Guides

Task guides start from the job somebody is trying to finish rather than from an insurance product. Each one separates the factual steps that can be stated generally from decisions that depend on a particular business.

Certificates and evidence of cover

How to get a certificate of currency — Ask whoever arranged the policy — your broker, or the insurer directly if you bought online. It is normally free and issued the same day.
Checking a subcontractor’s certificate of currency — Check the insured entity name against the entity on your contract first. A name mismatch is the most common and most serious defect.
When a certificate does not meet the contract — Identify which requirement is unmet: the insured name, the class of cover, the limit, the period, or a required notation. Each has a different fix.

Claims and disputes

Notifying a claim: what to send and when — Notify as soon as you know something has happened, before you know whether it will become a claim. Late notification is a reason claims get declined.
A claim was declined: the steps in order — Ask for the decision and its reasons in writing, with the specific policy term relied on. A verbal decline is not something you can respond to.
Complaining about an insurer or broker — Complain to the firm first. Insurers and brokers must run an internal dispute resolution process, and it is free.

Who is requiring this of you

Is it legally required, or does somebody just want it? — Three separate things get described as compulsory, and only one of them is a general legal obligation.
Professional indemnity or public liability? — Public liability asks what the business damaged. Professional indemnity asks what the business got wrong.
Using your own car for client work — A private motor policy is priced for the use you declared, and carrying clients or equipment for payment is a different use.
When claims-made cover lapses, switches or ends — Claims-made cover responds to claims first made during the policy period, whatever date the work was done.
Asked for a workers compensation certificate as a sole trader — State schemes generally cover workers, not the person who owns the business.
Why comparing premiums with other businesses misleads — Premium is driven by the activity, the limit, the excess, the revenue and the claims history together, so two businesses in the same trade can be priced very differently.

How the market is put together

Who actually carries the risk on your policy — The name printed largest on a certificate is frequently not the company that pays a claim.
Can you choose your workers compensation insurer? — In several states and territories the employer has no choice: cover comes from a single government scheme or insurer.
The covers that are sections, not policies — Several well-known covers are not sold as standalone policies at all — they are optional sections inside a broader business policy.

Proving cover

What a certificate of currency actually proves — A certificate confirms a policy was recorded as in force on the day it was issued. It is a snapshot, not a guarantee for any date before or after that.
Certificate, policy schedule and certificate of insurance compared — A certificate of currency is a short summary produced on request. A policy schedule is part of the contract itself and carries more detail.
Reading the endorsements and exclusions on a certificate — Some certificates list endorsements that narrow or extend cover; many do not, because a certificate is a summary and endorsements are policy detail.
"Interested party" and "principal’s indemnity" on a certificate — A named interested party is noted on the policy so the insurer will tell them about cancellation or major changes. It does not make them an insured.
A certificate that has expired mid-contract — An expired certificate is a paperwork gap, not proof the policy has lapsed. The two are frequently the same thing, but they are not automatically the same thing.
A certificate naming the wrong entity or ABN — A certificate has to name the entity that signed the contract or is doing the work. A related company, a trading name, or a former entity name is not the same thing.
Certificates for labour hire and subcontracted work — A labour hire provider’s certificate covers the provider’s own liability. It does not automatically extend to the host business the workers are placed with.
How long a certificate stays valid, and what ends it early — A certificate is valid for the period of insurance printed on it. There is no fixed industry-standard length — it is whatever period the policy runs to.
Chasing certificates across many subcontractors — The failure mode is always the same: certificates get collected once, at induction, and nobody owns the job of re-checking them as they age.
What a head contractor is entitled to ask for — A head contractor can ask for evidence of the cover its own contract or policy actually requires — the classes, the limit, and any notation the risk genuinely calls for.
A certificate for a job that has already started — A certificate produced after work has already begun still only confirms the policy as it stood on the day it was issued — it cannot retroactively confirm cover was in place before that.
When a certificate is not the right evidence at all — A certificate answers "does a policy exist". It cannot answer whether a specific event is covered, whether an insurer is legitimate, or whether a scheme requirement is even the right one to be asking about.

