Liability insurance for a self-employed paver
Paving you hand over level can be a three-centimetre lip two years later. The question is then whether that is down to your work or to the ground beneath it.
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In brief
A liability insurance for businesses pays for injury and property damage at others. In paving work that comes down to two types of claim: someone who falls over your work, and something underground you strike while excavating. What it does not cover is the paving itself. If your work lies uneven, hollow or too low, relaying it is putting right your own work and that is excluded on every AVB.
Where there is injury after handover, the first question is who manages the road or the site. Article 6:174 of the Dutch Civil Code places liability for a defective structure, and a paved surface counts as one, with the possessor: the municipality, the owner or the VvE. You only come into the picture through Article 6:162 of the Dutch Civil Code, where it can be shown that you delivered defective work. That is why the handover photograph with a date is your cheapest insurance.
Watch three further items that do not fit on this policy. Your tools, plate compactor and trailer are your own property. Your your own injury after a fall or a crush injury is arranged with disability insurance. And a penalty or deduction the client withholds because the work is finished late follows from the contract and not from the law.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare public and employers' liability insurance (AVB).
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Business liability insurance (AVB)
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Where paving work runs aground
Four situations in which a paviour comes up against the policy conditions.
Subsidence: your work or the substrate
Settlement is the most common dispute in this trade. If you only laid the blocks on a sub-base someone else installed, the substrate is not your responsibility — but that does have to be recorded somewhere. If you did the groundworks yourself, a sunken driveway is defective work of your own and you pay for relaying it. Set out in the assignment confirmation who provides the sand bed, the sub-base and the compaction.
Trip claims after handover
A loose slab, a protruding edging or a hollow next to a manhole leads to injuries that are reported months later. The possessor of the paving is held liable under Article 6:174 of the Dutch Civil Code and can pass the loss on to you. With such late claims it matters whether your policy is based on the moment of the claim or of the act, and whether run-off period has been arranged if you stop trading.
What lies beneath the paving
Service connections, garden lighting, drainage, fibre optics and irrigation are rarely where the drawing says. Property damage to those lines is covered in principle, but many policies apply an increased excess for excavation damage and expect you to have made the excavation notification as the WIBON (the Dutch act on underground networks) requires. For private clients that is not always compulsory; asking for drawings and digging trial pits is the alternative.
Working alongside the carriageway
A worksite on or beside the public road brings a duty of care of its own: barriers, lighting, a walking route for pedestrians. If a cyclist rides through a knocked-over fence into your trench, it will be considered whether you had put up the measures set out in the usual guidance. Sand and grit left on the road surface leading to a fall falls into the same category.
What does your premium depend on?
- Turnover or days worked: the basis on which the premium is calculated
- Type of work: gardens and driveways weigh differently from public space
- Groundworks in your own hands: laying only, or also excavating and building the sub-base
- Type of clients: private individuals, landscapers, contractors or a municipality
- Use of machines: working by hand or with a mini excavator and paving machine
- Sum insured and excess: per claim, with a separate scale for excavation damage
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| A block shoots out from under your plate compactor and breaks a pane in the conservatory | Yes | No |
| Your mini excavator grazes the garage wall while excavating the driveway | Yes | No |
| Sand and grit from your work wash into the neighbours' pond and the fish die | Provided that | No |
| The driveway you laid sinks ten centimetres in the first year | No | No |
| Your levels are wrong and rainwater runs towards the front door instead of to the gully | No | Yes |
| Your advice about the build-up of the sub-base turns out to be wrong and the whole terrace has to come up | No | Yes |
As soon as you also do the groundworks and the advising, part of your risk moves from the right-hand column to the left and back.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
My paving has subsided. Does the insurance pay for relaying it?
No. Redoing your own work is an obligation under the contract and not damage to someone else. That falls under the exclusion for defective work of your own. If something else has been damaged by that subsidence, for example a wall that becomes damp because the water runs the wrong way, that consequential loss can be insured.
Someone trips over a slab I laid. Who is liable?
Usually the owner or road authority is approached first under Article 6:174 of the Dutch Civil Code, because they possess the paving. If the claim is then passed to you, it has to be shown that your work was defective. Report the claim to your insurer, admit nothing and supply your handover photographs. Age, tree roots and work later dug up are realistic counter-arguments.
I struck a cable while excavating. What does the policy pay?
Repairing the cable is third-party property damage and covered in principle, generally with a higher excess than for other losses. What is decisive is your care: had you requested drawings, dug by hand first, and had an excavation notification been made where that is compulsory? Without those steps the discussion moves to blame and an insurer can limit the payment.
I work for a municipality. Do their terms then apply?
Often yes, and that is precisely what to watch. Specification conditions regularly contain guarantee periods, penalty clauses and indemnities that go beyond liability in law. That extra part is excluded on the AVB, because what is insured is what follows from Article 6:162 of the Dutch Civil Code. Have those provisions assessed in advance and price long-running guarantee obligations into your quote.
Every situation is different. For these situations we have a separate page.
- Compare public and employers' liability insurance (AVB)The main page
- Liability insurance for a self-employed tilerWaterproofing, the client's tiles, substrate
- Liability insurance for a self-employed plastererCovering up, moisture, adhesion
- Liability insurance for a self-employed demolition contractorStrip-out, load-bearing parts, hired equipment
- Liability insurance for a self-employed gardenerDamage while digging, pruning, soil
- Liability insurance for a paving companyWorksite, machines, physical strain
- Liability insurance for a demolition companyAdjoining properties, asbestos, soil
- Liability insurance for a landscaping companyMachinery injuries, maintenance contracts, public green space
- Liability insurance for a self-employed professional in the contracting tradeSubcontracting, care, custody and control, indemnity