Insurables — Australian business risk, sourced and dated

Demolition contractors: public liability requirements in Australia

Cover for legal liability to third parties for personal injury or property damage arising from business activities.

Data as at

Verified requirements, by state

  • Licence liability condition: Yes — and this is one of the few NSW licences that genuinely requires public liability insurance. SafeWork NSW's application requirements list "a public liability insurance certificate stating business activity is 'demolition'". The certificate must name the activity, so a general policy that does not describe the business as demolition will not satisfy it. A workers compensation insurance certificate is also required "if you have employees and are not exempt". Both apply to the unrestricted and the restricted licence. NSW · effective 2012-01-01 SafeWork NSW · 2026-08-24
  • Licence evidence required: At application and again at renewal. The public liability certificate — and the workers compensation certificate where the applicant has employees and is not exempt — appear in the mandatory document checklist SafeWork NSW publishes for both the unrestricted and restricted demolition licence. Evidence goes to the regulator, not only to a client. NSW · effective 2012-01-01 SafeWork NSW · 2026-08-24
  • Licensing body: SafeWork NSW, under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) and the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 (NSW). Two licence types: an unrestricted demolition licence, needed to demolish or partly demolish any structure, and a restricted demolition licence covering a narrower band of work. Unlike a high-risk work licence, this is a licence to carry out the work as a business, which is why it carries insurance conditions that worker tickets do not. NSW · effective 2012-01-01 SafeWork NSW · 2026-08-24
  • Licence liability condition: Yes — and it is public liability, not professional indemnity, which is the reverse of most registered practitioner classes. Section 136 makes it an offence for a building practitioner other than a builder carrying out domestic building work to work without the required insurance, and the Ministerial Order made under section 135 sets a public liability policy for all three demolisher classes with a limit of indemnity for any one claim during any one period of insurance of not less than $5 million for the low rise and medium rise classes, and not less than $10 million for the unlimited class. Defence costs may sit in addition to the limit, capped at twenty per cent of it per claim. Keep this separate from domestic building insurance, which is a per-project consumer product: its own Ministerial Order expressly excludes a person registered solely in the builder category, class of demolisher. VIC · effective 2026-08-25 Victoria Government · 2026-08-24
  • Licence evidence required: At registration, whether the applicant is covered by the required insurance is the financial probity test for every category other than builder. After that it is annual: on or before each anniversary of registration the practitioner must give the Authority written proof that they will be covered until the next anniversary, with an examination fee accompanying the proof. No automatic suspension provision for failing that was located, so the consequence is disciplinary rather than automatic. VIC · effective 2026-08-25 Victoria Government · 2026-08-24
  • Licensing body: Demolishers are registered building practitioners in Victoria, but as a class of the builder category rather than a category of their own: demolisher (low rise buildings), demolisher (medium rise buildings) and demolisher (unlimited). Registration is under Part 11 of the Building Act 1993, administered by the Building and Plumbing Commission as successor to the Victorian Building Authority. VIC · effective 2026-08-25 Victoria Government · 2026-08-24
  • Licence liability condition: Yes — and Queensland requires the policy to name the activity, exactly as New South Wales does. The application calls for evidence of current public liability insurance that must include the full legal entity, the ABN, the word 'demolition' in the scope of insurance, and the expiry date. A general liability policy that does not describe the business as demolition will not satisfy it. Evidence of current workers compensation insurance is also required. QLD · effective 2012-01-01 WorkSafe Queensland · 2026-08-13
  • Licence evidence required: At application, itemised: the public liability certificate showing demolition in scope, plus workers compensation evidence and certified identity documents. QLD · effective 2012-01-01 WorkSafe Queensland · 2026-08-13
  • Licensing body: Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, under the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld). Unlike a high-risk work licence, a demolition licence authorises a BUSINESS to carry out the work, which is why it carries insurance conditions that worker tickets do not. QLD · effective 2012-01-01 WorkSafe Queensland · 2026-08-13
  • Licence liability condition: Yes. The demolition licence application requires details of both workers compensation insurance and public liability insurance — policy number and expiry date for each. Whether the policy must name demolition in its scope, as Queensland and New South Wales require, was not established. WA · effective 2022-03-31 Government of Western Australia · 2026-08-25
  • Licence evidence required: Policy numbers and expiry dates for workers compensation and public liability, at application. WA · effective 2022-03-31 Government of Western Australia · 2026-08-25
  • Licensing body: WorkSafe WA, under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA), which became operational on 31 March 2022 when Western Australia adopted its version of the model laws. WA · effective 2022-03-31 Government of Western Australia · 2026-08-25
