Things to think about when looking at home workshop insurance. I thought I would write a list of good practice, things to ask the insurer and some further reading:
Security
- Lock your workshop up.
- Don’t make it easy for anybody to just walk in and pick something up. Even if they don’t clear you out it might be difficult to get insurance in the future as a result.
- Lock windows or add a feature that would make it impossible to climb through. However, ensure this doesn’t compromise your own safety in the workshop.
- Lock your workshop at all times when you are not using it
- 5 lever deadlock mortices and an alarm will keep your tools safer and reduce insurance costs
Identify Your Tools
- Mark items
- The engineering community is honest and friendly.
- Models should also be insured separately and marked. This will make them very difficult to sell onwards.
- Photograph
- Take photographic evidence of what you own.
Keep Records
- Inventory
- Keep a list of your tools
- Keep serial numbers where available
- A simple spreadsheet, stored online is good: make, model, serial number, cost new to replace.
- Keep a Dossier – all of the above kept in a file
- List of all items in the workshop
- Photographs
- Receipt of purchase
- Essentially a compiled evidence based document, this will help you get insurance and will make any claim a lot easier to prove.
- Keep this document away from the workshop and preferably in a fireproof safe.
Insurance Cover
- Firstly check with your house insurer to see if they can cover your workshop as part of your house and contents cover.
- Shop around and compare quotes.
- Workshop use whether just private or commercial will need to be declared.
- Cover is normally on a New for Old basis and so you will need to calculate value and cover accordingly.
This is just a brief list to help us all think about the requirements of home workshop insurance. It is not exhaustive and I will add to this.
Please do comment below and we can make this list more comprehensive and so help our colleagues.