Hot work in the shop is one risk. Hot work on their site is another.
Cover for fabricators and welding shops — where the shop exposure, the installation exposure and the structural exposure are three different conversations.
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.
What metal fabrication businesses actually need.
General and products liability
Injury or damage from the work and from what you fabricated.
Without it — Structural failure claims are severe and slow, and arrive after the job is long closed.
Completed operations
Work installed and signed off that fails afterwards.
Without it — General liability stops when you leave the site; this is the part that does not.
Installation floater
Your materials in transit and on site before the customer accepts them.
Without it — Fabricated steel stolen from a site is your loss until handover.
Hot work exposure
Welding and cutting away from your premises, which carries its own conditions.
Without it — A fire-watch warranty breached is a fire claim declined.
Contractors equipment
Welders, generators, torches and rigging away from the shop.
Without it — Property cover is tied to the premises; the kit that earns is mobile.
What metal fabrication operators ask us.
We fabricate and install. Is that one policy?
It should be, and it often is not — which is where the gap opens. Fabrication reads as manufacturing and installation reads as contracting, and a policy bought for one can exclude the other. Say plainly what proportion of revenue is install work, because a shop described as pure fabrication that installs a third of its output has a coverage argument waiting for the first site accident.
What is a hot work permit condition?
A warranty on your policy, not a suggestion. Typically: clear combustibles within a set radius, an extinguisher present, a fire watch during the work and for a period after — thirty or sixty minutes — and a written permit. Breach it and a resulting fire claim can be declined outright. It is the single most enforced condition in this trade and the one most often treated as paperwork.
Does structural work need something different?
Usually yes. Load-bearing and structural steel carry severity that general fabrication does not, and if you also detail or engineer the connections you have professional liability alongside the products cover — a design error is not a products claim. Shops that grew from jobbing work into structural often carry the policy they started with.
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.