The certificate the general contractor will actually accept.
Commercial insurance for landscaping, HVAC, electrical, concrete and excavation contractors. Written around what your contracts require, not around a package.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
Send us what you have. We’ll tell you if it’s right.
Your current policy paperwork, a renewal notice, or nothing at all. A licensed agent reads it and replies the same business day.
What contractor businesses actually need.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — The general contractor will not let you on site, and the one claim that does happen comes out of your own account.
Workers compensation
Required in almost every state the moment you have employees. Priced on payroll and class code, which is why the class code is worth arguing about.
Without it — An injured crew member becomes a direct lawsuit against the business, with no statutory cap on what it costs.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — A truck accident on the way to a job is a personal claim your employee’s insurer will decline the moment they learn it was work.
Inland marine & equipment
Tools, equipment and property in transit. It picks up exactly where commercial property stops, which is the moment the item leaves the building.
Without it — Tools and equipment stolen off a site or out of a trailer are simply gone. Property insurance stops at the building line.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — A single serious injury exhausts a $1M limit and the balance comes from the company.
Builders risk
Covers a structure while it is going up, and ends at completion. Not the same as the contractor’s general liability.
Without it — A fire or storm mid-build destroys work you have already paid for and cannot invoice.
Contractors pollution liability
Bodily injury, property damage and clean-up caused by a pollutant your work released: chemical drift, run-off, fuel spills. The standard general liability form excludes all of it.
Without it — A vented refrigerant charge, a fuel spill or disturbed soil is a clean-up bill, and the pollution exclusion on your general liability reaches all three.
Key person & buy-sell funding
If an owner or an irreplaceable employee dies, this is the money that keeps the business running and funds the buy-sell agreement so the surviving owners can buy out the estate instead of ending up in business with it.
Without it — Where one person holds the license the company operates under, their death is a licensing emergency as much as a personal loss.
The claims we actually see.
Ordered by how often we see them, not by how dramatic they are. Each one names the coverage that answers it — and the policy people wrongly assume already does.
Most common
Tools and equipment stolen from a van or an unsecured site
Covered by Contractors equipment (inland marine)
General liability covers damage you do to other people, never your own tools, and a commercial auto policy covers the van, not what was in it.
Most common
Damage to the customer’s property while working on it
Covered by General liability, and care custody and control
General liability commonly excludes the very part of the property you were working on, which is where the damage usually happens. That carve-out is what care, custody and control buys back.
Common
An employee injured on site
Covered by Workers compensation
Liability does not respond to your own employees, and an uninsured subcontractor becomes your employee at audit. You are charged for their payroll and their injury.
Less common, severe
The work fails months later and has to be redone
Covered by Products and completed operations
Your policy pays for the damage the failure caused, not for redoing the faulty work itself. Nothing insures your own workmanship, which is what a warranty and a retainage clause are for.
Less common, severe
A vehicle accident on the way to or from a job
Covered by Commercial auto and hired / non-owned auto
A personal auto policy excludes business use, so a crew member driving their own truck to a site leaves the business as the only party with coverage.
Businesses like this one, with their own page.
Every one of these is written for that specific operation — the coverages it needs, the questions underwriters ask it, and what it usually gets wrong.
- Demolition Contractors
A demolition contractor is priced on what surrounds the job: the shared wall, the sidewalk, the gas main, the tenant still in the other half of the building. Standard contractor policies exclude or restrict demolition, so the work is placed with markets that ask exactly how you shore, disconnect and document before the first bite. The policy is general liability rated on payroll and on the share of work with occupied or adjacent structures, pollution liability for the asbestos and lead you disturb, equipment for the excavator and shear, and workers compensation for a trade with a high injury rate. We place it for interior strip-outs, whole-building takedowns and selective demolition, and we read the contracts before quoting because they usually name the limits.
