A vented charge is a pollution claim, and your GL excludes it.
Commercial insurance for heating, ventilation and air conditioning contractors, written around refrigerant, combustion and rooftop work.
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.
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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 HVAC businesses actually need.
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 — Refrigerant released during service is a pollution event under the exclusion your general liability policy already carries, so the base policy is the wrong place to look for it.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — A unit installed wrong damages the building it sits in: condensate through a ceiling, a rooftop leak, a flooded plant room.
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 — Rooftop and attic work, heavy equipment and brazing put crews in falls and burns rather than strains.
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 — A system sized or specified incorrectly performs badly for years without ever breaking, and that is a professional claim rather than an accident.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — Service trucks carrying cylinders and recovery equipment are on the road all day, and the cargo changes the conversation after a collision.
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 — Recovery machines, vacuum pumps, gauges and torches are portable and are stolen as a set.
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 — The shop’s own compressors and electrical plant fail like any other machinery, and property insurance treats that failure as maintenance.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — A carbon monoxide injury is a bodily injury claim against completed work, and it does not stay inside a primary limit.
Business income
Replaces the profit and pays the ongoing bills while a covered loss keeps you closed. It is the part of a fire claim that is not the building.
Without it — A fire or loss at the shop stops the trucks going out, and the payroll continues while the revenue does not.
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.
What the insurance company will ask about your HVAC business
We read 1 application the markets use for this kind of business 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
- Your company name, address, phone number, and main contact
- When did you start this business?
- How many people do you employ total?
- What professional associations or unions are you part of?
How you operate
- What types of sprinkler systems do you design and install (new construction, retrofits, repairs)?
- What percentage of your work is new systems versus fixing or upgrading existing ones?
- What types of piping do you use (steel, CPVC, copper, or other)?
- Do you do any work besides fire sprinklers, like plumbing, HVAC, excavation, or other trades?
- Which trades do you hire as subcontractors?
Safety and controls
- What type of testing do you do on new CPVC systems (water only, air only, or both)?
- How long does CPVC pipe take to cure, and do you adjust cure times based on temperature and humidity?
- Do you test water supply to make sure there's enough for the systems you design?
- Do you require all systems to be tested before you sign off, whether new, retrofit, or repair?
- Do you protect building surfaces and property during retrofit and repair work, and do you document this?
Your history
- How many years have you designed sprinkler systems?
- Do you design all systems in line with NFPA 13, NFPA 13-R, and NFPA 13-D standards?
- Do you do your own system design work or use outside designers?
- Have you had any professional liability claims from systems you designed? If yes, explain
- In the last five years, have you been cited or prosecuted for releasing substances like chemicals into sewers, water, air, or land?
Money and people
- What is your total gross sales?
- How much of your sales come from wrap-up insurance projects, and how much excluding those?
- What percentage of your revenue comes from each type of building (institutional, commercial, residential, manufacturing)?
- What is your federal tax ID number?
Have these ready
- Your CPVC training program name and certification credentials
- A list of all subcontractors and their certificates of insurance
- Copy of any alarm monitoring agreement if you provide that service
- Documentation showing water supply testing records for systems you've designed
- Your loss runs (claims history from your current insurer for the last five years)
You answer what you can; a licensed agent fills the rest with you.
What our HVAC clients ask us.
Why would my general liability not cover a refrigerant release?
Because a standard general liability policy carries a pollution exclusion, and refrigerant is a pollutant under it. That catches the most ordinary event in the trade, a charge vented during service, a line cut without recovery, a leak from a unit you last touched. The fix is not exotic: contractors pollution coverage either alongside the general liability or endorsed onto it. What matters is that somebody has actually looked, because a policy sold as "HVAC insurance" with the exclusion untouched will fail on exactly the claim the trade produces.
What is the carbon monoxide exposure and how serious is it?
It is the least frequent and most severe thing on the list. A furnace, boiler or flue installed or serviced incorrectly can put carbon monoxide into an occupied building, and the result is bodily injury to a family or a workforce rather than damage to property. It is a completed operations claim, so it arrives after the job, and it is the reason combustion work is underwritten more carefully than cooling work. It is also the reason an umbrella is not optional on an account doing residential heating.
Does refrigerant type matter to underwriters?
It has started to. The move to lower-global-warming refrigerants has brought mildly flammable classifications into equipment that previously had none, which changes the fire conversation on storage, transport and service. Carriers are asking what you handle and how it is stored. If you have upgraded recovery equipment or changed storage practice, that is a favorable fact and worth putting on the application rather than waiting to be asked.
My payroll swings hard between summer and winter. Does that hurt me?
It does not have to, but it needs to be set up correctly or the audit will be unpleasant. Seasonal trades get caught by policies rated on an annual payroll estimate that assumed a flat year. Estimating honestly and reviewing mid-term is cheaper than a large audit premium at expiry, and some carriers will work with a reporting basis instead. This is worth raising at quote rather than at renewal.
What do commercial building owners require from HVAC contractors?
Additional insured on ongoing and completed operations, primary and non-contributory wording, a waiver of subrogation, and proof of workers compensation for anyone on the roof. Rooftop access frequently comes with its own conditions, and some managing agents require higher limits for work above occupied floors. Send the contract over before signing and we will tell you what is already in place.
I have one employee in Florida. Do I need workers comp?
Yes. Florida counts a construction business as an employer once it has a single employee, against four for most other businesses, and contracting work on buildings generally counts as construction for this purpose. Owners holding at least 10% can file an exemption for themselves, up to three of them, but the employee still needs a policy.
What does a HVAC insurance application ask for?
The applications for HVAC businesses ask about 4 things above all: your company name, address, phone number, and main contact; what types of sprinkler systems do you design and install (new construction, retrofits, repairs); what type of testing do you do on new cpvc systems (water only, air only, or both); how many years have you designed sprinkler systems. Have your cpvc training program name and certification credentials and a list of all subcontractors and their certificates of insurance ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.
Guides on HVAC.
- Do insurance companies look at your website?Underwriters compare your website with your application, and a mismatch costs a quote or a policy. What they read, what a misstatement can do to a claim, and how to send a submission that matches the site.
- Florida workers comp for contractorsFlorida’s one-employee rule for construction, the officer exemption and its limits, what the licensing boards ask for, and what working uncovered costs, each quoted from the Florida Statutes.
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.