The highest-rated class code in construction, and the leak arrives years later.
Commercial insurance for roofing contractors — class 5551 workers comp, hot work, and the completed operations tail that decides whether you can bid at all.
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 roofing businesses actually need.
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 — Roofing sits in one of the highest-rated class codes in the system, it is the coverage standard carriers decline first, and defaulting to the state fund is what most roofers end up doing.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — A leak that presents two years after the job is a completed operations claim, and it is the claim this trade actually has.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — Loaded trucks, trailers, tear-off debris and material deliveries run all day.
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 — Compressors, nail guns, kettles, lifts and staging are stolen off sites constantly and property coverage stops at the yard.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — General contractors and property managers require limits above primary, and a fall claim exhausts them.
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 specified system that fails, or the wrong assembly for the deck, is a workmanship claim general liability excludes.
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 — Tear-off can disturb asbestos, and hot tar and solvent are releases a general liability policy excludes.
Builders risk
Covers a structure while it is going up, and ends at completion. Not the same as the contractor’s general liability.
Without it — An open roof overnight is exposed to exactly the weather it exists to keep out.
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 roofing operators ask us.
Why is roofing workers comp so expensive?
Because falls from height are the most serious common injury in construction and roofing does nothing else. Most states rate roofers under NCCI class code 5551, and California under its own bureau code 5552 — either way it is among the highest-rated codes there is. It is also one of the hardest classes to place at all: standard carriers decline it, and a great many roofers end up in the state fund by default rather than by choice. Defaulting there is the part worth challenging, because eligible accounts frequently place better than they assume.
Does hot work change my policy?
It changes who will write you. Torch-down, tar kettles and any open flame introduce a fire exposure on somebody else’s building, and carriers ask about it specifically — what you use, on what assemblies, and what your hot work procedure is. A written procedure with a fire watch after work stops is worth real money here, and being vague about it reads as having none.
Why does everyone ask about completed operations?
Because the roofing claim is a leak, and a leak does not appear on the day you finish. It appears in the third storm of the following winter, inside a finished building, having damaged everything under it. That is a completed operations claim, so a policy that excludes the hazard or a general contractor’s additional insured endorsement that only covers ongoing work leaves exactly the wrong gap. On this trade, completed operations is the coverage, not an extra.
I do residential tract work. Is that a problem?
It is the exclusion to look for before you rely on the policy. Multi-unit and tract housing residential exclusions are common on contractor forms, and roofing on a development is precisely what they are written to remove — a defect repeated across a tract arrives as a class action or a homeowners association claim rather than as one dispute. It is placeable with carriers whose appetite includes residential, and not by arguing with one whose does not.
Does storm and hail work count against me?
It invites questions, and honest local roofers pay for the reputation of transient storm-chasing operations. What separates you from that on paper is evidence of permanence: how long you have been at the address, the proportion of revenue from repeat and referral work, your licence history, and whether your crews are employees or a rotating cast. Those are worth putting in the submission rather than waiting to be asked.
My crews are subcontracted. What happens at audit?
Their payroll becomes yours unless they can produce their own certificate. On a class rated as highly as roofing, that is the most expensive audit surprise in construction — uncertificated sub labour gets added at your rate. Collecting certificates before the first shift is the single cheapest thing a roofer can do to control premium, and it is worth doing even when it is awkward.