What "Fully Insured" Should Actually Mean

What cover should a duct cleaning contractor actually hold?

There are three policies that matter for this trade, plus a couple of extras that separate a serious firm from a chancer.

Employers' liability - the one that is legally required

If a contractor employs anyone, they are required by the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 to hold employers' liability cover, and the legal minimum is £5 million. In practice most reputable firms carry £10 million because that is simply what insurers offer as standard. This is not optional and it is not a nice-to-have - operating without it can be penalised at up to £2,500 for every day a business goes uninsured. If a contractor tells you they are "fully insured" but cannot show a current employers' liability certificate, that is a red flag before you get anywhere near the technical detail.

Public liability - the one that protects you

Public liability is the cover that pays out if the contractor injures a third party or damages property that is not theirs - which, on your premises, means you, your staff and your building. It is not compulsory by law, which is exactly why it gets quietly skipped. Levels typically run £1 million, £2 million, £5 million or £10 million. For a system that ties into fire risk, £5 million is a sensible floor and £10 million is common on larger sites. As a useful benchmark, the industry's own Vent Hygiene Register will not accept a contractor without at least £2 million of public liability in place.

Professional indemnity - the one everyone forgets

Here is the part that catches people out. When a contractor hands you a certificate stating your system has been cleaned to standard, they are giving you a professional opinion that you, your landlord and your insurer will rely on. If that certificate is wrong - if it says clean and it is not - that is a professional negligence exposure, and it is professional indemnity insurance, not public liability, that answers for it. A firm that issues compliance paperwork but holds no professional indemnity is signing off on work with nothing standing behind the signature.

Could hiring the wrong contractor invalidate your own insurance?

This is the point most "fully insured" conversations miss entirely. It is not just the contractor's cover you need to worry about - it is your own. The contractor being insured does very little for you if the way they work, or fail to work, quietly breaches the conditions of your building and business insurance.

Most commercial property and food-business policies now carry a condition, often buried in the wording, that kitchen extraction systems are cleaned and maintained in line with the current standard - TR19® Grease, published by the Building Engineering Services Association. British insurers treat it as the benchmark for ventilation cleanliness. In the event of a fire, your insurer will ask for your certificates. If you cannot produce them, or they show cleaning was overdue, or they were issued by someone without the competence to issue them, the claim can be refused - even where the fire did not start in the ductwork at all.

That is the trap. A cheap contractor who cleans the canopy, skips the hidden runs of duct, and hands you an official-looking certificate has not saved you money. They have handed you a document that looks like protection and functions like a liability. Compliance with TR19® is one of the ways you demonstrate you are meeting your duties under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and a certificate is only worth the competence and honesty of the person who signed it.

So "fully insured" has to mean two things at once - the contractor can cover their own mistakes, and the work is done to a standard that keeps your cover intact. Only one of those is about their policy schedule. The other is about whether they actually clean the whole system and record what they find.

How do you check "fully insured" before you book?

You do not need to be an insurance expert to do this well. You need to ask for a few specific things and read them properly. A firm that means it will send these over without hesitation; a firm that stalls is telling you something.

1. Ask for the certificates, not the claim. Request the employers' liability and public liability certificates, and the professional indemnity schedule. Each should name the insured company, an FCA-authorised insurer, a limit of indemnity and, crucially, an expiry date that has not passed.
2. Check the limits against the risk. Employers' liability should be at least the £5 million legal minimum. Public liability of £5 million or more is appropriate for fire-risk work. If professional indemnity is missing entirely, ask who stands behind the certificate they intend to issue.
3. Check the competence, not just the cover. Insurance and skill are different questions. Look for BESA membership and the relevant qualifications - a Grease Hygiene Technician for kitchen extract work - and, ideally, listing on the Vent Hygiene Register, which independently verifies both insurance and competence.
4. Check the method around the edges. Ask whether access panels will be fitted where the ductwork cannot be reached, whether you get before-and-after photographs, and whether the degreasing chemicals are covered by a proper COSHH assessment. If you want to know what good looks like on that last point, our guide on how COSHH assessments should actually be done is a useful yardstick.

Do those four things and "fully insured" stops being a slogan and becomes something you can actually verify. The difference between a contractor who welcomes the questions and one who bristles at them usually tells you everything about the job you are about to receive.