There is hardly a residential street today without a crew installing solar panels, heat pumps or chargers: the number of household-scale solar power plants has passed a quarter of a million, and heat pumps and wall-mounted EV chargers have become a standard item in renovations. The trade's loss profile is distinctive: the installed system rarely fails in a way that becomes an insurance matter – the damage shows up in the customer's roof, ceiling or furniture, in the neighbour's flat or in the building's electrical installation, often months after the work. This is liability insurance territory, except that the typical claims run up against precisely three sensitive boundaries of general liability insurance: the exclusion for property worked on, the fire-damage chain and the boundary of product liability. This article goes through, from the installer company's point of view, what the basic contract covers, what is covered only with an extension, and what the contractor's cover that has been compulsory since 2025 requires.
- An installer's typical losses – water ingress through a drilled roof, a fire on the DC side, damage caused by a wrongly configured inverter – arise not in the system supplied but in the customer's house and at the neighbours': this is liability insurance territory, but on the borderline of several exclusions.
- Property worked on or handled – the roof being worked on, the heating system being connected to – is typically excluded from basic cover; Hungarian policy conditions restore it through an extension for an additional premium, while putting right your own work is not a liability loss under any policy.
- From 15 January 2025, compulsory contractor's liability insurance applies to contractors carrying out construction on a commercial basis; solar panel and heat pump installation typically falls within the TEÁOR (Hungarian activity classification) 41–43 range identified in chamber of commerce guidance, but whether the obligation applies is decided by the actual activity.
Three loss scenarios, three different cover questions
The drilled roof. To fix the mounting structure, the roof covering has to be penetrated; if the sealing is faulty, the water coming in under the tiles reaches the battens, the insulation, the ceiling and the home, and often this only comes to light in the next rainy season. Two kinds of damage are mixed up here: the roof itself, on which the installer worked, and everything else damaged by the water. The latter is classic property damage caused to a third party; the former is property worked on – more on this below.
The DC-side fire. In a press report from January 2024, the deputy spokesperson of the disaster management authority (katasztrófavédelem) mentioned an average of 20–40 fires a year that start in a solar PV system or its surroundings; the causes named were incompatible connectors, undersized cables, poor connections and an overheating inverter. A fire can affect the whole house: the owner's home insurer pays, then turns to the contractor with its recourse claim under the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.) if it can prove an installation fault. In that case the installer's liability insurance stands at the end of the chain – according to its limit, its temporal scope and its exclusions.
Grid damage. A wrongly parameterised inverter, a faulty protective neutral connection (nullázás) or a connection that does not follow the grid operator's requirements can damage the appliances of the customer and the neighbours; this is property damage to a third party, but the proof – what was a grid cause and what an installation cause – is typically a question for an expert. The general loss profile of the electrical trade is described in the article on liability insurance for electricians; compared with that, the installer adds the roof and the fire load.
Property worked on, the subject of the service, the product: where does cover end?
The basic cover of Hungarian general liability policies pays for bodily injury and property damage caused to third parties, and typically excludes damage to items worked on, handled or processed by the insured. For an installer this is not small print but the heart of the loss profile: the roof they drill into, the boiler room and heating circuit to which the heat pump is connected, the distribution board into which the charger is wired – all of these are ‘property handled’. Most policy conditions restore this through an extension for an additional premium – the article on extensions for an additional premium shows the logic – but the sub-limit, the deductible and exactly what is covered vary from insurer to insurer. What liability insurance does not pay for under any policy, however, is the subject of the service itself: re-installing a badly fixed mounting structure, repairing a faulty connection or replacing a system that does not work is a warranty matter (jótállás and szavatosság), not an insurance one. The third boundary is the product: a manufacturing defect in the panel, the inverter, the battery or the wallbox falls under the product liability of the manufacturer and the importer – the installer enters the chain if it sells the device itself, or if the defect was caused by the way it was installed. The article on the product liability chain explains this boundary in detail. Finally, time: water ingress and fire occur months or years after installation, so for an installer the temporal scope – whether the policy is triggered by when the damage was caused or by when the loss occurred – is not a theoretical question; it decides which year's contract pays.
