Rupe

I dont agree with that totally. Being a cowboy is when you say your insured but your not. If you are honest and say your not insured yet as your company is in its first year or not big enough, or not chasing council contracts then thats ok, the customer can decide for themselves. A cowboy does poor work and lies to get the work i.e says trees are dangerouse etc etc.

Hi MArc, you beat me to it. HAve you really been thinkign abou tit all day today? Sorry about my tone yesterday. I am mostly just practising for being a cantanckerous old &*%$ in my old age, and so far the practice is going well!! Don't take anything personally. When I said its your boss that make sthe mistake if you screw up I mean any boss any self employed climber.

TO SLICX Sure, forget my little rant, I'll try and help. I'm sure that any genuine sub contractors that he (your future boss) uses would have to have PL and that that would be a condition of his insurance policy, thats fine that all makes sense. The problem is in the understanding of what a sub contractor is. And you are definaltly not a sub contractor. Your boss may be confused here, when he says you will be workign as a sub contractor and self employed he's wrong. He either wants to not have the hassle of paying your tax and holiday pay etc. in which case he's taking advantage of you or if your genuinly going to be self employed i.e. workign for other people and free to work as many or as few days for him as YOU choose then thats fine to be self employed but your not a subcontractor. If I win a huge contract to do railway line work all round the country, I would find suitable companies in each area and give them the work for percentage of what I get and those companies would be sub-contracting to me and responsible for their own actions and require public liability etc. On a smaller scale, if I win a job cutting down a tree for mrs smith down the road for 500pounds and I got you in as a subcontractor, I would give you that job for say 400 pounds and you would go and do it. You woudl then be a sub contractor and you would have to go with your own staff, truck, chipper and of course insurance. Working with a company as a groundie is not sub contracting. You are not taking the job from them and going off to do it in your own time. You are workign for that company self employed or not you are covered by there insurance and by the employees liability. The boss takes responsiblity for the job beign done and if you screw up then its his fault, the same for freelance climbers etc. its up to the boss to decide who to employ and how to get the job done, if they screw up then he screwed up and his insurance covers it or finds him negligable in some way. So to summarise, your boss is right and sub contractors he uses must have PL. I'm sure that is written very clearly in his insurance policy. But you are not a sub contractor. Does that help?

Yes of course they are if the job warrants it (in the customers opinion that is, fences don't really warrant it IMO!). But leave that to companies that need insurance for larger things and for employees and council work etc. There seems to be many people payign for insurance when they work SE for other comapnies and do a few bits on the side. Who's making money out of tree work these days? Us, or the insurance companies? So now we need insurance for advertising and our reputation? Forgive me for repeatign myself but insurance should be for insurance, not for the tax man, or to help others get a contract. Or for advertising or reputation. "oh, he must be good he's insured" crap!

MArc, all my responses were aimed at the original poster, except the one which started with your name no 9 and partially no.8 althougth that was a general response to your response and not aimed at you directly. You do whatever feels right for you mate, theres no problem with you having PL if thats what you want. I'm sure that you are good and safe at your job, but the buck stops with the company who quoted for the job. Don't take offence by it, thats how it is, you don't need to prove anything to anyone.

Good. The job should go to someone who is insured, but they should be insured because of the other work they do. Don't get insurance because it will help you get a job where a fence might get broken! What I'm saying is don't give money away to an insurance comapny for something that you will never claim on anyway.

Also , you use the words "probably" and "might". Just wait and see what you end up doing, test the water so to speak and you might find you just don't need it. Also insurance companies base the cover on last years income and how you earned that income, climbign, ground work etc. So you are better waiting a year then gettign cover based on that past year and carry on like that, otherwise you'll be paying way over the odds for a policy based on what you might earn of maybe 100k per year which is unlikley. At the end of the year if you've earned 20K the next years policy will be cheaper but the amount you overpaid will not be refunded.

Yes he would still need employers liabiltiy if you are working for him and you would be covered by his PL if he has the EL, if he hasn't EL then he can't do any work cos industry best practice is to not work alone and you can't really both work for the customer, that just not going to wash. Insurance companie will take your money, but so will car insurance companies. It doesn't mean you are covered if you don't have everything in place as required by the HSE. Just don't do any jobs over roads or houses. Cutting down small trees in back garden does not really require PL. MOst policies have 800 quid excess so any minor mishaps, broken window, gutter, gate post etc are gonna come out of your pocket anyway. ALl this insuracne is for companies doing work over roads etc. and for tenderign to larger companies, councils and the like. 18 yr olds and students gettign PL cover is mental!

