EMBARKING on home improvement and dealing with home improvement tradespeople can be a worry, especially if they cease trading during work, or wind up during a dispute over payment or quality.

HomePro, an on and off-line source of professional tradespeople, aims to ease this concern by encouraging its traders to offer warranties, or Insurance Backed Guarantees (IBGs).

To join HomePro, each company has to undergo a stringent vetting process. Selecting 10 previous references at random, HomePro vets previous work and carries out legal and financial checks. As a result, it now holds more than 50,000 consumer references on its database of more than 5,000 registered trade professionals.

In addition, all companies on the database must, on relevant work, offer the consumer an IBG that covers them against problems should the company cease trading.

All the insurance policies are administered by HomePro Insurance, a member of the General Insurance Standards Council, the new regulator for the general insurance industry, established to regulate the sales, advisory and service standards of its members. HomePro Insurance is the first company in its field to be admitted.

It has three IBGs offering differing assurance levels:

• Value: covers work in progress and all completed workmanship and materials for up to 10 years.

• Value Plus: as Value, but includes deposit insurance for up to 25 per cent of the contract value.

• Comprehensive: as Value Plus, but includes index-linked cover to ensure future value is protected.

All HomePro IBGs are underwritten by Pinnacle Insurance plc, one of the UK's leading insurance providers.

Pinnacle policies are also subject to the arbitration and complaint schemes provided by the Association of British Insurers and the Insurance Ombudsman Bureau.

Homeowners - via HomePro - can find reliable, vetted tradespeople to undertake home improvements for them; they can also rest assured that in the event of anything untoward happening, for whatever reason, to the businesses of the people they employ, their project will be covered.