Having a cleaner in

Would it not be the same as having anyone else in doing work in the house? Plumber, electrician , deliver person etc?

Either you would be required to have public liability or the person you hire would have to carry their own insurance which you should request to see.

adam88 wrote: »

Tbf I don’t think Mary from no.27 is fully legit

You never said you were just going to pay some woman off the road to clean the house.

If you just ask about "getting a cleaner in" , I'd assume you meant booking it through a company.

Most household insurance contracts would provide cover for the public liability risk or the employers' liability risk.
I say "or" because an accident could fall in to one or other category.
There are qualifications in the wordings so read the insurance contract carefully.

Whether a party is an employee or not turns very much on the facts.
There is no unique legal definition of an employee.
There are a number of tests for the existence of the master/servant relationship the main one being that of control.
In context, control means retention of the legal right to direct how the work is done as distinct from the intended end purpose of the contracted work.

Does it make any difference if there is a master/servant relationship in place ?
Yes.
Why ?
If a master/servant relationship exists a number of additional and specific duties arise within the ambit of that relationship which would not otherwise exist. e.g., a safe place of work, a safe system of work, sufficient and proper plant and appliances and a few more.
This is why employers' liability claims can be harder to contest on the liability issue because the plaintiff has more targets available to plead :rolleyes:.

You need to check the contract with the cleaning company to see what you have agreed to.
Assertions to the effect that contractors are "fully insured" are not always correct and may mean precisely what peregrinus says at post #14 i.e. the contractor's legal interests are protected not yours.

You need to be careful that you have not - in the small print - agreed to provide any form of indemnity to the contractor in respect of injury to the cleaner.
Most liability insurance contracts will exclude liabilities incurred under agreement unless a liability would have existed anyhow in tort.

Generally, if the cleaner is not an employee, OP would still owe a reasonable duty of care to that person.

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

The existence or absence of insurance does not have a bearing on whether a person can sue you for injury or damage.

True.

But the absence of insurance reduces the chance that someone will bother sueing.

Musa Dirty Rifle wrote: »

We used an online service. It describes itself as:

“X acts as an agent on behalf of the principal (the cleaning provider) “

Its terms say:

“X has a Public and Employer's liability insurance. The policy will cover any accidental damages caused by an operator working on behalf of X”

Does that mean they have insurance that would cover the cleaner getting hurt?

Irrelevant, if it happens on your property x’s policy may pay out be it could comeback to you looking for the money.

E.g I have car insurance but if you cause a crash mine will pay out but ultimately they’ll chase you to cover the pay out