Workers compensation by state

How WorkCover Queensland actually works — WorkCover Queensland is the state’s own workers compensation insurer, not a regulator sitting above a market of competing insurers.
How the NSW workers compensation scheme works — icare is a NSW Government agency that acts for the Nominal Insurer, which covers most NSW employers — it is not a private insurer you shop against others.
How Victoria’s WorkCover scheme works for employers — WorkSafe Victoria is the scheme regulator, and cover is administered through an appointed WorkSafe agent rather than an open insurance market.
How workers compensation works for WA employers — WorkCover WA regulates the Western Australian scheme; it does not itself sell the policy.
How ReturnToWorkSA works for employers — ReturnToWorkSA is South Australia’s work injury scheme, and for almost all employers it is the only provider — there is no panel to compare.
How workers compensation works for Tasmanian employers — Tasmania’s scheme is privately underwritten: employers hold a policy with a licensed insurer such as Allianz rather than with a single state fund.
How workers compensation works for ACT employers — The ACT’s private sector scheme is privately underwritten: employers hold a policy with an insurer approved by WorkSafe ACT, not with a government fund.
How workers compensation works for NT employers — Northern Territory employers must hold a policy with an insurer NT WorkSafe has approved; NT WorkSafe itself is the regulator, not the insurer.
Who counts as a worker for workers compensation — Whether someone is a "worker" turns on the type of contract behind the arrangement, not on whether they are called an employee or hold an ABN.
Employing workers in more than one state — A worker who works in more than one state is not automatically covered twice; schemes apply a "state of connection" test to settle which single scheme applies.
Registering as a new employer for workers compensation — Registration is triggered by the scheme’s own eligibility rules in the state where the worker is based, not by a business simply deciding to sign up.
What a workers compensation certificate of currency actually proves — It proves a policy was recorded as current with that scheme or insurer on the day it was issued — nothing more.

Licences and insurance

Does your licence actually require insurance? — Most NSW occupational licences carry no insurance condition at all — the ticket is issued to the person doing the work, not to the business that trades.
Why a trade ticket carries no insurance condition — A trade or high-risk work licence tests whether a person can safely and competently do a class of work — it does not test or record what commercial insurance stands behind them.
Licences that require public liability insurance in NSW — Verifying this across NSW trade and high-risk work licensing found the opposite of what most people assume: a public liability condition on the licence itself is the exception, not the rule.
When a certificate must name your business activity — Most certificate requests just need the right classes of cover and the right limit. Demolition is a confirmed exception: the certificate has to state the business activity as demolition.
Specialist work that needs a licence at any value — NSW licenses general building and trade work above a set threshold. A short list of specialist trades sits outside that rule entirely and needs a licence regardless of the size of the job.
What "adequate and appropriate" insurance means — Some registration standards do not name a class, a limit or a scope of cover — they use a judgement word instead, most often "adequate" or "appropriate".
Insurance conditions at renewal vs at application — A licence condition can work two ways: checked once, at the point of application or renewal, or held as a continuing duty that applies for as long as the licence is in force.
What happens if cover lapses mid-registration — Where a licence carries no insurance condition, a mid-term lapse is a commercial and contractual problem, not a regulatory one.
Contract requirements vs licence requirements — A licence condition, where one exists, is set by a regulator and applies to that licence class. A contract requirement is set by whoever a business is dealing with and applies only to that agreement.
Who insurance duties attach to — worker or business — A high-risk work or trade licence authorises a person to do a class of work. It is not, structurally, a business registration, and it does not carry the business’s commercial obligations.
Run-off and retroactive cover for registered professions — Professional indemnity and comparable covers respond to when a claim is made, not to when the work was done — so finished work can still need a policy standing behind it.
Checking a tradesperson’s licence is current — NSW runs a free public register that shows a licence holder’s name, licence categories, current status and expiry, along with any conditions, suspensions or public warnings.

State by state

Electrical contractor insurance, state by state — Six of eight states and territories put some insurance condition on an electrical contractor licence. Two publish none at all on the licence itself.
Residential warranty schemes, compared — Every state and territory has a scheme that protects a homeowner if residential building work is not completed or is defective, but the trigger, the instrument used and even whether it counts as insurance at all differ sharply.
Why the same trade is licensed in one state and not another — Whether a building trade needs a licence at all is decided state by state, and the answers split sharply for trades most people assume are treated the same everywhere.
Moving your trade business interstate — Relocating a trade business means re-checking two separate things in the new state: whether the trade needs a licence there at all, and whether that licence, or the work itself, carries an insurance condition.
Which trades are unlicensed, and what that means — Carpenters and painters are stated plainly as unregulated occupations in Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory. No licence exists to hold, apply for, or lose in those trades in those places.
How a fidelity fund differs from an insurance policy — The Northern Territory covers prescribed residential building work through a fidelity fund certificate, administered by Master Builders NT, rather than through an insurance policy underwritten by an insurer.
When a licence names an amount, and when it names a duty — Most jurisdictions that condition a licence on insurance do it the same way: they name a minimum figure the cover has to meet, checked against the licence.
The trades regulated as something else — In Victoria, roofing work and refrigerated air-conditioning work are both regulated as classes of plumbing, not as their own trades.
Working across a state border on one job — A single job over a state border raises the same licensing and insurance questions a full relocation does, even though the business itself is not moving anywhere.
Checking a licence in another state — Every state and territory runs its own building and trade licence register, held by its own regulator. There is no single national database that covers all of them.
Victoria’s single-task exemption — Victoria does not require domestic building registration where a practitioner is only carrying out one task on a job — and that exemption applies regardless of how much the work costs.
What “licensed” means for a subcontractor vs an employee — In several states, the same trade work needs no licence at all when it is done by an employee working under a registered or licensed builder, but does need a licence or registration when the same work is done by a subcontractor contracting directly.