- Fire Sprinkler Contractors
A fire sprinkler contractor installs, inspects and tests systems that are judged on the day of a fire. Two claims define the class: the system that failed to suppress, and the system that discharged when there was no fire and flooded three floors. Both arrive long after the invoice is paid, which is why the completed-operations part of general liability matters more here than in almost any other trade, and why inspection and testing work carries a professional liability exposure a plumber does not have. We place general liability with the completed-operations tail intact, professional liability for design and inspection, tools and equipment, and workers compensation, for installers, inspection companies and contractors who do both.
- Owner-Builders
An owner-builder pulls the building permit in their own name and hires the trades directly, saving a general contractor's fee and taking on the general contractor's liabilities. Two policies do that job. Course-of-construction insurance, which lenders call builders risk, covers the structure and materials while the house is being built, and a homeowners policy does not. Owner-builder liability covers injury to the people working on and visiting the site, and the personal liability on a homeowners policy usually excludes a construction project of this size. Workers compensation is the trap: in most states a laborer you pay by the day is your employee. We place the package for new homes, major additions and rebuilds after a loss, and we read the lender's requirements before quoting.
Joe Gorman
Co-Founder | President of Commercial Lines
Came up in construction, on site and in the office, then moved into sales. Went out on a limb to become Boring’s first dedicated salesperson when the agency had no sales team at all, and now leads it. Landscaping is the class he writes most: grounds maintenance, tree work, irrigation and the spray operations that push an account out of preferred appetite.
Five endorsements, and a certificate is none of them.
A certificate is evidence a policy existed the day it was printed — it says so on its own face. The coverage a contract is really asking for lives on the policy as named endorsements, and this is the list they come from.
- Additional insured — ongoing operationsCG 20 10Covers the general contractor for claims arising from your work while the job is in progress.Without it: They fund their own defense on a claim your work caused, then look to you for it.
- Additional insured — completed operationsCG 20 37Extends that coverage to claims arising after your work is finished.Without it: The claim arrives years later, when the policy that should have carried it has renewed several times. Cheaper policies often exclude this or do not offer it.
- Primary and non-contributoryCG 20 01Puts your policy first and stops your insurer demanding a contribution from theirs.Without it: Two insurers argue about who pays while the defense waits.
- Waiver of subrogationCG 24 04Stops your insurer recovering from the party you agreed in writing to protect.Without it: Your insurer pays, then sues your customer, which ends the relationship.
- Per-project aggregateCG 25 03Gives each job its own general aggregate instead of sharing one across the year.Without it: Another project’s claims quietly spend the limit that was meant to cover this one.
Tract, condominium and apartment work is the exception that undoes all five — an exclusion for multi-unit residential removes the coverage before any endorsement can apply. What national homebuilders require covers that in full — D.R. Horton, Pulte Group, Blackrock Homes and the rest of the national builders set the strictest terms a sub will see, and they do not negotiate them.
Contracts ask for more than these five. Every contract insurance requirement, explained, or paste your exhibit into the Contract Insurance Decoder to see the endorsement behind each clause.
How high do you work?
Third floor and above is a different account. The exposure is not only the fall — it is what gets dropped, who is underneath, and how far a tool travels before it lands. Carriers ask for a height limit and many stop at two or three stories, so work you take on because it was offered can quietly put a renewal into a market you were not in last year. Tell us the tallest job you do, not the usual one.
Residential or commercial?
Underwriters treat these as separate trades even when the work is identical. Residential carries construction-defect exposure that follows the job for years and a homeowner who sues; commercial carries bigger limits, tighter contracts and a general contractor who enforces them. A book that is mostly one prices very differently from a book that is evenly split, and the mix is usually the second question on the application.
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What the insurance company will ask about your contractor business
We read the applications the markets use for businesses in this field and pulled out what they actually ask. Have these answers ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week, because nobody has to come back to you for the missing piece.
