Most of your policy is priced on the work you do least.
Commercial insurance for landscaping, grounds maintenance and lawn care — written around the operations that push an account out of preferred appetite, not the ones that keep it there.
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 landscaping businesses actually need.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — The rock a mower or trimmer throws through a window, a windscreen or a passer-by is the claim this trade actually files, and it is the one that needs no negligence to happen.
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 — Mowers, trimmers, blowers and the trailer they live on are stolen off job sites constantly, and a commercial property policy stops at the yard gate.
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 — Blades, chippers, heat and highway-shoulder work produce injuries that become uncapped claims against the business.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — Trucks towing loaded trailers all day are the largest severity exposure on the account, and personal auto declines the moment it learns the trip was work.
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 — Herbicide drift onto a neighbouring garden, fertiliser run-off into a storm drain, or a hydraulic line split on a paver driveway are all excluded by the pollution wording on a standard general liability policy.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — One serious auto or injury claim exhausts a $1M primary limit, and municipal and HOA contracts often require more than that before you start.
Commercial property
Buildings and contents, valued at what it costs to rebuild today rather than what you paid.
Without it — The yard, the shop and the equipment inside them still need replacing after a fire.
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 — Municipal and commercial grounds contracts are bid with a bond, and the licence itself requires one in states like California.
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.
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 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.
“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 landscaping operators ask us.
Why did my landscaping quote come back so much higher this year?
Usually because something in the operations moved you out of preferred appetite, not because rates moved. Stump grinding, tree work above the ground, retaining walls, hardscape, sprinkler installation and grading or excavation each read as a different class to an underwriter, and any one of them can take an account that was preferred and put it in the excess and surplus market. The fix is often narrower than the price suggests — sometimes it is a description of operations that no longer matches what you actually do.
A rock came out of the mower and broke a window. Does insurance pay?
That is a general liability claim and it is the most common one in this trade — a stone thrown from a mower deck or a string trimmer into a window, a parked car or a person. You do not have to have done anything wrong for it to be your claim. What matters is whether the policy has been written for landscaping operations rather than issued off a generic contractor class, because that is where the arguments start.
Do I need different coverage for tree work?
Yes, and this is the single biggest dividing line in the class. Trimming from the ground is usually fine within a landscaping policy. Climbing, aerial lift work, removals and stump grinding are a different appetite, priced differently and declined by many carriers outright. If you do any of it, it has to be disclosed and rated — an undisclosed tree operation is how a claim gets denied and a policy gets rescinded.
I plough snow in the winter. Is that automatically covered?
No, and assuming it is is a common and expensive mistake. Snow and ice operations usually need to be endorsed onto both the general liability and the commercial auto policy, and a general liability policy that has not been endorsed for it simply does not respond to a slip-and-fall on a lot you cleared. In some states the indemnity clause in your snow contract is void by statute regardless of what you signed.
What does insurance for a landscaper cost?
It is priced on payroll and revenue, on the split between maintenance and installation, and heavily on the operations above. Two companies with identical revenue can price very differently if one grinds stumps and one does not. We will not publish an average, because the average is drawn from mowing-only accounts and is not the number a full-service company is going to see.
Do you write pesticide and herbicide application?
Yes, and it needs pollution coverage to be worth anything. The standard general liability form carries a pollution exclusion, and most carriers writing applicators add a total pollution exclusion on top — which removes drift, overspray and run-off, the three things that actually go wrong. Either the exclusion is bought back or a separate pollution policy sits behind it.