Can I claim if I was injured at a client's or customer's premises?

Working away from your own workplace — two possible defendants

Many people are injured not at their own employer's site, but at a client's, a customer's, or another organisation's premises. Contractors work on client sites; engineers, sales staff and consultants visit offices and factories; delivery drivers unload at customer premises; carers and community nurses enter homes; tradespeople work in houses and shops they have never seen before. In all these cases you are still at work, but the physical environment is being controlled by someone else.

The important thing to understand is that being away from base does not narrow your rights — if anything, it broadens them, because two separate defendants may be responsible for what happened.

The occupier of the premises

The person or organisation in control of the premises where you were injured is called the "occupier". Under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957 an occupier owes a common duty of care to all lawful visitors: to take such care as in all the circumstances is reasonable to see that the visitor is reasonably safe in using the premises for the purposes for which they are invited or permitted to be there.

Visiting workers are plainly lawful visitors. If the accident was caused by the physical state of the premises — a loose stair rail, an unlit corridor, a wet floor with no signage, a warehouse walkway blocked with pallets, an unguarded machine, a floor tile lifting — the occupier is a natural defendant. Occupier liability does not require any employment relationship. It attaches to whoever controls the premises.

Working out who "the occupier" actually is can take a little investigation. In a multi-tenanted building it might be the landlord in respect of shared areas and the tenant in respect of their own suite. On a construction site it is usually the principal contractor. In a client's private home the occupier is the householder. Insurance nearly always sits behind the occupier — public liability cover for businesses, household cover for domestic occupiers.

Your own employer

Your own employer is not off the hook simply because the accident happened somewhere else. The employer's duty to provide a safe system of work — under both the common law and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 — travels with you. If your work involves visiting third-party premises, the employer is expected to think properly about the risks that go with that.

That includes doing a suitable risk assessment before sending staff into unfamiliar environments, gathering information from the client about site rules and known hazards, providing appropriate personal protective equipment, ensuring workers are trained for the tasks they will do, and having a route by which workers can raise safety concerns and stop work if a site is not safe. Where a worker is injured on a client site because none of that was done, the employer's own failings are directly in play.

Sub-contracted work has its own complications, which we cover in our guide on subcontractor accident at work claims — the same principles apply, but the chain of duties can be longer.

Shared liability — and why that helps you, not the defendants

Where both the employer and the occupier have contributed to the accident, both can be named as defendants and the court can apportion liability between them. From your perspective this is helpful: you do not have to pick the "right" defendant at the outset, and you are not caught out if one of them tries to blame the other. Insurers frequently argue between themselves about proportions; that argument runs in parallel with your claim and does not delay it.

A typical example is a contractor sent to work on a client site where the client failed to isolate a piece of machinery, and where the contractor's own employer never asked about isolation procedures before sending staff in. Both are at fault, and both can be joined.

Common scenarios covered by this route

Anyone who works away from a fixed base is potentially affected. Typical examples include:

• Building contractors injured on a site controlled by a principal contractor.
• IT and telecoms engineers injured in offices, data centres or customer premises.
• Delivery drivers and HGV drivers injured at customer loading bays and yards.
• Community carers and district nurses injured in service users' homes.
• Sales, audit and consultancy staff injured while visiting client sites.
• Trainers and installers injured in client factories or warehouses.

For a broader overview of what happens once fault is in dispute, see our guide to the general framework and process — the wider employer responsibilities page and our overview of how claims work both cover the practical steps.

Evidence tips for accidents at third-party premises

Because the site is not yours, evidence gathering is harder and more urgent:

• Note the exact address and the name of the person you were meeting.
• Take photographs of the hazard and the surrounding area before you leave, where safe to do so.
• Report the accident to the occupier and to your own employer that day, in writing.
• Ask (in writing) for any CCTV to be preserved.
• Keep any site induction paperwork, permits to work, and any communications about site rules — they often show what should have been done.