About the business
- What kind of contracting work do you do
- When did you start this business
- What licenses do you hold
- Have you ever operated under other business names
- What are your annual gross sales
How you operate
- How many people do you employ
- What is your total annual payroll
- Do you hire subcontractors
- Do you work on buildings higher than two stories
- Do you have a formal safety program in place
Safety and controls
- How do you screen or check out new equipment operators
- Do you collect and keep certificates of insurance from all your subcontractors
- Who reviews and maintains those certificates
Your history
- Who is your current insurance company, or your last one if you don't have coverage now
- Do you have any claims over $5,000 from the last few years
Money and people
- What other locations or job sites do you operate from
Have these ready
- Your last five years of claims history from your current insurer, called loss runs
- Certificates of insurance from your subcontractors showing your company as additional insured
- Copies of any rental agreements for equipment you lease from others
You answer what you can; a licensed agent fills the rest with you.
What our contractor clients ask us.
Can you get excess limits for a big contract?
Yes, and it is one of the things we write most of. Excess and umbrella is usually the reason a smaller contractor cannot bid a larger job. The contract requires limits above the primary policy, and the requirement appears late. It is a placement problem rather than a price one, and it is solvable before the bid rather than during it. Certificates on short-notice work are the same story: the paper either exists already or the job goes to somebody whose does.
What limits do most construction contracts require?
One million per occurrence and two million aggregate on general liability is the common floor, usually with workers compensation, commercial auto, and an umbrella somewhere between one and five million on larger jobs. The limits are rarely the problem. What actually holds up a job is the endorsements: additional insured, waiver of subrogation, and primary and non-contributory wording. Send us the contract and we will match the certificate to it.
Do I need workers compensation if I only use subcontractors?
Almost always yes. If a subcontractor cannot produce their own certificate, most states and nearly every general contractor treat them as your employee for insurance purposes, and their payroll gets added to your audit at the end of the year. Collecting sub certificates before work starts is the single cheapest thing a contractor can do to control premium.
How is contractor insurance priced?
Mostly on payroll, class code and the kind of work you do. Roofing and excavation price very differently from interior finish work. Your loss history matters, and so does the split between residential and commercial. Misclassification is the most common reason a contractor overpays, and it is worth checking before you shop.
What does a contractor insurance application ask for?
The applications for contractor businesses ask about 4 things above all: what kind of contracting work do you do; how many people do you employ; how do you screen or check out new equipment operators; who is your current insurance company, or your last one if you don't have coverage now. Have your last five years of claims history from your current insurer, called loss runs and certificates of insurance from your subcontractors showing your company as additional insured ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.
Also in this family
Guides on contractor.
- Contractor License Insurance RequirementsThe bond and insurance minimums a contractor license requires in California, Florida, Washington, Oregon and Arizona, each quoted from the statute or board rule, why a license bond is not insurance, and why the license minimum is rarely enough to sign a subcontract.
- Certificate of Insurance vs EndorsementThe ACORD 25 certificate confers no rights and grants no coverage. The endorsement is the coverage, and it is what a contract is really asking for.
- CG 20 37: Additional Insured, Completed OperationsCG 20 37 covers the general contractor for claims arising from your finished work. Cheaper policies frequently exclude it or do not offer it at all.
- CG 20 10: Additional Insured, Ongoing OperationsCG 20 10 covers the general contractor for claims arising from your work while it is under way. It does not reach the completed operations hazard.
- CG 20 01: Primary and Non-ContributoryPrimary and non-contributory wording puts your policy first and stops it seeking contribution from the other party’s insurer. CG 20 01 is the usual form.
- What is a waiver of subrogation (CG 24 04)?A waiver of subrogation stops your insurer recovering from a party you have agreed in writing to protect. CG 24 04 is the general liability form.
- CG 25 03: Per-Project & Per-Location AggregatesA per-project aggregate gives each job its own general aggregate limit rather than sharing one across the whole policy year. CG 25 03 is the usual form.
- Tract Home and Multi-Unit Residential ExclusionA tract housing or multi-unit exclusion removes coverage for the residential work many contractors do. It voids the rest of the endorsement stack on those jobs.
Commercial insurance is 96% of what we do — it is not a department here, it is the whole business. Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.