What is underground is not where the drawing says it is.

General liability

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

Without it — A strike or a slope failure damages property and interrupts services for people who were never your customer.

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 — Trench collapse and struck-by injuries are the fatality classes of this trade, not the strain injuries of most others.

Third party property damage

Damage to property in your care while you are shooting on it — the location itself, and the fixtures in it. General liability excludes property in your care, custody and control, which is precisely what a location is.

Without it — Cutting a gas main, a fibre trunk or a water main is damage to a utility, and the loss includes everyone that utility was serving.

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 — Disturbed contaminated soil, a struck fuel line or dewatering discharge is a clean-up obligation, and the GL pollution exclusion reaches all three.

Commercial auto

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

Without it — Haul trucks and lowboys move heavy plant on public roads, and an overturned load is a road closure as well as a claim.

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 — Excavators, skid steers and attachments are the single largest asset on the books, and they sit unattended on sites overnight.

Equipment breakdown & spoilage

Covers the walk-in, the compressor and the line when they fail from the inside — a mechanical or electrical breakdown is excluded by property policies, and the stock that thawed goes with it.

Without it — Hydraulic and electrical failure on machines takes them out of service and stops the job.

Umbrella & excess liability

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

Without it — A severed main or a trench fatality reaches numbers a primary limit was never sized for.

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 — Storm water undoes completed earthwork that has been paid for and not yet invoiced.

Surety bonds

License, bid and performance bonds. A bond guarantees you will finish the job — it protects the other party, not you, which is the part most people get wrong.

Without it — Public work is bonded work, and the bond decides which contracts can be bid.

If I called in the locate ticket, am I covered when the mark is wrong?

Calling it in is what keeps you defensible, but it does not make the claim go away. Locate marks are frequently inaccurate or incomplete, particularly on older private services that were never mapped, and the argument after a strike is about whether you excavated with reasonable care inside the tolerance zone. Documentation is what wins it: the ticket number, dated photographs of the marks, and a record of hand digging where required. Keep those as a habit rather than after the first strike.

What is the coverage gap most excavators do not know they have?

Damage to adjacent property from removing lateral support — the neighbouring wall that cracks because you took the soil out from beside it. Many general liability policies exclude subsidence, earth movement or damage from excavation, and the exclusion is not always obvious. On urban work next to existing structures it is the exposure worth checking the policy language for specifically, before the job rather than after.

Does the depth I dig change the market?

It changes the questions and often the price. Shallow grading and utility trenching sit in a much broader market than deep excavation, shoring and anything requiring a competent person on a protective system. Blasting is its own class entirely and is usually excluded unless specifically added. State your real maximum depth and whether you shore — understating it is how a claim gets contested after a collapse.

My equipment is financed. What does the lender need?

Usually loss payee status on the inland marine or equipment policy, which entitles them to be paid, and sometimes additional insured on the liability. Note that those are different requests: loss payee is about money, additional insured is about defence. Getting the lender the right one at the outset avoids the call where a machine is a total loss and the paperwork is wrong.