Decennial Insurance - Legal Requirement?

[ty-gwenn]

I am being told by some installers in the swimming pool industry that no insurance company will offer Decennial Insurance for the construction/installation of a pool.  Yet it is my understanding that with any kind of construction, Decennial Insurance cover is mandatory! 

• Does anyone know if there is a legal exemption for pool installers? 
• If not, are such installers operating outside the law by taking on projects without the appropriate insurance cover?

Any advice would be most welcome.

[BJSLIV]

A quick Google search suggests that some suppliers are proud of their 10 year cover

http://www.piscine-thomas.com/

That's just one picked at random.

And a legal advice site explores the degree of cover

http://www.jurisprudentes.org/bdd/actu_article.php?id_article=745

All of which suggests that it might be worth avoiding anyone who vehemently denies any such obligation before they have even started work!!!

[Val_2]

You most certainly can get deçenelle and civile insurance if you are an artisan building swimming pools as it is on the long list on our insurance cover for which we have to declare exactly which trades we carry out. That aside, it is a specialist insurance which only a few companies will sell and not something you can pick up in the high street hence the very expense of it all. We always declare we do not do pools, boilers and high tension electrical work as well as deep foundation works.

[Tony F Dordogne]

Val, does that mean that as you would install the pool, during the installation your assurance would cover any damage caused before the pool is signed off to the client?

[Val_2]

Normally yes dependent upon the nature of any damages and public liability runs in conjunction with the deçenelle also. However,like all insurance there is damage and damage and any claim is going to send the next premium sky high so I would imagine any artisan who does cause damage usually puts it right out of his own pocket. The insurance is also there to continue the works started should the artisan become unable to do so through illness,injury or death. We pay 4100€/year for 9million euros worth of cover which is a huge amount when you consider the works themselves are not huge.

[Tony F Dordogne]

Sorry Val, just want to check - if the artisan's insurance does NOT cover installation of pools which I can see is very specialist, but just covers unidentified 'large works' which are then not completed because of a flood - the artisan is saying it's nothing to do with him or his insurance - the client has to pay AGAIN for the refitting of the pool.

But the artisan shouldn't have done the work in the first place as he's not registered to do so?

[ty-gwenn]

Many thanks to all of you for your inputs.  The message seems clear, decennial insurance for pool construction is available - at a price - so stear clear of those not offering it.

My other question mirrorsTony F's.  If a constructor goes ahead and takes on a pool project without having decennial insurance is he actually in breech of the law?

[Val_2]

YES. On each insurance policy there is an A4 sized page with all the trades listed that artisans in the building business carry out. The insured artisan HAS TO DECLARE to his insurance company by ticking each metier he carries out and sending one copy back for them to calculate the premiums are correct. If you have not declared pool installation and carry this work out, then you are working uninsured,the client is not covered and I am afraid may not be able to get any recourse at court cases take years. The client can report the artisan to the gendarmerie by way of an official written complaint,the chambre de metiers is not involved in litigation and of course they should contact his insurers,the name of which should be given by the artisan if required by the client.

[ty-gwenn]

Val, thanks once again for that clarification.  From what I have been told locally (56) I suspect a number of pool installers are infringing the law.