You are liable for it after it leaves the building.
We cover manufacturers: the product exposure that outlives the sale, the equipment that stops the line when it fails, and the audit that follows a good year.
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 manufacturing businesses actually need.
General liability
Injury and damage from your premises and operations, meaning visitors and deliveries on site, installation and service work off it.
Without it — The form product liability attaches to, and the one your customers name in a supply agreement.
Product liability
Injury or damage caused by what you make, claimed by anyone in the chain of supply.
Without it — The largest exposure a manufacturer has, and the one that arrives years late.
Foreign products liability
What you inherit from an overseas supplier: the claim on their part, and the supply agreement that puts the indemnity back on you.
Without it — An indemnity from a factory nobody can practically sue is not a transfer of risk, and it is what most importers are relying on.
Foreign liability
Your own people and operations outside the United States: a sales engineer at a trade show, a crew commissioning a line overseas, and foreign voluntary workers compensation for both.
Without it — A US general liability policy has a coverage territory, and your staff step outside it the moment they board the plane. The workers compensation gap is the one that surprises people most.
Manufacturers errors and omissions
Financial loss to your customer when the product does not do what it was supposed to do, with nobody hurt and nothing damaged.
Without it — General liability only responds to bodily injury or property damage. A component that simply does not work, and can be replaced to fix the problem, is pure financial loss and is excluded by name.
Workers compensation
Injury and illness on the floor, rated by class code and payroll, with an experience modifier that follows you for three years.
Without it — Required wherever you have an employee, and the one policy nobody can buy after the fact.
Product recall
The cost of getting it back: notification, freight, disposal, replacement, lost income.
Without it — Excluded from liability forms almost universally, and routinely absent as a result.
Equipment breakdown
Mechanical, electrical and pressure-equipment failure, and the income lost while it is down.
Without it — Property policies exclude breakdown from an internal cause: the way machines actually fail.
Business interruption
Lost gross profit while production is stopped, plus the cost of working around it.
Without it — Rebuilding a plant is survivable; twelve months with no output frequently is not.
Stock and raw materials
Finished goods, work in progress and inputs, valued properly through the production cycle.
Without it — Part-finished stock is valued as raw material unless the policy says otherwise.
Contractual and vendor obligations
The additional insured status and limits your customers write into supply agreements.
Without it — A purchase order you cannot satisfy is a customer you cannot keep.
Group health and benefits
Line and maintenance staff who keep the equipment running.
Without it — Downtime is the expensive part of manufacturing, and the people who prevent it are the ones with years on your machines.
The claims we actually see.
Ordered by how often we see them, not by how dramatic they are. Each one names the coverage that answers it — and the policy people wrongly assume already does.
Most common
An employee injured by a machine or by lifting
Covered by Workers compensation
The frequency claim that quietly sets your price for three years through the experience modifier, long after the injury is forgotten.
Most common
A machine fails from the inside and stops the line
Covered by Equipment breakdown, plus business income
Property covers a machine damaged by something external, a fire or a flood. It excludes the machine breaking itself, which is how machines actually break.
Common
Something you made injures someone, years later
Covered by Products and completed operations
The largest exposure a manufacturer has and the slowest to arrive. If the component came from an overseas supplier, their indemnity is usually unenforceable and the claim lands entirely on you.
Less common, severe
A batch has to be recalled
Covered by Product recall
Liability pays for the harm the product caused. Getting it back — notification, freight, disposal, replacement, lost income — is excluded from liability forms almost universally.
Rare, catastrophic
A fire or flood takes the plant out for a year
Covered by Property, plus business income
Rebuilding is survivable. Twelve months with no output, while customers re-source and do not come back, frequently is not.
What our manufacturing clients ask us.
What actually drives a manufacturer’s premium?
Sales, the product, and where it ends up. Revenue is the rating base for the liability, which makes it an audited policy. The product matters more than the process. Anything ingested, worn, load-bearing, powered or fitted to a vehicle rates differently from an inert industrial part. And end use matters most of all: the same bracket sold into shelving and sold into aerospace are not the same risk, and underwriters ask because the answer changes the price by multiples.
We are growing fast. What should we expect?
An audit bill, unless the estimate is kept current. Liability rated on sales is reconciled against actuals at the end of the term, so a year of real growth produces an invoice for the difference, arriving after the money has been spent. Tell us when turnover moves rather than at renewal; a mid-term adjustment is a smaller check than a year of catch-up.
Does our property policy cover the machinery?
It covers the machinery being damaged by something external, whether a fire, a flood or an impact. It excludes the machine breaking itself, which is how machines actually break: a motor burns out, a boiler fails, a control board goes. Equipment breakdown is the separate coverage for that, and it carries the income loss while the line is stopped, which is usually the larger number.
Do we need coverage for a component we buy in?
Your policy responds for the finished product you sold, including the bought-in part, and then your insurer pursues the supplier. That works when the supplier is solvent, domestic and insured. It works badly when they are none of those, which is why underwriters ask about your supply chain and why vendor certificates from your own suppliers are worth collecting rather than assuming.
We import components. Why does the underwriter care where from?
Because it decides who actually pays. When the manufacturer is overseas, an injured American sues whoever they can reach, and that is the importer, the distributor and the retailer, not a factory with no US presence.
Our supplier agreement has an indemnity. Isn’t that enough?
Read which way it points. Foreign manufacturers generally want nothing to do with US litigation, so their agreements routinely require the US importer to indemnify and hold harmless them: the opposite of what the person signing usually believes they got.
What will they actually ask about our supply chain?
Where each significant component is made, not where it ships from, which is a different question and the one people answer by mistake.
How much product liability do we actually need?
A $1M per-occurrence and $2M aggregate limit is the ordinary starting point, and it is a starting point rather than an answer.
What about workers comp for a plant?
Rated by class code and payroll, and manufacturing codes vary enormously. A food plant, a machine shop and a chemical blender are separate worlds. The controllable part is the experience modifier, which is your claims history against the expected loss for your codes and payroll. It compounds: a bad year raises the mod for three, so a return-to-work program is a pricing decision, not just a safety one.
Also in this family
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.
Handed a lease, a vendor packet or a client contract with insurance requirements? Paste it into the COI Requirements Decoder to see what each one means for your business, or read what the requirements mean.