What happened: The High Court ruled a roofer lost its right to indemnity under a hot works condition after a prep school fire
Who's involved: Attleys Roofing Limited and its insurer QBE UK Limited
What's at stake: Coverage for damage caused by a fire at Horris Hill Preparatory School in Newbury
Why it matters: Specified precautions in hot works clauses are absolute obligations, not softened by the 'reasonable precautions' label
Where it stands: Preliminary issue decided October 26, 2026; further issues on breach remain
An oxyacetylene torch, a prep school roof, and a fire that started after the roofers finished for the day. That is the sequence at the centre of a High Court ruling that could reshape how hot works conditions are read across the contractor liability market.
The London Circuit Commercial Court ruled on October 26, 2026, that the hot works condition in Attleys Roofing Limited's policy with QBE UK Limited created an absolute obligation to take the precautions it specified. A negligent or even innocent failure to comply is enough to defeat the indemnity - recklessness is not required.
On April 27, 2023, Attleys' workers used an oxyacetylene torch on lead detailing at a building known as "the Bank" at Horris Hill Preparatory School in Newbury. After the work finished, a fire broke out. The damage was significant enough that the property's freeholder and leaseholder are now threatening claims.
Attleys turned to QBE for cover under its Advantage Contractors Liability policy, which included public liability cover. QBE said no.
The dispute turned on clause 6.5.4 of the policy - a hot works condition labelled "CONDITIONS PRECEDENT." It required the insured and its employees to take all 'reasonable precautions' to prevent damage when using naked flames, oxyacetylene equipment, or similar heat sources away from the insured's own premises. The clause then listed eight specific precautions, introduced by the phrase: "The term 'reasonable precautions' shall include but not be limited to the following."
Those precautions covered hot works safety basics: appointing someone responsible for fire safety, clearing combustible materials within six metres, keeping a fire watch during work, and maintaining a continuous one-hour monitoring period after ceasing work.
The argument came down to two words in single inverted commas.
Attleys said 'reasonable precautions' carries an established meaning in liability insurance, built over decades of case law: the insured loses cover only if it acted recklessly. Mere negligence - or an innocent slip - is not enough. That principle exists because the whole point of liability insurance is to cover negligence. A clause that strips cover for the very thing the policy is meant to protect would, as one earlier court put it, "negate a core part of the insurance cover."
QBE drew a different line. It argued the hot works condition was not a conventional reasonable precautions clause. It was a specific, prescriptive code drawn from industry guidance, listing defined steps that had to be followed. The recklessness threshold, QBE said, applies to general clauses - not to detailed conditions precedent that spell out exactly what the insured must do.
The court agreed with QBE.
The court noted that clause 6.5.4 placed 'reasonable precautions' in single inverted commas both times the phrase appeared - a drafting choice that signalled a defined term, not a reference to the general legal concept. The content of that term was then supplied by the eight specified precautions listed below.
Attleys' reading, the court found, would require the word 'reasonable' to do two jobs at once: identify the nature of the precautions and import a recklessness threshold for non-compliance. That, the court said, was "an unnatural reading of the language."
The court also flagged what it called an "apparent illogicality" in Attleys' position. Under its reading, a subcontractor's failure to take the specified precautions would strip cover regardless of fault - the clause says so explicitly - but the insured's own identical failure would only matter if it were reckless. No justification for that distinction.
Attleys had pointed to the policy's burning debris clause at 6.5.2 as evidence that the drafter knew the difference between absolute and qualified obligations. That clause simply requires "the following precautions" without any reference to 'reasonable precautions' - if the drafter wanted strict compliance with hot works steps, Attleys argued, it would have used the same direct language. But the court was not persuaded. The inverted commas and the specified list gave the hot works clause its own defined meaning, and the overall structure of the condition pointed to absolute compliance with those steps.
The ruling resolves the preliminary issue only. What remains is whether Attleys actually breached the specified precautions and, if so, whether that breach increased the risk of the loss that occurred - the test under section 11 of the Insurance Act 2015. That question has not been tried.
The case sits in a line of authority that includes Aspen Insurance v Sangster & Annand, where a court similarly held that a detailed hot works condition was not softened by the recklessness rule. But this ruling goes a step further, because the clause here actually used the words 'reasonable precautions' - and the court still found them to impose absolute obligations when linked to specified steps.
For any contractor whose policy pairs 'reasonable precautions' with a list of specific steps, the ruling is a warning: the label may not soften the obligation. Every specified precaution may need to be met, every time, regardless of intent.
