Rather like a roving Koenigsegg supercar, the British summer tends to arrive unexpectedly, get everyone very excited and then disappear in a flash, never to be seen again.
During that brief moment no one wants to be stuck in the office, staring through the glass at the glorious weather outside. If they can see through the glass in the first place, of course. The problem with a decent spell of sunlight is it exposes all of the dirt, dust and grime that has accumulated since the last time the windows were given a good wash.
So we’d like to give a quick shout-out to some of the UK’s unsung summer heroes: the window cleaning traders that keep our offices and homes sparkling in the sunshine.
It’s labour-intensive work, delivered predominantly by sole operators and small businesses, and until the introduction of telescopic poles in the past decade or so, it was a decidedly perilous profession of soapy water buckets and rickety ladders.
While mainstream insurers might glaze over at the prospect of talking about window cleaning, at ERS we’re interested in all trades that rely upon specialist vehicles, and window cleaning is no exception.
Traders can easily rack-up 50-100 miles a day in their vans which, to the outside world may look no different to any other everyday use vehicles. However, when they get to their next job, these vans transform into their most important asset. Open one up and you’ll likely find a ‘reach and wash’ system comprising multiple water-fed poles, a filtration kit and a pressurised tank that could contain as much as one metric tonne of water.
In short, any vehicle damage sustained is going to give these window cleaners a massive headache, making the right insurance cover a matter of huge importance. In a relatively low-margin profession, traders are reliant on brokers to find them the best possible value from a limited pool of providers, not to mention getting policies signed, sealed and delivered before the peak summer months arrive.
We’ve made it our business to get under the skin of the window cleaning profession so that we can underwrite vehicle risks properly and give their owners cover that’s genuinely worth the paper it’s written on. Traders have to remember that, even if their vehicle looks like a bog-standard van from the outside, the cover it requires is three-fold: the road risk involved, the modified nature of the vehicle, AND the need to cater for any damage occurring while the vehicle is being used as a professional tool.
Fortunately, through our diverse Specialist Commercial Vehicle product, we can serve each of these requirements, giving traders the assurance that they’ll be covered against accidental damage wherever and however it may occur. We can also create policies for vehicles registered to limited companies as well as individuals, and we can add as many as five vehicles to the same policy, removing the hassle for companies that may previously have had to insure every vehicle individually.
Finally, we know that no job is too big for an ambitious window cleaner, and sometimes a modified van with a water tank might not be appropriate for the task at hand. Fear not – while larger facilities may require cleaners to bring along cherry pickers or even high level cranes to reach the windows, our SCV product can cover both of these vehicle types too!
Ultimately, removing hassles and headaches is exactly why our SCV product exists: to give window cleaners – or indeed, any professionals reliant upon modified or non-standard vehicles – the sort of specialist support they require and deserve.
