An unendorsed policy does not respond to a slip on a lot you cleared.
Commercial insurance for snow ploughing and ice management — including the general liability and commercial auto endorsements a standard landscaping policy leaves off.
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 snow and ice management businesses actually need.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — A slip-and-fall on a lot you cleared is the claim, and without a snow and ice endorsement the policy simply does not answer it.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — A plough blade is an attachment your auto policy has to know about, and damage caused while ploughing is auto exposure rather than general liability.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — Commercial lots and property management contracts routinely require limits above primary, and a bad ice event produces several claims at once.
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 — Ploughs, spreaders and blades are seasonal equipment worth stealing and expensive to replace mid-storm.
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 — Night work, ice underfoot and long shifts in the cold are exactly when injuries happen.
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.
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 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.
“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 snow and ice management operators ask us.
My landscaping policy is in force. Am I covered for ploughing?
Probably not, and this is the most consequential misunderstanding in the trade. Snow and ice operations generally have to be added to the general liability policy explicitly, as an endorsement or a class code, and to the commercial auto policy separately because a plough is an attachment the vehicle rating has to account for. Two policies in force and neither one endorsed is a common way to discover a gap in February.
The property manager wants to be indemnified. Should I sign?
Read the clause and check the state before you do. Several states have passed statutes making indemnity and hold-harmless provisions in snow removal contracts void as against public policy — Illinois has had one since 2016 — precisely because contractors were being asked to accept liability for the property owner’s own negligence. Where no such statute exists, that clause transfers real money, and your policy needs to be built to accept it.
Do I need coverage if I only plough for existing landscaping customers?
Yes. The exposure attaches to the work, not to whether the customer is new. A long-standing maintenance client whose car park you clear is exactly as capable of producing a slip-and-fall claim as a new one, and the endorsement question is identical.
What records matter after a storm?
Time-stamped service logs, what was applied and when, and the weather at the time. Slip-and-fall claims are often filed weeks or months later, and the defence is almost always the log. Contractors who keep them win claims that contractors who do not, settle.