One failed connection runs through a finished building overnight.

General liability

Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.

Without it — A joint that lets go after hours floods floors nobody was working on, and the damage is to everything the water touched rather than to the pipe.

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 — Trench work, heavy fixtures and confined spaces put crews in the injuries that cost the most days.

Commercial auto

Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.

Without it — Service vans run all day between calls, and the mileage is the exposure as much as the driving.

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 — Cameras, jetters, locators and press tools are portable, expensive and stolen off sites regularly.

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 — Sewer, septic and grease work is a contamination claim the moment it escapes, and the general liability pollution exclusion is written to catch exactly that.

Third party property damage

Damage to property in your care while you are shooting on it — the location itself, and the fixtures in it. General liability excludes property in your care, custody and control, which is precisely what a location is.

Without it — Striking an unmarked utility while digging a lateral damages something belonging to a party who was never your customer.

Contractors errors & omissions

Covers faulty workmanship and professional mistakes — the cost of the work itself being wrong, which general liability excludes by design.

Without it — A system that is installed correctly and specified wrongly still fails, and that failure is professional rather than accidental.

Umbrella & excess liability

Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.

Without it — A water loss in a commercial building reaches numbers a primary limit does not cover.

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 — Licence bonds are a condition of the licence, and performance bonds decide which contracts can be bid.

Is water damage covered, or is that the exclusion everyone warns about?

The resulting damage is normally covered; the failed work itself is not. If a connection you made lets go and floods three floors, the general liability policy is there for the floors — the drywall, the flooring, the tenant’s property, the business interruption downstairs. What it will not pay for is redoing the joint, because that is your work product rather than an accident. That distinction is the single most misunderstood thing in plumbing insurance, and it is why the limits conversation matters more than the deductible one.

Do I need anything special because I use a torch?

Increasingly, yes. Hot work — soldering, brazing, cutting — is a named fire cause, and commercial contracts and building owners now routinely require a hot work permit procedure with a fire watch after the flame goes out. Some carriers make it a condition of coverage rather than a suggestion. If you have moved to press fittings on most work, say so on the application; it is a favourable underwriting fact that plumbers rarely think to mention.

Does sewer and septic work change the market?

It changes which carriers will look at it. Anything that puts effluent, grease or contaminated soil in play runs into the pollution exclusion on a standard general liability policy, so the account either needs a contractors pollution policy alongside it or needs to be placed somewhere that will endorse it back. Excavation for laterals adds an underground utility exposure on top. Neither is hard to place — both are hard to place after a claim, if the coverage was never bought.

What do property managers ask plumbers for before a job?

A certificate naming them as additional insured, usually with primary and non-contributory wording and a waiver of subrogation, and frequently proof of workers compensation even where you have no employees. Occupied commercial buildings are stricter than construction sites about this, because the water risk is to a tenant who is already in the building. The paperwork is what holds jobs up, not the coverage.

How is plumbing insurance priced?

On payroll and class code first, then on the work mix — new construction, service and repair, and underground each price differently — and then on losses. Water claims are frequent enough that a couple of them will show in the price, so the useful conversation before renewal is what changed after the last one.