Business insurance?

rosiedee

Hi,
Hope someone may be able to advise me. My OH is self employed and his business is a limited company. He's a 'one man band' and has no employees.
The insurance company he is currently with say that he has to have employers liability even though he doesn't employ anyone, is that true? He's been looking around at different insurance companies and has got a quote for a lot less but this doesn't include employers liability, but we can't understand why he needs it?
Will be grateful for any advice.

mattymoo

EL cover is certainly a requirement if you have any type of employee including temporary use of agency staff or casual labour only subcontractors.

The law is relaxed for family businesses where say somebody employs their partner / spouse to do paperwork for them. However, that waiver is cancelled if it is a limited company.

There was talk of reviewing the EL compulsory insurance act 1969 to provide a waiver for one man bands. I cannot find any mention of a revision on the HSE site so I suspect it is still in the pipeline. You can see some info here -http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse40.pdf

Finally, depending on your husbands line of work, he may be asked to provide evidence of EL and PL (public liability) cover before being allowed to tender for contracts. For example, any work for utility firms, major construction firms and local authorities will normally be subject ot vetting of EL cover and accident history. depending on his line of work, their may be a financial incentive beyond the legal requirement, to have cover in place.

rosiedee

Hi MM,
Thanks for your reply.

rosiedee

Hi MM,

Just Googled Employers Liability and apparently is no longer a compulsory for 'one man bands' from February 2005.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/20/20_3/changes-to-employers-liab.shtml

altyfc

rosiedee wrote: »

Hi,
Hope someone may be able to advise me. My OH is self employed and his business is a limited company. He's a 'one man band' and has no employees.
The insurance company he is currently with say that he has to have employers liability even though he doesn't employ anyone, is that true? He's been looking around at different insurance companies and has got a quote for a lot less but this doesn't include employers liability, but we can't understand why he needs it?
Will be grateful for any advice.

If he is a limited company... as I understand, he is not strictly-speaking self-employed. Instead, he is an employee (albeit the only one) of that ltd. co.

rosiedee

Have just spoke to HSE and there are exemptions to Employers Liability, one being is if the employee is the only person that is employed by their own company and that they own 50 per cent or more of the company shares. That's great news as his insurance will now be about a third of the cost!!

stphnstevey

Good to know