I see why this company have sooo many 5 star reviews, they go above and beyond, work weekends and after hours to get their clients what they need. Debbie was very patient with me while trying to consolidate our vehicles and plant insurance. Couldn't recommend her enough!
Plant & Equipment Insurance Australia
Plant and equipment insurance covers mobile machinery and tools of trade, excavators, bobcats, forklifts, generators, scaffolding, against damage, theft and fire wherever they work: on a site, in transit, in the yard or in storage. It exists because standard business property cover protects things at your business address, and mostly stops looking after a machine the moment it leaves to go to work.
Google reviews, word for word
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We had excellent service in obtaining insurance on a newly purchased commercial property. Clayton Rowlings explained everything so clearly and very patient with many questions regarding different options. Highly recommended! Thanks Clayton.
Tracey helped me sort out professional indemnity and public liability insurance for my new business - she was super helpful throughout the process helping me navigate for the first time.
Deja Coffey is our current Insurance broker for our company. Deja has Absolutely outstanding customer service and I highly recommend going with her for all your insurance needs.
Terrific experience with Gina. I had a difficult policy which other brokers couldn't find a solution for. Gina had an option for me within a few hours. I would highly recommend.
Thank you so much Cyndie for your help/advice/service. You made the whole process so easy. Thank you again. Jason Armstrong
Alison was a life-saver for us, staying after hours to make sure that we could get the building insurance coverage we urgently needed for a property purchase.
Debbie was always happy to help with my questions and very prompt with her service.
Hi I can highly recommend Aimee Spencer for all your insurance needs she has done a fantastic effort on keeping my insurance policy once again Many Thanks for all your work
Saskia Van Oostveen was efficient, professional, accurate, helpful and friendly throughout the entire process. Highly recommend!
A great experience with Tori, attaining some tricky commercial insurance, she was very professional in catering to your needs, whilst also having a quick turn around.
Jade was wonderful, finding me insurance coverage for a commercial property. Greatly appreciated her excellent service.
I contacted Tracey E from Consolidated Insurance Brokers for some commercial property quotes. Tracey was super helpful helpful, friendly and provided great advice. Highly recommend for all your insurance needs!
Thanks for your assistance Dylan with car insurance inquiry you have been really helpful and professional.
Shona was always available and answered all my queriers. A1 service and happy to recommend.
I contacted Renay after she was recommended by a family friend, for home and contents insurance. She was prompt and helpful and had me all sorted in a couple of days. Highly recommend!
I needed fast transit insurance this week and Daniel Roussounis was outstanding in his immediate response and getting this organized for me. Can't recommend Daniel and Consolidated Insurance Brokers highly enough!
Second year organising insurance with Jim K., did not have any issues and a smooth transition. I recommend
May Lewong at the Emerald office was amazing. Easy to deal with and was quick and efficient.
Reena was absolutely fantastic during the entire process helping me set you our new home and contents insurance. Would definitely recommend to anyone.
Natasha as always, gives us professional, exceptional service and would recommend her to any business :-)
Reviewed by William Paull
Co-Founder & Account Director
Your excavator disappears from the site overnight. No forced gate, no witnesses, just an empty patch of dirt where a $180,000 machine sat yesterday. You ring your insurer and the first question they ask is where your other machinery is usually kept, because a standard business property policy protects things sitting still at your business address. The moment a machine leaves that address and goes to work, most property cover has already stopped looking after it.
Plant and equipment insurance is built for machines that move: excavators, bobcats, forklifts, scaffolding, generators and the tools of trade that go where the job goes. Consolidated Insurance Brokers builds this cover around what you own, what you hire in, and what you hire out, so the day something disappears from a site is not the day you find out you were carrying the risk alone.
What it covers
Plant and equipment insurance covers your mobile machinery and tools against damage, theft and fire wherever they are: loaded on a trailer, working on a client's site, sitting in a yard overnight, or in storage between jobs. It is built for equipment that does not stay at one address, which is exactly what standard business property cover is not designed for.
Owned machinery is listed on a schedule and settled at whichever is lower: the machine's market value at the time of loss, or the sum insured you set when you took the policy out. There is one exception worth knowing on the wording we place: if a machine is written off within three years of being bought new, you can choose to have it replaced with an equivalent new machine instead of taking the cash. On every plant policy we place, we add a "market value plus" option as standard, which lifts the payout to market value plus 15 per cent (as at July 2026), capped at your sum insured, so if the machine has depreciated a long way below what it is insured for, the payout gets topped up above straight market value instead of leaving you short on a falling second-hand market. That buffer is built for depreciation, so it does not apply on the highest-value machines, or where the market value at the time of loss is already close to the sum insured.
If you hire equipment out to other businesses, you need hired-out plant liability. Wet hire, where you supply your own operator along with the machine, is largely automatic under most plant policies. Dry hire, where the hirer supplies their own operator, is where the real conditions sit: keeping cover for theft or damage caused by the hirer generally depends on having a signed hire agreement, no damage waiver in that agreement that undercuts your insurer's ability to recover from the hirer, the hirer's identity and licence recorded at handover, and a genuinely secure handover.
