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If you run a landscaping business you’ll know the importance of protecting yourself.

We help dozens of landscaping businesses with their insurance needs, from one-man start-ups to established companies.

We’ve put together a comprehensive guide on the different types of landscaping insurance types available.

If you’re not interested in reading and just want to speak with an expert, call us on 1800 808 800 or hit the button below to complete our quote request form.

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What insurance does a landscaper need?

The types of landscaping insurance you’ll need for your business will depend on how your business is structured and the types of work you’re taking on.

We’ve listed some of the most common forms of insurance for landscapers below:

Public liability insurance

This is the big one for any landscaping or gardening business, regardless of how big or small you are.

Public liability insurance will protect you in the event that you (or your employees) cause property damage or personal injury to a third party as a result of your negligence.

Smaller claims tend to be for property damage.  For example you might be carrying some timber sleepers to the rear of a home and you manage to smash a window on your way past.

The cost of replacing a typical window might be less than the excess on the policy anyway, but you get the idea.

Larger claims tend to be for personal injury, and thankfully these are less common.  An extreme example could be that you’re building a boulder wall and you lose control of one of the boulders, which rolls away and strikes the homeowner or someone walking past.

It’s important to let us know exactly what types of work you’re doing in your business.  Some of our clients combine concreting and landscaping, carpentry and landscaping, and general handyman work with landscaping.

If you’re doing anything outside of what’s considered “normal” for a landscaper you need to let us know, otherwise your public liability policy might not be right for you.

Special considerations for landscapers

When comparing public liability policies from different providers there are two areas for landscapers to pay special attention to.

The first one is tree lopping.  If you are undertaking any lopping, check the height limit.  Some policies limit it to 3m and some to 5m.  It’s very uncommon to find a normal policy that allows beyond 5m.

We can still cover lopping over 5m, but we’d need to quote a more specialist type of policy.  It’ll be more expensive, but you’ll have the peace of mind knowing that you’re properly covered.

The other point to check is excavation.  Some policies will limit how deep you can dig, and in some cases this can be as shallow as 1m.

Tree lopping and excavation certainly aren’t the only two things to check when comparing policies, but we do find them to be common issues for landscapers.

Public liability insurance cost

The cost of public liability insurance for a landscaping business will depend on a few different factors.

The main one is the size of your business.  Some of the insurers we use base it on your annual revenue, whilst others base it on your staff numbers.

Either way, the larger your landscaping business is by revenue or staff numbers, the higher the cost of the insurance will be.

Your business activities can also have an impact.  If you’re just doing standard landscaping there will be a standard cost, but if you’re doing concreting as well the cost may be a little higher.

The locations you work in will have an impact if they are considered a higher risk.  Examples include airports, train stations, power stations, mine sites etc.  Basically anywhere with high foot traffic or other hazards.

As insurance brokers we can run through the relevant questions with you, then take that information to the market to find the most suitable cover for your business at a competitive price.

Tool insurance

As a landscaper there are a lot of different tools, and especially power tools, that you’ll need on a daily basis.

Insuring your tools isn’t as expensive or difficult as you might think, and is one of the common forms of tradies insurance we deal with.

A typical tool insurance policy will cover you gear for damage caused by fire, damage caused in a vehicle collision or rollover, and theft following forced or violent entry.

We find that the theft cover is most important for landscapers, and tradies in general.

Plant & machinery insurance

Tool insurance is great for most of your handheld gear, but if you’re running larger equipment such as excavators, you’ll need some more serious insurance.

Plant and machinery insurance can cover these larger items against a range of different risks.

Personal accident insurance

Landscaping can be tough physical work.  Not only is it easy to pick up an injury, but that injury could have you off work for a long period of time due to the physical nature of the work.

Personal accident insurance can help by covering a large percentage of your income for a period of time whilst you’re unable to work.

This insurance can cover you just for injuries, or you can include an option to cover sickness as well.  You can also choose to be covered only for injuries at work, or any injury that occurs at any time.

Whilst personal accident insurance is great, it’s not the most comprehensive form of insurance available for a landscaper.

For the best coverage you’d need to look at income protection insurance.  We can advise on this form of insurance, so we recommend seeking advice from a financial planner for more information.

Workers compensation insurance

The rules on workers compensation insurance differ depending on which state you operate your business in.

We don’t deal with workers compensation, but we strongly recommend checking with your state authority to see what is required of you.

Commercial vehicle insurance

You can’t do much landscaping without a vehicle to get you and your equipment around.

Whilst you can insure your vehicles through a “retail” insurer like NRMA or AAMI, there are benefits to having your vehicles insured through a proper commercial policy.

If you have multiple vehicles in your business we can put together a fleet policy which will generally be quite competitive on pricing.

Other insurance types

Whilst we’ve listed some of the more common forms of landscapers insurance in this guide, there are many other policies we can assist with depending on your needs.

If you operate from your own premises (either owned or rented) we can assist with insuring the building (if required) along with any contents or stock on the premises.

We can also assist with the following depending on your needs:

Plus anything else you need.

We can also package it up into a single annual or monthly payment to make like easier.

More information

The best way to get started is to speak with one of our brokers.

Our team of experienced insurance brokers will speak to you about your business to understand your risks and your needs, then put together an insurance package with quotes from all of the leading insurers in Australia.

To get started call us on 1800 808 800 or complete our online quote request.  Our office is based in Brisbane, but we look after thousands of clients from all over Australia.

Landscaping Insurance

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