Solar panels, heat pumps, chargers: the trade-specific points
With solar panels, the critical points are the roof's structural capacity (the mounting structure and the snow load), connection to the lightning protection system and the direct-current side: according to the 2016 edition of the Fire Protection Technical Guideline (TvMI) as quoted in the press, the indoor DC cable run to the inverter may be no longer than 5 metres, otherwise an additional fire-safety disconnect switch is needed near the panels (the edition of the guideline in force at the time applies) – having this in place, together with the test reports (insulation resistance, shock protection, commissioning by the grid operator), is the installer's first line of defence in a claim. With heat pumps, refrigerant-circuit work requires a qualification, the hydraulic connection raises water-damage questions and the siting of the outdoor unit raises issues with the neighbours; from a liability insurance perspective, damage caused in the boiler room and to the heating system is typically uncovered without the property-worked-on extension. Wall-mounted and rapid chargers carry a high current for long periods: an overloaded branch circuit or inadequate protection can cause a fire, and damage to a car being charged – the customer's, or a third party's in a condominium car park – sits on the boundary between product and installation. In charger installation, separate questions are the condominium's shared electrical network as property handled, and whether the installer also supplies the charger as a seller.
Compulsory contractor's liability insurance: does it affect installers too?
Under Section 21/B of Government Decree 191/2009 (IX. 15.), from 15 January 2025 a contractor carrying out construction work as a commercial business activity is obliged to take out liability insurance; the chamber of commerce guidance identifies the activities falling under TEÁOR'25 codes 41.00–43.99 (except 43.60) and ÖVTJ'25 codes 410001–439906 (except 436001) – TEÁOR and ÖVTJ being the Hungarian activity classifications for companies and for sole traders respectively. In companies' registered activities, solar panel installation typically appears as electrical installation (43.21), and heat pump and air-conditioning installation as building services installation (43.22) – both are within the range identified, so an installer company carrying out installation work on buildings on a commercial basis may be among those obliged; whether a specific business is required to register as a construction contractor, and therefore to take out this insurance, depends on its actual activity, and in case of doubt information can be requested from the regional chamber. The scope, the minimum limits by turnover band and uploading the policy to the chamber are detailed in the article on compulsory contractor's liability insurance. One thing is worth highlighting here: according to the chamber's summary, the decree requires cover extending to bodily injury and property damage resulting from breaches of professional standards and of the construction contract, to sérelemdíj (restitution for non-pecuniary harm) and to damage resulting from subcontractors' activities; it does not specifically name the extension for property worked on or handled. A contract that meets the legal minimum therefore does not necessarily, on its own, cover the installer's most typical loss: water coming in through a roof the installer drilled through with their own hands.
What should an installer company do?
First, it is worth putting the list of activities in order: solar panels on roofs and on the ground, heat pumps, air conditioning, chargers, related electrical work and roofing work – the insurer does not pay for anything that is not on the policy. Second, the extensions: property worked on or handled, for the roof and the heating system; a subcontractor extension if the roof penetrations or the refrigerant-circuit work are done by another crew; product liability if the company also sells equipment. Third, the limit: a fire in a family home is a different order of magnitude from water ingress, and under the serial-loss clause a faulty type of connector at several houses may count as a single event. Fourth, the temporal scope and continuity: the damage from today's installation comes years later, so the contract should not be interrupted. Fifth, documentation: photos of every roof penetration and connection, test and commissioning reports, the operating instructions handed to the customer and the maintenance recommendation in writing – these decide any dispute over whether the damage was caused by an installation fault or a manufacturing defect, lack of maintenance or a workmanship failure. The customer's own home insurance covers their own loss and may require a separate add-on for the solar panels – this does not replace the installer's liability insurance, because home insurance belongs to the world of one's own loss, and liability insurance to the world of loss caused to others. If you let me know, I help where I can; giving an accurate list of activities, uploading the policy to the chamber and reporting a claim are the business's own, non-transferable tasks.
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Sources
- Government Decree 191/2009 (IX. 15.) on construction activities – Sections 21/B–21/G
- MKIK (Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry) – On compulsory contractor's liability insurance (scope, TEÁOR/ÖVTJ codes, uploading to the chamber)
- Economx, 24 January 2024 – Solar panel fires: figures from the disaster management authority's deputy spokesperson and the TvMI 7.2 DC cable rule
- Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk., Act V of 2013) Section 6:468 – the insurer's recourse claim against the person causing the damage; liability insurance
