Jake the Fiddler

Your comments have been very useful. I feel much better equipped to have a clear conversation with a few brokers now... I'm not a big risk taker... quite the opposite... I'm just aware that this is a high risk industry and I'm not experienced. Looks like PL and EL is the way forward(from what I've found out so far EL is not much extra...) I suspect I'm gonna bore the brokers to tears getting clear on this one but they need to do something to earn their money... I'm very impressed with this forum. Cheers Jake:thumbup:

much obliged Rupe, so really if I'm climbing and my groundie's not also got his tickets, the PL is a waste of money to me and protects nobody(in which case there are a lot of uninsured tree surgeons out there....round Manchester anyway).... or even more fundamentally, any third party claim made if I'm not following best practice(even if the claim is not a result of the shortfall of best practice....ie an accident.....) is not likely to be valid.... It's tricky trying to do this small scale... Think I just like being up trees, even if I don't make much money!....

Hi Rupe... think it's me that's the pain...I still haven't properly understood the responses above, but just to reply to your last post. I think that I just want to be adequately covered with liability insurance. Insurance for accidental damage would be a bonus, but given the low amount of work/turnover I'm aiming at, I just want to make sure I'm not putting clients in an unreasonable position of risk by doing a job for them. I guess I'd also like to know whether It's legal for me to pay someone unqualified to work as a groundie and how that fits with the whole liability insurance bit. Re the bona fide bit... when I spoke to arbrisk they used those terms to describe self employed individuals working for me either with there own PL(bona fide) or someone without(non bona fide) I'm very grateful for your time in responding to this. cheers Jake

sorry chaps... I replied without having seen some of the other responses above...(got interupted with having to do kiddie bedtime)... I'll make sure I understand the above before post back... your right, I am in a muddle... guess I just want to make sure that I'm doing my best to trade responsibly whilst keeping it small scale. many thanks

seems like an interesting area this.... there's obviously no point in having insurance that's not valid... it's no use to anyone but the insurance companies profits... loads of smaller arboriculture businesses clearly do work without having a fully certificated climber present yet if that does invalidate the insurance what's the point?... I guess I'm going to have to ask the insurer the blatent question.... Am I covered if I'm working without a qualified climber as a groundie?... I wonder how many small scale tree businesses actually do have a second climber on the ground?.... not many of the ones I've seen...

Thanks for your reply Rupe, I guess I just want clients to be covered in the event of things going wrong... despite obviously giving meticulous care to avoiding such. When I'm doing any climbing work I'd be asking both bona fide and non bona fide groundies so I'm going to have to get employee cover on that basis... I know we're supposed to have a second climber available, but I've not met any small scale operations that do... grateful for any further advice. Many thanks Jake

Howdie, I'm new to this game and want to get legit and insured for public liability. I'd be glad of any advice as to what to ask for and how much I should be paying. I've just spoken with Arbrisk who are going to email me a quote... the fellow guessed at between 3 and 4 hundred quid. I expect to be doing small pruning and dismantling jobs as a secondary income from my work as a musician. I've done the CS 30,31,32,38 and 39 and first aid training. And have been picking up a little bit of experience doing work for other people over the last year. I'm guessing at a turnover of well under £10 k in this first year. cheers Jake:001_smile: