If a contractor's insurance lapses mid-job, the work is usually still going, but the protection behind it isn't. Anything that goes wrong from the lapse date may not be covered, and most contracts treat holding current insurance as a condition of doing the work. In practice the job should pause for that contractor until they show current cover, and the property team should record what it found and when.
Why does it happen?
Almost never on purpose. A renewal notice goes to an old email address. A premium payment fails. A broker changes. The contractor is on site all week and the admin waits for Friday, then the Friday after that.
Public liability, workers compensation and trade licences each renew on their own dates, so a contractor can be current on two and lapsed on the third without noticing. And the certificate you hold doesn't change when the policy does. It keeps looking fine in the folder.
What's at risk, and for whom?
The contractor carries the biggest exposure. If someone is injured or property is damaged while their cover has lapsed, they may be paying for it themselves. They may also be in breach of their contract, which can mean lost work with that client.
The property team carries a different risk: being the one who let work continue without current cover. If something goes wrong, the first questions will be whether the team checked, and when. "We had a certificate on file" is a weak answer if the certificate had already expired.
The client carries the delay. When a lapse is found, work orders usually stop until the contractor is current again, and the job the client needed done waits.
What should you do the day you find out?
- Confirm it. Check the period of insurance on the certificate against today's date. If you can, confirm with the contractor or their broker that the policy is lapsed rather than renewed with a new certificate you haven't received.
- Pause new work orders for that contractor until current cover is shown. Check what your contract and internal procedures say about work already under way.
- Ask for the renewal, in writing. A new certificate of currency with a period that covers today and the rest of the job.
- Check the other two. If insurance lapsed, check workers compensation and the trade licence while you're there. Lapses tend to travel together.
- Record it. What you found, when, who you told and when cover was restored. That record is what protects the team later.
- Ask how it happened. If it was a missed reminder, the same thing will happen next year unless something changes.
How do you stop finding out mid-job?
The fix isn't checking harder. It's checking before the date instead of after it. A spreadsheet of expiry dates works until someone forgets to sort it, or the person who maintains it is on leave.
What works is having each contractor's expiry dates in one place, with a reminder going out before each one, not after.
How Vettedmark handles it
On Vettedmark, a contractor's documents sit on one record with every expiry date in view. Our team reviews each document. When a document expires, the contractor's status changes on its own, so a lapse shows up the day it happens, not when someone next opens the folder. Contractors on Monitored also get email reminders 60, 30 and 14 days before any document expires.
Check your contractors or, if you're a contractor, never lose a job to a lapsed certificate.
Related guides
- How do you know public liability insurance is current?
- How to check a contractor's workers compensation is current
This guide is general information, not legal or insurance advice. Check your contract and your own procedures, and ask the insurer or broker if you're unsure about cover.