You work over everyone else's finished work.

General liability

Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.

Without it — A screw through a concealed pipe or conduit floods or de-energises work that other trades have already finished and been paid for.

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 — Board is heavy and handled overhead all day, and stilts, lifts and stacked scaffold put finishers at height for most of the shift.

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 — Lifts, stilts, sanders and laser levels are portable and go missing from open sites.

Commercial auto

Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.

Without it — Crews and board move between sites daily, and a loaded truck handles differently from the one on the personal policy.

Contractors errors & omissions

Covers faulty workmanship and professional mistakes — the cost of the work itself being wrong, which general liability excludes by design.

Without it — An assembly built to the wrong fire or acoustic rating passes visual inspection and fails the one that matters.

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 — Silica and joint compound dust are respirable contaminants, and the pollution exclusion is written broadly enough to reach a dust claim.

Umbrella & excess liability

Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.

Without it — A water loss inside a finished commercial building runs past a primary limit quickly.

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 — Board and finished walls destroyed by weather or a burst line mid-project are work already paid for.

What is the claim drywall contractors actually have?

Puncturing something concealed. A fastener into a sprinkler line, a water pipe or a live conduit is the routine loss, and the damage is almost never to the drywall — it is to the mechanical work behind it, the finishes below it, and the schedule. That is why the general liability limit matters more than it appears to for a trade whose own material is inexpensive, and why "your work" exclusions rarely help the other side.

Is silica dust an insurance problem or just a compliance one?

Both, and they interact. Cutting, routing and sanding generate respirable crystalline silica, which is regulated with specified control methods, and an employer without those controls is exposed on the workers compensation side and on the enforcement side simultaneously. It is also a long-tail exposure: the claim arrives years later, from somebody who no longer works for you. Carriers ask what dust controls you use, and having a real answer changes the conversation.

Does ceiling height change my premium?

It changes the workers compensation more than the liability. Residential eight- and nine-foot work, commercial work off stilts, and high-bay ceilings from lifts and stacked scaffold are progressively more severe fall exposures, and they are rated accordingly. Where a large share of your work is high commercial, saying so precisely gets a better outcome than an application that just says "drywall".

I mostly use subcontracted crews. What does that change?

Two things, and both bite at audit. Any crew that cannot produce its own certificate of insurance will generally be added to your payroll for rating, which is the most common cause of a large audit bill in this trade. And a general contractor will hold you responsible for your subs' work regardless of how you paid them. Collecting certificates before crews start is the cheapest premium control available to a drywall contractor.