You put water under pressure into somebody else’s ground.
We insure irrigation and sprinkler contractors for the trenching, backflow and water damage exposures a general landscaping policy is not rated for.
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 irrigation and sprinkler installation businesses actually need.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — A line that fails, floods a basement or undermines a slab is third-party property damage, and the repair is rarely the largest part of the bill.
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 — Trenching and machine work carry the serious injuries in this trade.
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 — Trenchers, boring equipment and controllers are high-value and live on a trailer.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — Trucks and towed equipment are on the road between sites every day.
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 — Backflow into a potable supply and fuel or hydraulic release during trenching are contamination claims general liability excludes.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — Water damage inside a finished building escalates past a primary limit faster than almost any other landscape 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 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.
The Grounds Guys — Franchise owners are referred to us by their corporate office. We are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, The Grounds Guys.
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.
“They stay on top of our rates and premiums. They notify us of any potential increase and automatically shop all options to ensure we get the best possible rates. When we initially switched to them they literally cut our premiums in half for both of our companies…”
What the insurance company will ask about your irrigation and sprinkler installation 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
- What type of blasting work do you do, and where do you do it?
- How many full-time and part-time employees do you have?
- What is your annual payroll?
- How far from your main location do you typically work?
- Are you a member of any blasting trade associations?
How you operate
- Do all your blasters have experience with the types of shots you perform?
- Do you keep blasting logs current for every job?
- What percentage of your work is in undeveloped areas versus urban areas?
- How many shots did you perform in the past 12 months, and how many do you expect in the next 12 months?
- What types of rock do you blast (heavy rock, soft rock, fragmented rock)?
Safety and controls
- Do you use blasting mats when shooting in developed areas?
- Do you perform pre-blast surveys within 250 feet of the blast site?
- Do you use an independent surveyor for pre-blast surveys?
- Do you require the surveyor to carry insurance and name you as additionally insured?
- Do you require surveyor to carry professional liability insurance?
Money and people
- What are your estimated annual blasting-related receipts for the next 12 months?
- How long have you been under current management?
- How many years of experience does your management have?
Your history
- What is your business structure (individual, corporation, partnership, joint venture, other)?
- Has your business operated under any other names?
- Do you have any claims over $5,000 from the past?
- Who supplies your explosives?
Have these ready
- Your blasting safety program and hiring practices
- Your current financial statement
- Your last five years of claims history from your current insurer, called loss runs
- Sample contracts or hold harmless agreements you use with customers
- Information about your business (brochures or similar)
You answer what you can; a licensed agent fills the rest with you.
What our irrigation and sprinkler installation clients ask us.
Why is irrigation rated differently from mowing?
Because it is excavation and plumbing rather than maintenance. You dig next to buried utilities, you introduce water under pressure into a customer’s landscape and often up against their building, and the failure mode is water damage rather than a broken window. An account written on a straight grounds-maintenance class code and then doing sprinkler installs is misclassified, which surfaces at audit.
Is backflow prevention work a separate exposure?
It is, and it is regulated separately in most jurisdictions because the failure contaminates a potable water supply. Certification requirements and who may test are set locally. Where you perform or certify backflow work, it should be disclosed: the claim is a public health matter, not just a property one.
Do I need coverage for the damage I do while digging?
Yes, and check whether the policy has an underground or below-surface exclusion before you rely on it. Some contractor forms exclude damage to property below the surface, which for a trenching contractor removes the coverage for the thing most likely to happen. Whether that exclusion is present, and whether it has been bought back, is worth confirming before a job rather than after.
What does a irrigation and sprinkler installation insurance application ask for?
The applications for irrigation and sprinkler installation businesses ask about 4 things above all: what type of blasting work do you do, and where do you do it; do all your blasters have experience with the types of shots you perform; do you use blasting mats when shooting in developed areas; what are your estimated annual blasting-related receipts for the next 12 months. Have your blasting safety program and hiring practices and your current financial statement ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.
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.