One photograph taken from a roof can cancel the policy.
Commercial insurance for pressure and soft washing contractors — height, surface damage and the trailer equipment schedule that most policies get wrong.
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 pressure and soft washing businesses actually need.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — Water and chemical driven under pressure into a building, or across a neighbouring car park, is third-party damage that happens in seconds.
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 — The rig is the business. Attached and non-attached equipment on the trailer are scheduled differently, and getting that wrong is only discovered when the trailer is gone.
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 — Ladders, wet surfaces and chemical handling produce the injuries, and any work off the ground raises the rate.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — The truck and the trailer are on the road daily and towing is constant.
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 — Run-off carrying detergent, chlorine or removed coating into a storm drain is a pollution claim general liability excludes.
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 — Stripping a surface you were paid to clean — etched glass, stained render, damaged shingles — is a workmanship claim rather than an accident.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — Commercial and property management contracts require limits above primary.
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.
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.
What pressure and soft washing operators ask us.
Can an underwriter really cancel me over a photograph?
Yes, and it happens. Carriers do review an insured’s public social media, and a picture of somebody standing on a roof is treated as evidence of roof work regardless of what the application said. We have seen accounts cancelled over exactly that when the crew was washing the roof from a ladder and had climbed up once for a photograph. It is worth knowing before you post, and it is worth having the work described accurately from the start so there is nothing to contradict.
Is soft washing a roof from a ladder the same as roof work?
Not to you, and often yes to an underwriter. Cleaning a roof from a ladder, from the ground with a telescopic lance, and by walking on the roof are three different exposures, and many carriers only distinguish between them if you make them. Say which one you do, in those words, on the application — the difference decides both the price and the appetite.
How should my trailer equipment be insured?
Carefully, and this is where policies in this class are most often wrong. Equipment permanently attached to the trailer and equipment merely carried on it are treated differently, and a schedule that lumps them together leaves a gap somebody discovers after a theft. Machines, tanks, reels, hoses and lances should be listed for what they are and valued for what they cost to replace, not for what they were bought for.
What about damage to the surface I was cleaning?
General liability excludes property in your care, custody and control, which on a wash job is frequently the exact surface you were working on. Etched glass, driven-in water, stripped paint and damaged shingles are the frequency claims here. Whether the policy has care, custody and control coverage is worth confirming rather than assuming.