Above two storeys, most of the market stops quoting.
Commercial insurance for glaziers and glass contractors — a class few carriers accept, placed on the storeys you work and the contracts you sign.
Tell us the situation.
A licensed human replies the same business day — not an auto-responder, and not five producers calling at once. We shop it across our carriers and tell you if the policy you already have is the right one.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
What glass and glazing businesses actually need.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — Falling glass and falling tools are the claim, and a pane released from height reaches people and property well beyond the work area.
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 — Working at height with heavy, sharp material is a severity class, and it is the coverage the standard market declines first.
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 — Glass in transit and on a rack breaks, and property coverage stops at the yard.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — Racked glass on a truck is fragile cargo and a load shift is a total loss.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — Commercial contracts require limits above primary, and a fall from height exhausts them.
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 — Specified glazing that fails to perform — thermal, structural or acoustic — is a professional claim rather than an accident.
Commercial property
Buildings and contents, valued at what it costs to rebuild today rather than what you paid.
Without it — The shop, the racks and the stock still need replacing after a loss.
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 producer when the agency had no producers at all — and now leads the producer team. 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 defence on a claim your work caused, then look to you for it.
- Additional insured — completed operationsCG 20 37Extends that cover 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 defence 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.
What glass and glazing operators ask us.
Why is glazing so hard to insure?
Two reasons, and they compound. The work is performed at height with material that is heavy, sharp and breaks without warning, which makes the workers compensation severe. And the product is installed into somebody else’s building, so a failure years later is a completed operations claim on a facade. Plenty of standard carriers simply do not write the class, which is why the placement matters more than the shopping.
Does it matter how many storeys I work?
It is usually the first question and often the deciding one. Ground floor and low-rise glazing is placeable in far more markets than high-rise work, and two storeys is where a large part of the appetite stops. Swing stage, boom and suspended access work narrows it further. Stating your real maximum height accurately is what gets you to the carriers who will take it — understating it is how a claim gets contested.
What do general contractors ask glaziers for?
The full stack, almost always: additional insured for ongoing and completed operations, primary and non-contributory wording, a waiver of subrogation, and frequently a per-project aggregate. Glazing is a facade trade on a commercial building, so completed operations matters more here than on most subcontracts — the claim arrives years after the job, and the endorsement has to have been there all along.
Do you write auto glass as well as construction glazing?
They are different appetites and worth separating on the application. Auto glass is a service and mobile-installation exposure; architectural glazing is construction at height. Shops doing both should be described as both, because a policy written for one rarely contemplates the other.