I think 85% ir 85%. where you turn up to and what hours you keep is not really relevant.

In the first point Peter, he would only know if you were investigated and the query of your actuall SE status came up, then you could show a certificate and that would help you. Investigations are random or if they are suspicious. Generally if you are payign tax and they don't investigate you then they would never know or care about insurance. SEcondly. I agree!

MArc, if you do 85% work for one company but you have PL insuracnce cos you do some private work yourself, you would need EL insurance too to cover theguy you get in to help you on your private jobs? No?

If the company that uses you does not think that you follow there spec or use best practice then they should stop using you. Ultimatly if you make a mistake it will be their fault for making the decision to get you in for the job. There insurance covers this, mine covers me to use self employed people, if they are crap, hungover or whatever then that is my poor judgement. I can't then go after them in the event of an accident. Plus the groundie is under contant instruction anyway. MAybe in the event of a job being carried out by a SE climber and a SE groundie with no company employed person or the boss on site then that might cause problems but again that would be negligence on the part of the company owner. Don't forget we are NOT talkign about sub contracting. That is totally different. We discussed this before and the two best reason for having insurance as a SE climber were. 1. to look good for the tax man WTF!! and 2. to help the companies you work for to get contracts WTF again! If no 2 is an issue then get the company you are working for to pay your insurance. As far as the tax man is concerned, I agree that we have to make it look like we are sub-contracting and insurance would help, but if you are working for enough different people and maybe doign some easy private work aswell then that should cover it. Word your invoice as job done, not days worked. Its the tax mans job to get your tax, not check if your insured. If you are woking for mostly one company then you shouldn't be self employed and wasting money on insurance won't change that. 85% for one comany is too much for self employed status, you should be employed.

This has been brought up before, but payign insurance so that it look good to the tax man? WTF!! Insuracne is supposed to be for insurance!

Where do I start!!!!! Are you going to be a sub contractor?? Answer is no you are not!! You are goign to be sefl employed working for various companies with those companies, so you will be covered by there insurance. A sub contractor is a totally differnet thing so forget that. You don't need insurance, you're still a student for god sake. Unless you are takign on you rown jobs why would you be insured? If you are the gorundie on a job for someone else and a branch goes through the garage and desptroys the aston martin, is that going ot be your fault? Of course not, its however is doing the job, not the climber or the groundie but the company who supplied the quote for the work. I've got a good window you can throw 400 quid out if you want!

What sort of money are they new??

A tent for big wall climbing or hanging up in a tree.

I was a bit worried about searchign that on google but it wasn't so bad. BUT, no thanks! Thats the epitome of awful camping, worse than a campsite. Tree boat and two trees next to a river is all you need or a bit of woodland, tucked away. No permission but no fees either, and no other people! Some of the locations looked great though. And "glamping"! What an awful word, nearly as bad as "staycation" .

Not technically legal in this country, seatbelts and all that, but i'd do the same!

Give the wood to the farmer for nowt as a thankyou for giving you access. You can't really sell the stuff so just put it in your tree surgery yard with all the other crap.

I use a lot of pine as kindling, usually offcuts soem some wonky shelves I've put up, and its the best!

Can poplar be used for kindling? Its used for matches but I guess thats not the same thing! I've load of poplar in cord 6-9 inch diameter to get rid of. I keep sneakign a few in with a load of logs but its not dented the pile yet!

You can see why 2000 quid is not much incentive for people to get rid of an old perfectly ok car just to go into more debt to buy a Honda thats been sat in a car park for over a year!

I was abit gutted when I saw the date plate, my last one was only 2 months old! Date in service and hours are what really matters, plus if you trade them in within say 4-5 years then I guess you'll go back to the same dealer and part ex it, in which case they should believe you! If you are keeping it until its a hangin old wreck (6 years, just kidding) like 10 years old and then selling it for 1000 quid then a few months here and there won't make much difference.

The 07 check you mention, was that on the engine? They could have been sat on a shelf for ages before being used!

I bough t one end of march this year and the plate said june 2008. I spoke to the dealer and they said there is a backlog of stock due to a slow down in sales. Theres not much that you can do, its perfectly normal for them to do it. Its like this 2000 quid scrapage for old cars, its just a desperate attempt to clear back log. I think you should sell it as a 2009 or at least "in service 2009". I do wonder though, if you bought it due to lookign at them at the trade show and then you got an older one then you would or should be able to complain. I hope they did you a good deal, if the backlog is that big they should be keen to sell them! I paid 11k for mine and they chucked in 2 extra sets of blades and a 2 yr warranty.