A Guide Tool Insurance and Why You Need It

A Guide Tool Insurance and Why You Need It

If you are a tradesman like a plumber, mechanic, electrician, gardener, painter, decorator, carpenter or similar, your job heavily relies on having the right tools available to you. If one of your tools gets damaged or lost or if your tools get stolen, you can’t do your job properly (or perhaps even at all) and that’s a costly problem to have.

The solution to this concern is to make sure that you have tools insurance in place so that you can run your business and do you job if something were to happen to any of your tools.

• What is tool insurance and what does it cover?

Tool insurance is there to cover the cost of replacing tools in the above circumstances. It can sometimes be purchased alongside business insurance, but it can also be purchased on its own to simply protect your tools.

What the cover includes varies depending on the insurance provider and the chosen cover plan, but it will generally include things like handheld smaller tools, power tools and landscaping equipment. It usually covers tools that you own and tools that have been leased or hired.

The amount covered can be set to your personal needs so that you only pay for what you need. Overnight cover is usually included, and you can get cover for tools at home and work, for tools in transit (for transport, loading and unloading) and even cover for use abroad if your business is international.

If you’re a tradesman working with tools and/or travelling with tools in your van or car, it’s a really good idea to get tool insurance to ensure that your tools are protected.

• How does tool insurance work?

Tool insurance pretty much works as most other types of insurance. You insure up to the value that you need to cover your tools and equipment and if anything gets stolen, damaged or lost, you can claim on your insurance policy to assist in covering the costs of replacing affected tools or repairing them if possible. There’s usually an excess to pay to claim too so make sure you get a policy with a suitable excess.

• What else can you do to keep your tools safe?

Even if you do have tool insurance, you need to do your best to keep your tools and equipment safe, day and night.

If you can, keep your tools inside overnight and if you must keep them in your car or van, make sure they’re out of view, that the vehicle is locked, alarmed and securely parked – on your own drive is usually a good place if you don’t have a garage available to use.

Having a security system like CCTV with a view over your drive or a dash-cam that will start filming when sensing movement for your van or car is a good idea too.

Another thing that you can do to help keep your equipment safe, or to help find tools if they get stolen, is to mark your things with your details and/or to register their serial numbers online in a specialist database for this purpose.

Conclusion

Do what you can to ensure that your tools and work equipment is as safe as possible by following the above advice but also take out tool insurance to ensure that, if anything goes wrong, you will be covered and get help replacing or repairing your tools without much cost. The peace of mind will be well worth it!

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