If you hire equipment in from a plant hire company, hired-in plant liability protects you against your liability under the hire agreement, which usually makes you responsible for the machine's full replacement cost while it is in your care, not just an excess.
If hiring your own machinery out is part of how your business earns money, ask about loss-of-hire cover too. It is a different benefit from the repair itself: some plant policies pay a flat weekly amount you choose up front for every week the machine is off the road after an accepted claim, others calculate the loss from what the machine actually earned over the past year, which is more accurate but needs a trading history to work from. Either way, the repair cost and the income you lose while it is being repaired are two separate exposures, and it is worth knowing which one, if any, your policy actually covers. On the weekly-benefit wording we place, it pays nothing if the machine is damaged while out on dry hire without your operator, so check that before you rely on it.
If any of your machinery is registered and travels on public roads under its own power, rather than on a trailer, you also need road risk cover. Compulsory third party insurance covers injury to people, not damage to other vehicles, fences or property, so a registered excavator or roller needs its own property damage cover for the road, separate from its cover on site.
The biggest risk
The two risks this cover exists to catch are not really "will my machine be stolen or damaged." They are "who pays if it is," and "will my own policy actually pay when it does."
If you hire a machine in from a plant hire company, read the hire agreement before you read the insurance policy. Most agreements make you, the hirer, responsible for the machine's full replacement cost if it is damaged or stolen while it is in your care, whether or not it was your fault. Some hire companies sell a damage waiver, a fee added to the hire cost that reduces how much of that liability sits with you, but a waiver is a term of the hire contract, not an insurance policy, and it rarely covers everything a proper hired-in plant liability policy would.
The second risk sits inside the fine print of whatever policy you hold. Some plant insurers still require specific security conditions before they will pay a theft claim: a locked compound, an immobiliser, sometimes a tracking device. If a machine is left on an open site overnight because that is simply how the job works, and the policy assumed a locked compound, the claim can be declined on the conditions rather than on the theft itself.
We are deliberately picky about which insurers we place this cover with for exactly this reason, more on that below, but if you are insured elsewhere, the gap is not the insurance itself, it is the mismatch between what the policy assumes about your site and what actually happens on it.
How we do it differently
A typical quote for plant and equipment cover is built from a value and a machine type, nothing else. We start with the paperwork that usually gets skipped. When you are dry hiring, whether that is hiring a machine in without an operator or sending your own machine out that way, we check the agreement itself, because that document decides who actually pays if the machine is damaged or stolen while it is in someone else's care. Wet hire, where an operator goes with the machine, is generally more straightforward, so we spend the scrutiny where it belongs.
We also do not leave you to discover a valuation gap at claim time. Our plant policies settle on whichever is lower, the machine's market value or its insured value, unless the machine is written off within three years of its first purchase new and you take the new-machine replacement described above. The wording we place does not say the same for a stolen machine, so we check yours. The market value plus buffer is added as standard where it applies, so you do not have to ask for it.
And we are selective about who we place this cover with. As a rule, we prefer not to place clients with insurers that make a locked compound, an immobiliser or a tracking device a condition of paying a theft claim, or that load a blanket excess onto every theft claim for it. The plant insurers we favour work on the same general duty of care that applies to the rest of your business, not a box-ticking exercise that can void a claim on a technicality you did not know existed.
Who needs this
If your business owns, hires in, or hires out machinery that moves between sites rather than sitting still at one address, this cover is built for you.
Earthmoving and civil contractors are the backbone of who we place this cover for, most of them owner-operators and small, family-run businesses running their own excavators, bobcats and rollers on both dry hire and wet hire terms. It also suits builders and landscapers running smaller plant and tools of trade (see Construction Insurance and Trades Insurance for the broader package those trades usually need alongside this), standalone plant hire businesses hiring equipment out to others, farmers running tractors, harvesters and other mobile agricultural machinery (see Farm Insurance), and warehouse or industrial operators running forklifts and other yard equipment (see Warehouse Insurance and Industrial Building Insurance).
Common mistakes
Assuming it's covered because it's "on the policy." Mobile plant is exactly what its name says: it moves. Once a machine leaves the address named on a standard business property policy, that policy has generally stopped protecting it. Plant and equipment cover is built to follow the machine, not the address.
Not knowing what dry hire actually requires, on either side of it. If you hire a machine in, the hire agreement usually decides who pays if it is damaged or stolen, and it is usually you, for the full replacement cost, regardless of fault.
Dry hire is where the real conditions sit on both sides of the transaction. Read the paperwork before you sign it, not after something goes missing.
Setting the sum insured too low on a financed machine. If you still owe more on a financed machine than the amount it is insured for, a total loss can leave you short, even with the "market value plus" buffer most plant policies add to protect against a falling second-hand market, because that buffer tops up market value, it does not fix a sum insured that was set too low from the start.
The proper plant and equipment policies also carry a finance-protection option built for exactly this gap, and we turn it on on the plant policies we place. Even so, get the number right when you insure the machine, not after it is written off.
