The claim you are exposed to is the one your policy excludes by name.
Commercial insurance for pesticide and herbicide applicators, written with the pollution coverage that a standard general liability policy removes.
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 pesticide and herbicide application 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 — Drift, overspray and run-off are the losses this trade actually produces, and the pollution exclusion on a standard policy was written to remove exactly them.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — Ordinary premises and operations claims still happen, and the certificate is still what a commercial client asks for first.
Professional liability
Covers the advice, the drawing, the diagnosis. The work itself, rather than someone getting hurt on your premises.
Without it — Treating the wrong property, the wrong species or at the wrong rate damages the thing you were paid to protect, which is a professional claim rather than an accident.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — Spray rigs and tanks on the road are business use and carry the chemical with them.
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 — Chemical exposure claims can surface long after the application that caused them.
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 — Tanks, pumps and application equipment are mobile and excluded by property coverage away from the yard.
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 pesticide and herbicide application business
We read the applications the markets use for businesses in this field 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 is your legal business name and any other names you've operated under?
- How long have you been in business?
- What is your main line of work and what services do you provide?
- Are you a sole proprietor, partnership, corporation, or LLC?
How you operate
- How much of your work is commercial, residential, industrial, municipal, or government?
- Do you work beyond a 50-mile radius from your main location?
- What percentage of your work do you subcontract to other companies?
- Do your subcontractors carry their own insurance?
- Do you have a written contract that customers sign before work begins?
Safety and controls
- Do you have a formal safety and training program?
- Do you perform background checks on new hires?
- Do you have a written grievance policy?
- Do you make unannounced jobsite visits to check on work quality and safety?
- Do you maintain records of work orders, accident reports, and job details?
Your history
- Have you ever had a claim or loss under an errors and omissions or liability policy?
- Have you had any incident or problem on a job that could lead to a claim?
- Do you have any past or pending bankruptcy, foreclosure, or unpaid tax judgment in the last five years?
Money and people
- What are your annual receipts?
- What is your annual payroll?
- How many full-time and part-time employees do you have?
- Who is your current insurance company and what is your premium?
- Do you own any vehicles used in your business?
Have these ready
- Your last five years of claims history from your current insurer, called loss runs
- A sample customer contract showing what you agree to do and what the customer agrees to
- A list of the main equipment you use in your work
- Your formal safety and training program if you have one written down
You answer what you can; a licensed agent fills the rest with you.
What our pesticide and herbicide application clients ask us.
Does general liability cover herbicide drift?
No, and this is worth being blunt about. The standard general liability form carries a pollution exclusion, and carriers that will write chemical applicators commonly attach a total pollution exclusion as well, which is broader. Drift, overspray, run-off and contamination are the precise events those endorsements exist to remove. Coverage comes from a pollution buy-back on the general liability or a separate contractors pollution policy, not from the base form.
My state requires proof of insurance for my applicator license. What do you file?
Most states that license commercial applicators require evidence of financial responsibility, and several specify limits and a form of certificate that names the state agency. The requirement, the limit and the agency all differ by state. Tell us which license you hold and we will match the certificate to what that agency will actually accept, rather than sending a generic one and finding out at renewal.
Are neighboring-property claims common?
They are the characteristic claim of the class. Wind moves product further than operators expect, and the damaged party is usually somebody who never hired you: a neighbor’s ornamentals, a vegetable garden, a pond, or a specialty crop where the damages get large quickly. Negligence claims for failing to apply with reasonable care are the usual legal theory.
Do I need this if spraying is a small part of what I do?
The exclusion does not scale with volume. It applies to every application you make, whether spraying is all of your revenue or five per cent of it. What volume changes is the price and how easily the risk places, not whether the gap exists.
What does a pesticide and herbicide application insurance application ask for?
The applications for pesticide and herbicide application businesses ask about 4 things above all: what is your legal business name and any other names you've operated under; how much of your work is commercial, residential, industrial, municipal, or government; do you have a formal safety and training program; have you ever had a claim or loss under an errors and omissions or liability policy. Have your last five years of claims history from your current insurer, called loss runs and a sample customer contract showing what you agree to do and what the customer agrees to 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.