Working in people's homes · facade fixings · care, custody and control
Liability insurance for a self-employed air conditioning fitter
As a self-employed installer you usually work in occupied houses and small offices. There is a sofa below the spot where you are drilling and there are contents under the pipe you are draining.
- Several insurers compared objectively
- 9.5 customer rating for a new policy
- AFM licence 12016589
- Personal 072 - 509 24 56, weekdays 9–17
Deze pagina in het Nederlands: Aansprakelijkheidsverzekering voor een zelfstandige airco-installateur.
The calculator and the quote form below are in Dutch. Prefer to do this in English? Email info@finassverzekert. nl or call 072 - 509 24 56 and we will take it from there.
Work out for yourself what it would cost.
Enter your details; you will receive a proposal within one working day.
- We compare the offerings of several insurers
- An adviser checks whether the cover suits your activities
- We arrange the switch, including cancellation
A premium indication, not personal advice. Prefer to talk it through? Call 072 - 509 24 56.
In brief
In a home the damage is close at hand. You drill a duct through an outside wall, hang a unit on a facade you did not build yourself, run pipework through a crawl space and put an outdoor unit on a flat roof. If something goes wrong there, there is an injured party with a specific loss straight away: a damaged ceiling, an underfloor heating loop drilled through, damaged roof covering. That is exactly what public and employers' liability insurance is for, as explained on the hub page public and employers' liability insurance.
Your own injury does not fall under it. Without staff there is no employers' liability, so a fall from the roof or a cut affects your income and not your AVB. For that, look at disability insurance or personal accident cover. Your own belongings are not insured either. A vacuum pump, a bottle of refrigerant, tools and measuring equipment belong on tools insurance.
If you work as a subcontractor for a larger installation business, their conditions and sometimes their project cover apply. Ask whether you are covered on it and with what excess. If you work directly for private customers, you are the point of contact yourself and a claim runs through your own policy. In both cases the described business activity determines what is insured: if it only mentions installation while you also take on maintenance contracts, have the wording amended. You can read more about liability in installation work at assembly and installation work.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare public and employers' liability insurance (AVB).
What to look out for
Four situations that most often lead to a claim for a self-employed installer.
The installation you are working on
If you repair an existing system and the compressor is damaged in the process, that is damage to an item in your care. That exclusion is standard and hits precisely the part you are working on. Separate care, custody and control cover can sometimes be included; ask about it expressly if you do a lot of service and repair work.
Fixing to facades and roofs
An outdoor unit puts weight and vibration on a structure you have not calculated. If it comes loose, there is a risk of injury and of damage to whatever is below it. If you drill through the roof covering for a pipe duct, a leak claim is an obvious risk. Record what you agreed with the customer about the position and the substrate.
What the policy does not pay
Not covered are redoing your own installation work, damage caused with your van (Article 2 of the Dutch Motor Insurance Liability Act (WAM)), fines, and claims arising solely from a guarantee you have given. A claim about incorrectly calculated capacity is pure financial loss as well and falls outside this insurance.
A certificate in your name
Work on systems containing fluorinated greenhouse gases requires a personal certificate as well as a business certificate. Insurers can include that as a condition in the policy. If your certificate expires, you are not only working contrary to the rules but you also risk a claim being refused for that reason.
What does your premium depend on?
- Annual turnover: the basis for a sole trader
- Type of client: private, business or subcontracting
- Working at height: roof and facade work counts more heavily
- Maintenance contracts: recurring service extends your exposure
- Sum insured: per claim and per insurance year
- Excess: often arranged separately for damage to property
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| You put your ladder against the facade and damage the neighbours' bay window | Yes | No |
| Condensate from a newly fitted unit drips onto the parquet floor for months | Yes | No |
| An occupant trips over your pipework running across the stair treads | Yes | No |
| The customer demands the purchase price back for a unit that is too powerful for the room | No | Yes |
| Your vacuum pump is stolen from the van outside the door | No | No |
| You are fined because your personal certificate turned out to have expired during the job | No | No |
A claim that is purely about money does not land on the public and employers' liability insurance; professional indemnity insurance is intended for that.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
A customer wants a certificate of insurance before I start. Is that possible?
Yes, we issue a certificate of insurance stating the insured capacity, the sum insured and the term. Business clients ask for it as a matter of course and private customers increasingly do so. Do check that the description on that certificate matches the work you are actually going to carry out.
I drilled through an underfloor heating pipe. Who pays?
The water damage and breaking open the floor are damage to the customer's property and can fall under the policy. The insurer will ask whether you checked beforehand where the pipes run, for example with a detector or from a layout plan. Without any check at all there may be a lack of care.
Is cover compulsory for me as a self-employed professional?
Not in law, but many clients make it a condition and without a policy you bear a claim entirely yourself. With a sole trader business that runs through to your private assets, because there is no separation between business and private. That weighs more heavily than the difference in premium between providers.
What about work I do abroad?
Check the territorial limits on your policy schedule. Work in Belgium or Germany is often included, but not always without declaring it. For the United States and Canada an exclusion applies with almost every Dutch insurer. Report a foreign assignment in advance, so that we can check whether a clause is needed.
Read more
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