Treating security conditions as boilerplate. Some plant insurers still require a locked compound, an immobiliser or a tracking device before they will pay a theft claim. If that is not genuinely how your business operates on site, the condition is a real gap in your cover, not a formality. It is exactly the kind of condition we try not to place our own clients under in the first place, but if you are insured elsewhere, it is worth knowing before a machine goes missing, not after.
Forgetting road risk on registered machines. If a machine is registered for the road and drives itself between sites, compulsory third party insurance only covers injury to people, not damage to another vehicle or property. Road risk cover is the piece that is easy to leave off a schedule because it feels like an afterthought next to the machine's own value.
Short answers
Am I liable if I damage a machine I hired from a plant hire company?
In most cases, yes. Standard hire agreements make the hirer responsible for the machine's full replacement cost if it is damaged, lost or stolen while in their care, custody or control, regardless of whether the damage was accidental. Hired-in plant liability cover protects you against that specific liability; without it, you are personally or commercially exposed to the full cost of someone else's machine.
What is the difference between dry hire and wet hire, and does it change my insurance?
Dry hire means the machine is hired without an operator, whoever is using it runs it with their own staff. Wet hire means the owner's own operator goes with the machine. The distinction matters for cover, not just liability: wet hire is largely automatic under most plant policies, cover for the hirer's use of the machine follows the hire agreement without much extra to prove. Dry hire is where the real conditions sit, on both sides of the transaction, keeping cover for theft or damage caused by the hirer typically depends on a signed hire agreement, no damage waiver that undercuts the insurer's recovery rights, the hirer's identity and licence recorded at handover, and a genuinely secure handover.
Does my plant and equipment policy cover theft from a building site?
Yes, but some insurers attach security conditions, such as a locked compound, an immobiliser or a tracking device, and a claim can be declined if those conditions genuinely were not met.
It is also worth knowing that insurers cannot simply blame the operator or the circumstances of an incident without solid evidence: in one published AFCA determination, an insurer's decision to decline a machinery damage claim was overturned because the insurer had not established that the cause it relied on actually caused the incident, and had not adequately investigated an alternative explanation the operator raised. The lesson for site security is the same either way: know exactly what your policy assumes about how the machine is stored, and make sure that assumption matches reality.
How does my insurer actually settle a total loss on my excavator?
Most plant policies pay whichever is lower: the machine's market value at the time of loss, or the sum insured you nominated when you took the policy out. The exception is a machine written off within three years of being bought new: on the wording we place you can choose to have it replaced with an equivalent new machine instead of taking the cash. Because a machine's market value falls as it ages, most plant policies also offer a "market value plus" option that tops the payout up to market value plus 15 per cent (as at July 2026), capped at your sum insured, if the machine has depreciated a long way below its insured value, so a falling second-hand market does not leave you short. It does not apply on the highest-value machines, or where the market value at the time of loss is already close to the sum insured.
We add this as standard on the plant policies we place. An excavator like the $180,000 machine at the top of this page is a good example of one worth getting the sum insured right on, because the gap between what it is insured for and what it would actually cost to replace can open up quickly as it ages.
Do I need separate insurance for machinery that travels on the road?
Yes, if the machine is registered and drives itself between sites. Compulsory third party insurance covers injury to other people, not damage to another vehicle, a fence or other property, so a registered excavator, roller or mobile crane needs its own road risk cover for the trip between jobs, separate from the cover that protects it while it is working on site.
Road risk is written to a registered machine, so an unregistered one gets nothing from it. The full answer is on the earthmoving and heavy machinery insurance page.
What happens to my insurance if I hire my own equipment out to someone else?
You need hired-out plant liability, and the level of risk depends on how you hire it out. Dry hire, where the other business supplies its own operator, generally carries a higher liability exposure for you because you have less control over how the machine is used, and cover for theft or damage caused by the hirer depends on having the right paperwork in place, a signed agreement, no damage waiver, the hirer's identity recorded, a secure handover.
Wet hire, where you supply the operator, keeps more of the operating risk and responsibility with you, but is comparatively straightforward to keep covered. If hiring your own machine out is part of how your business earns money, also ask about loss-of-hire cover, covered in the next question.
If my hired-out machine is damaged, does my policy cover the income I lose while it is off the road?
Some plant policies do, as a benefit separate from the repair cost itself. It generally works one of two ways: some pay a flat weekly amount you choose in advance for every week the machine is off the road following an accepted claim, regardless of what it would actually have earned; others calculate the loss from what the machine actually earned over the twelve months before the damage, which is a more accurate figure for a machine with a real trading history but needs that history to exist. On the weekly-benefit wording we place, damage while a machine is out on dry hire, without your operator, is excluded.
If hiring your own equipment out is part of how your business earns money, ask whether this is included or needs adding, because the repair cost and the income you lose while it is being repaired are two different exposures.
Is a machine I have just bought automatically covered before I get around to adding it to my policy?
Often yes, for a limited period and up to a set amount. Most plant policies include a short automatic-cover window for newly acquired plant while you arrange to add it formally to your schedule. The amount and the time limit vary by insurer and are usually modest, so treat it as a safety net for the gap between buying a machine and telling your insurer about it, not as a substitute for adding it properly. Tell us as soon as you buy or lease a new machine so it goes on the schedule at the right value from day one.