Why you might need plant and equipment insurance

Anyone in the construction, civil, mining or landscaping industries can benefit from Plant and Equipment Insurance. This includes businesses who provide concreting, plumbing or excavating services, piling, earthmoving, roadworks, tunnelling and asphalt paving. Not forgetting trenching, cable laying, drilling rigs, and open and cut mining, as well as plant, crane and forklift hire businesses, and waste management operators.
 
What type of Plant and Equipment Insurance is available?
Many policies can be customised to your company's needs, so let's take a quick look at some of the cover that's available to your business.

Breakdowns: When your machinery breaks down it can cost a fortune to transport the equipment to a suitable repair centre, make the repairs and then get it back on the job. This is why breakdown coverage is an essential component to be included in your Plant and Equipment Insurance policy.

Material damage: This covers your business for the loss, damage, destruction or theft of physical assets. The policy generally covers, but not limited to accidental overload of lifting machines, dry hire, and substituting hire costs of machines due to loss or damage of the original equipment. For example, a concrete truck might be stolen from your warehouse by thieves, crashing through the roller doors, racing down the road and crashing into the river. You not only have to replace the equipment that's now in the river, but it also needs to be removed and sent to the wreckers yard (if it can't be repaired), the damage to your warehouse needs to be fixed, and you might even need to hire substitute equipment to keep operating.

Hired in plant: When you are working on a site with hired equipment, you need hired in plant insurance cover, because the hirer will expect you to have this type of policy. The onus is on you to repair or replace the hire equipment if it's lost, stolen or broken during your hire contract. So if the crane you hired has a broken wheel flange, it's up to you to bear the costs of fixing it, and bear the brunt of the downtime it takes before it's up and running again. Plant and Equipment Insurance is essential for a wide variety of operators who own or hire heavy equipment, whether mobile or stationary. It covers you for theft, breakdowns, material damage, hired in plant and other issues specific to each industry. For help deciding which combination of Plant and Equipment Insurance is suitable for your business, talk to an insurance specialist today.