurace that needs contacting to sort the situation.

(this is just an analogy so of course I'm ignoring the other drivers insurance!)

 

So in tree work its important to acknowledge who is driving the vehicle, and who are the passengers.

[Pedroski]

 

So in tree work its important to acknowledge who is driving the vehicle, and who are the passengers.

 

Right, I have PL and EL insurance for landscaping. It doesn't cover me for tree felling/lopping (as they eloquently put it in the policy schedule). It DOES cover me for sub-contracting out to a bona fide sub-contractor.

 

I am asked to do some big trees. I get a bona-fide sub-contractor to do it (with PL for tree work). He tells me his price for the work. I write out a quote for my customer factoring in the cost of the sub-contractor. The sub-contractor has all of his own gear. He arrives in his own vehicle. He decides how the job is going to be done. He is not paying me anything, I'm not employed by him, but I am clearing the drop zone. I even make him tea and send stuff up to him on his rope. To the customer, the sub-contractor's job is to deal with the tree using his expertise. I'm just there to clear the ground and make sure the sub-contractor gets paid, make sure the sub-contractor completes the work and to invoice the customer.

 

So, just because the sub-contractor is working on the tree, and I'm just clearing mess and doing the other stuff my customer wants, how does that make one an employee of the other? As far as I can see, we are two different entities doing two different jobs. Sure, I'm in the drop zone at times, but only when the sub-contractor says it's all clear and is moving around the tree while I do my job for the customer of keeping the site tidy.

[Rupe]

If you have quoted to the customer for the tree work then you are driving the vehicle, and he is not a bona fide subcontractor if he doesnt have an aerial rescue qualified groundy with him who would ideally also do the clearing.

 

In your example I think you are actually employing him, but for now we'll say he is a subcontractor. Your insurance is still required for the job.

 

 

Where you have said that your insurance allows you for sub-contracting out to a bona fide sub-contractor, thats great but that subcontractor should be a two man team and he is employing the groundie (ideally that is) but even so you would still be in charge and responsible for the whole thing, so the client would claim on your insurance if it went wrong. Your insurance would say its fine, your allowed to use bonafide subcontractors and they would pursue the subcontractors insurance, when it later turned out that he was working alone (with you as groundie) it could fall back on you, but maybe it wont.

 

What I am getting at is that his insurance is not to be relied on if you are still the one runnign the job for the client.

[Will Ayers]

im a self employed climber, working for loads of local firms, i dont do much if any of my own work and boy am i glad that i dont have to pay out insurance! my question would be, if something did go wrong on site, and it was my error, and the guys insurance didnt pay out, or perhaps he lied about having the right insurance etc... am i still in the clear, the liablity would be his right? or is it like driving someone elses car having been told you were insured on it, crashing it and then it being my liability?

[Rupe]

In the work situation its not your liability, its the company you work for, weather they are insured or not.

 

In the car driving analogy that you give its always your liability weather insured or not, if your told you are insured to drive another car and you crash it and then it turns out you were not insured then, sadly, that is still your liability and you is in trouble.