Our practice in all the community repair groups I’ve worked with (including our own, St Albans District Fixer) is that we PAT test all mains items both before and after any work, but don’t stick PAT test labels on them because we may not have adequate insurance to cover us in the unlikely event of something going wrong.
Recently a situation arose at church which might have been averted if I’d beem able to stick labels on a couple of fan heaters. One of our hall hirers wasn’t prepared to accept my assurances that I’d passed them, certified as a competant PAT tester, without the labels. Had I had personal liability insurance I would have been happy to comply. (The silly part is that we have a local firm booked to come in to test everything in the church and hall in only a couple of weeks!)
I wonder if anyone has obtained personal liability insurance purely to cover PAT testing on an occasional and non-commercial basis and how much it’s cost, or resolved the problem by some other means?
We record on the repair form that the item has been PAT tested so there’s some sort of evidence. Another alternative might be to use a little coloured dot sticker you can put on the plug once it’s been tested? Or a plain white label you can initial? But not with a date so someone can’t say ‘this was tested 3 days ago why has it failed?’
Thank you Ian - I could stick a label on but it doesn’t mitigate the risk of someone suing me after a problem with an item I’d declared safe. To return to my original question: is personal liability insurance available at a modest cost appropriate to a very small number of PAT tests I might do?
Well, personally, I wouldn’t accept any liability even if I did have an insurance policy, having had much painful experience of how weaselly insurance companies can be.
I can imagine an insurance company selling you a policy and then doing everything in their power to wriggle out of it when someone’s house burns down. e.g. Can you prove that you were properly certified at the time? Can you prove that you performed the test properly? etc. etc.
Although it’s right to be concerned with safety and liability, it’s worth also noting that these things are incredibly rare. In fact when we obtained professional liability insurance, the underwriter told us it was difficult to price because they had no recorded incidents across all clients (mens sheds and repair cafes) for over ten years.
In the end yes nothing will mitigate that risk even if you were working under insurance which meant you could use PAT test labels. But if you could show (by physical evidence rather than only words) that you’d been diligent/followed a process then you maybe have better chance to deflect this legal case from you personally to the Church’s 3rd party liability insurers.
And/or get the church (or whoever you’re repairing for) to sign a disclaimer for each repair you do, before the repair?