Do you have a liability insurance policy that’s specifically written for your trade business? For contractors, including electricians, plumbers, carpenters, HVAC companies, general contractors, home construction companies, masons, excavators and demolitionists, having a good liability policy is essential. This is because it protects against financial loss for certain types of events, including bodily injury, property damage and personal injuries caused by things like libel and slander.
Why Do Contractors Need Liability Insurance?
If you own or operate a contracting business, your liability insurance needs to be part of your business insurance portfolio. This is because it financially protects you if someone who is not part of your business trips over an object or if one of your clients or site visitors has their property damaged. It also helps financially protect you if someone files a claim for libel or slander against your company. It’s the most basic type of insurance you can get for your business, and every contracting business should have one.
Liability Insurance Coverage Types
Liability insurance is designed to cover injuries, damage and harm caused to other people through property damage coverage, bodily injury coverage and personal injury coverage.
Bodily Injury Coverage
The bodily injury section of a commercial liability insurance policy covers accidental injuries to other people. For example, if a client or visitor to your construction site trips over an object or has an object fall on them, it helps pay for the resulting medical bills, missed income from work and any lawsuits that may arise.
Illnesses Caused by Your Products
How well do you vet the products that your company uses? If you’re like most companies, you take care to make sure the products you use don’t have any harmful fumes or VOCs. However, one could slip by your meticulous vetting process. As a result, you accidentally apply a product to your client’s walls which results in them getting very sick. Your liability insurance would cover the cost of the medical treatment needed and any lost wages the individual experienced before you could come back and rectify the situation.
Property Damage Coverage
The property damage section covers damage to other people’s property. For example, if you’re doing roofing work and a tall ladder falls into the neighbor’s property and breaks a window, the property damage coverage would pay for the replacement.
Personal Injury to Another Business’s or Person’s Reputation via Libel or Slander
General liability insurance helps protect you against claims of libel and slander. It’s important to note that libel occurs when you write something about another business that is negative or defamatory. Slander is when you verbally say the statement. If the business or person sees or hears about the defamatory statements, they could sue you for harm to their reputation. Your general liability insurance policy helps pay the costs of the resulting lawsuit.
Limitations of Liability Insurance Coverage
While commercial liability insurance covers a lot, it doesn’t cover everything. This is especially true when you realize it covers harms to other people and businesses. This means that it doesn’t cover accidents and injuries that happen to your business or employees.
Liability insurance doesn’t cover:
- Any damage that occurs to your employee’s property or business property.
- Any data breaches that your company may incur.
- Damages and financial losses that you incur as the result of another business or person.
- It does not cover damage caused to your vehicles.
- The accidents, injuries and illnesses that occur on the job or because of the job.
Building a Strong Insurance Foundation for Your Contracting Business
For most businesses, liability is the beginning of getting enough insurance to financially protect your business against covered events. Additional insurance policies that you may want to purchase, include:
- Workers Compensation – Helps pay for injuries and illnesses that your employees incur while they are working or as a result of the job.
- Commercial Car Insurance – Helps pay for any accident-related expenses if your company vehicles are involved in a motor vehicle accident.
- Cyber Liability Insurance – Helps pay for any damages caused by data breaches, malware, viruses, DDoS attacks and various other cyber crimes.
- Crime Insurance – Helps financially protect you if your business is the victim of a crime, like burglary or forgery.
- Business Interruption Insurance – Helps pay for lost income and business expenses if your business has to temporarily close due to a covered event.
- Commercial Umbrella Insurance – An add-on insurance policy to help cover claims that exceed the limitations of your standard liability policy.
Contractors Insurance with Boyd Insurance Brokerage Inc in Spokane
If you need contractors insurance, we can help you find the right policy for your needs. Our agents have years of experience when it comes to finding policies that cover the unique risks that contractors incur. We can even underwrite policies for contractors that experience unique and complex risks.
To learn more about our liability insurance policies for contractors, give us a call at 509-340-2693.
