How to get on an insurance repair panel

How insurance work reaches a trade

When a storm lifts the roof off a house in Logan or a burst pipe floods a shop in Parramatta, the owner rings their insurer and not a plumber. The insurer then decides who does the repair. Often it hands the claim to a builder or repair manager it has a contract with, and that business sends its own trades to make the place safe, scope the damage and do the work. Some insurers also run a network of their own: Auto & General invites builders and suppliers to register for its builder and supplier network on its website.

So for a plumber, electrician, roofer, glazier or carpet and restoration cleaner, the insurer is rarely the door you knock on. The door is the repair manager's list of subcontractors. The insurer still sets the standard, because under the industry code an insurer that selected and directly authorised a repairer accepts responsibility for the quality of the work and materials. That is why repair managers check trades so carefully.

Who runs the networks

There are national firms and there are local insurance builders, and each one runs its own process. Three examples, taken from their own websites:

• Crawford & Company describes its Contractor Connection managed repair panel as one of the largest networks of trades professionals in Australia, and has an express interest link for builders and suppliers who want to join.
• Bay Building Group calls itself a national insurance builder and restorer, and has a supplier expression of interest form that goes to its procurement team.
• Johns Lyng Group names the insurers it works for on its homepage and publishes the subcontractor terms its insurance trades work under.

Plenty of smaller builders do insurance work in one region only, and in a regional town they can be the better first call. Search for insurance builders and restoration companies near you and look for a trades or suppliers page. No two share the same forms, rates or rules, so read what each one asks for instead of assuming.

Getting onto a list

Crawford and Bay Building Group both start you with an expression of interest. Bay Building Group's form asks for your company name as it appears on your invoices, your ABN, the trade services you provide and the areas you cover. Fill it in completely, because a supplier team will look first for the trades and suburbs where it is short.

The form puts you on file, but jobs tend to come from a person at the nearest branch who needs someone in your patch. Once you have registered, find out who looks after trades locally and write to them with the same details and one reason they might need you. A made-up example from an electrician:

Hi Mark, I run a three-person electrical business in Toowoomba and we've just filled in your supplier form. We cover Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley, we do make-safes after storms and we can usually attend the same day. Our electrical contractor licence and our public liability and workers' compensation certificates are attached. If you're ever short of an electrician out this way, I'd like to be considered.

Nikki

Register before storm season, and expect the first job to be small and watched closely. Our guide to preferred supplier lists covers the general approach that works with any list owner.

What they ask for

The paperwork is the same as any commercial client wants (licence, public liability and workers' compensation certificates, and safety documents for high risk work), and our guide to insurance and licences business clients ask for goes through each one. What sets insurance work apart is how it runs from day to day.

• Response times. The insurer owes the customer its own deadlines. Under the code it has to update a customer on the progress of a claim at least every 20 business days, and answer routine enquiries within 10. Your attendance and quote feed into those, so be ready to say how fast you can get there.
• Their job system. Scopes, quotes, photos and invoices often go through the repair manager's own portal and not your inbox (Bay Building Group, for one, has a trade portal for its existing trades). Ask for training and keep it up to date the same day.
• Photos and notes. Take photos before, during and after, and write notes an insurer could follow without you there. Ask each repair manager what they want in a report, because it varies.
• Conduct in the home. You are working in a house where something has just gone wrong. Bay Building Group's trade supplier code of conduct asks suppliers to show identification, use drop sheets, clean up every day and never use the customer's bins or vacuum cleaner, even if offered.
• After-hours cover. If you offer emergency make-safe work, say plainly which hours you cover and keep to it.

Schedule rates and your margin

Some repair managers pay from a set schedule of rates instead of your own quote. Bay Building Group says it wants builders who can work within its estimating processes and in line with its approved schedule of rates. A schedule fixes a price for each item or unit of work, and the scope tells you which items you are allowed to charge.

Before you sign up, price your last ten ordinary jobs against the schedule. Some items will pay better than your usual rate and some will lose money, and you want to know which before the work arrives. Check travel too, because a town rate may not cover a long drive.

Then ask how variations work, because insurance jobs change once a wall comes off or the carpet comes up. Johns Lyng's published subcontractor terms, for example, say a subcontractor must not vary the work unless directed in writing, must give notice of a variation and its cost within 3 business days, and loses the right to claim for it if those notices are missed. Get the approval first and do the extra work second.

The trade-off is steady volume against rates you don't set and more admin. Payment on these subcontracts generally falls under your state's security of payment law, which our guide to builders' subcontractor lists explains for Queensland and NSW.

The General Insurance Code of Practice

The General Insurance Code of Practice is the industry's own code, published by the Insurance Council of Australia, and insurers who adopt it enter a contract with the Insurance Council to comply. The version in force is the 2020 Code. Most of it started on 1 July 2021 and it was last updated in October 2023. On 22 October 2026 the Insurance Council sent a redrafted code to ASIC for approval and expects a transition period before it applies to new and renewed policies, so check its site for a start date.

The code calls the businesses an insurer contracts to manage claims for it Service Suppliers, and the definition takes in their subcontractors where the insurer has approved them and they also act for it. Its supplier standards apply to retail insurance, which includes home building and contents policies and policies taken out for a small business. The parts a trade on a repair manager's list will feel are these:

• A Service Supplier must tell the customer what service it has been authorised to provide and that it is acting for the insurer (para 35).
• A complaint made to a Service Supplier goes to the insurer within 2 business days (para 36), and so does any breach of the code it knows about (para 37).
• The insurer must make sure each supplier holds any licence the law requires and is qualified to do the work (para 38).
• A Service Supplier needs the insurer's approval before it subcontracts (para 40), which is why a repair manager won't let you hand a job to someone else.
• If a supplier falls short of the code, the insurer has to deal with it, for example by cancelling the contract or requiring further training (para 41).

The code also requires every contract with a Service Supplier to reflect its standards (para 39), so the repair manager's subcontract is where these duties reach you.

Licences in Queensland and NSW

Licensing is set by each state and repair managers check it, so make sure your licence covers the exact work in the scope.

In Queensland the QBCC says you need a licence for building work valued over $3,300, and some work needs one at any value, including plumbing and drainage, gas fitting and fire protection. A roofer, glazier or carpenter doing a repair over that value needs a QBCC licence in a class that covers it. Electrical work is licensed separately through the Electrical Safety Office, and a business that does electrical work needs an electrical contractor licence. The QBCC adds that an electrician still can't do building work without a QBCC licence.

In New South Wales the government says you need a licence for residential building work valued at more than $5,000 including GST, counting labour and materials. Plumbing, electrical, gasfitting and air conditioning and refrigeration work need a licence whatever the cost. Those figures are for residential work, so check with Building Commission NSW before you take on a commercial claim.

Carpet and restoration cleaners sit in between. Drying and cleaning aren't on either state's licensing lists, but once a job moves to pulling out and replacing plasterboard, cabinets or flooring it can become building work, so check with the regulator before you quote the strip-out. The IICRC's S500 (fifth edition, 2021) is the standard for professional water damage restoration, so ask each repair manager whether they want your technicians trained to it.

Is panel work worth it

A panel suits a trade that is organised with paperwork, quick with photos and comfortable working to someone else's rates. It suits less well a business already earning good margins on private work, and plenty of trades do both. Insurance builders are businesses you can write to like any other, and Curlew finds them and writes to them in your business name if you would rather not make the first approach yourself.