  • Licence liability condition: No dedicated demolition licence exists to carry a condition. Where a building work contractor's licence applies, building indemnity insurance attaches to domestic building work above its threshold rather than to demolition as such. SA · effective 2026-08-24 Government of South Australia · 2026-08-13
  • Licence evidence required: Nothing specific to demolition. SA · effective 2026-08-24 Government of South Australia · 2026-08-13
  • Licensing body: Nobody licenses demolition separately in South Australia. The work falls under a building work contractor's licence from Consumer and Business Services under the Building Work Contractors Act 1995 (SA), rather than under a dedicated demolition licence of the kind Queensland, NSW and WA issue. SA · effective 2026-08-24 Government of South Australia · 2026-08-13
  • Licence liability condition: Yes, but Tasmania puts the number somewhere almost nobody looks. Section 27(1) of the Occupational Licensing Act 2005 provides that the Administrator may, by notice published in the Gazette, require licence holders to be covered by insurance of a type and to an amount specified in the notice. The requirement is offence-backed: section 29(3A) bars a building services provider from carrying out building services work, or allowing it under their licence, without the section 27 cover. The type and amount live in that Gazette notice rather than in the Act, the Regulations or the Determination — which is why a figure cannot be quoted here. The Act itself never distinguishes professional indemnity from public liability; the word indemnity appears zero times across its 183 pages. TAS · effective 2026-08-25 WorkSafe Tasmania · 2026-08-13
  • Licence evidence required: Production on request, not a gate at the counter. Section 29(5) requires a contractor or building services provider to produce a certificate of currency or other evidence of the required cover on request by an owner or occupier of the land the work is carried out on. The Building Services Work Regulations 2016 contain no issue or renewal insurance gate — a notable contrast with electrical work, where regulation 9(1) blocks issue or renewal unless the Administrator is satisfied a current policy is held and its term extends into the licence period. There is no automatic suspension on lapse either: the word lapse appears zero times in the Act, and insurance lapse is not among the section 46 cancellation grounds. Enforcement runs through the section 29 offences instead. TAS · effective 2026-08-25 WorkSafe Tasmania · 2026-08-13
  • Licensing body: Demolition is licensed in Tasmania as building services work. Schedule 2 Part 4 of the Occupational Licensing Act 2005 brings within the Act the performance of building work including the construction, or demolition, of buildings or temporary structures. Licences are issued by the Administrator of Occupational Licensing within Consumer, Building and Occupational Services. TAS · effective 2026-08-25 WorkSafe Tasmania · 2026-08-13
  • Licence liability condition: No insurance condition was found. Insurance and indemnity appear nowhere in the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011, and the only mention in the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 runs the other way: section 272A bars a person from entering into a contract of insurance or other arrangement purporting to cover a monetary penalty under the Act. The professional indemnity requirements in the Construction Occupations (Licensing) Regulation 2004 attach to assessor and certifier classes, not to any demolition trade class. ACT · effective 2026-08-24 Australian Capital Territory Government · 2026-08-24
  • Licence evidence required: Not applicable. No demolition-specific insurance requirement was located in the work health and safety or construction occupations licensing instruments. ACT · effective 2026-08-24 Australian Capital Territory Government · 2026-08-24
  • Licensing body: The ACT does not license demolition as a trade the way New South Wales and Queensland do. Demolition work is governed by the general duties in the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and the competency-based high risk work licence classes in schedule 3 of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011. The word demolisher does not appear in the Construction Occupations (Licensing) Regulation 2004. ACT · effective 2026-08-24 Australian Capital Territory Government · 2026-08-24
  • Licence liability condition: No demolition licence exists to carry an insurance condition. NT · effective 2026-08-24 NT WorkSafe · 2026-08-13
  • Licence evidence required: Notification to the regulator rather than insurance evidence. NT · effective 2026-08-24 NT WorkSafe · 2026-08-13
  • Licensing body: Nobody, by licence. NT WorkSafe operates a NOTIFICATION regime for demolition rather than a licence — the duty is to tell the regulator before certain work, not to hold authority to do it. That is a materially different scheme from the licensing states and worth knowing before assuming a licence exists to check. NT · effective 2026-08-24 NT WorkSafe · 2026-08-13

By state and territory

Licensing is a state matter, so the requirement behind this cover changes at the border. These pages track the licence question in each jurisdiction.

What contracts commonly ask for

Principals and head contractors set their own insurance requirements, and those are frequently higher than a licence condition. The requirement that binds is the higher of the two, and both have to be read from the actual document.

What this cover costs

This site publishes no cost benchmark for this cover. A benchmark needs a real sample of documents, and none is published until the sample is large enough to compute a median honestly. A benchmark from a handful of policies is a guess with a decimal point.

Sources