Home Improvement Contractor - Licensed Contractors

Contractor Liability insurance?

I am an electrical contractor.I do anything from Trouble calls, remodels, room additions, dedicated circuits (inside and outside), pool electrical, landscape lighting (Line and low voltage),.......etc....... I was looking at my commercial insurance policy (for my business).It states that I am only insured/covered for electrical work "within" buildings.Does this mean that I am not covered for anything not connected to a structure? So I cannot do pool electrical? I cannot not run a dedicated circuit to a receptacle in the middle of the front/back yard? I cannot install landscape lights?

Public Comments

1. just call your agent. and if your not with nationwide or state farm, switch
2. Call your agent. And you do need to switch companies if your current company does not cover outside work. I don't think State Farm takes contractors or they maybe limited on which ones they write for. It wouldn't hurt to call and ask but I don't think so. Just shop around.
3. Why don't you ask your insurance company or agent?
4. It means, that pool work isn't covered. And that yard work isn't covered. And the landscape lights aren't covered. You'll have to talk to your insurance agent, see if you can buy back that exclusion.
5. ~~According to the wording you are not covered for any of those things. You should have a contractors liability insurance policy. Then the policy should cover everything you do under the scope of your license. In California, your license would allow you to legally perform these jobs, therefore a contractors liability insurance would cover the liability for any of these jobs, as it insures your work per you contractors license. It's very different from commercial liability insurance. It's a specialty insurance. Of course things may be different in your state. Right now your policy is very strictly limiting it's coverage, so to answer your question, outside jobs are not covered.~~
6. Don't check here for interpretation of the coverage of your general liability policy check with your agent. I think I know the answer but not knowing what you are looking at I can't give you the advice your agent can give you. If you don't trust your agent to give you an accurate answer it is time to switch agents. I suspect you are assuming that the classification code which is used to calculate your premium is the the same thing as the insuring agreement within the GL contract. The insuring agreement of the contract is what matters to you not the classification. If you carry on activities that are materially different than the classification noted you might have an issue with the company suggesting that you misrepresented your business. But in real life, assuming that you have represented your activities honestly, the only thing likely to happen is that when the insurance company audits your policy at policy year end the auditor might suggest that the classification needs to be amended. What happens then? If it turns out that the majority of your work is, in fact, not within buildings the premium might be adjusted upwards but it doesn't mean that you are not covered for any other activities. Call your agent.
7. Sorry to be harsh here, but some of these answers are extremely incorrect. First, discuss this with your agent. If the agent can't answer your questions in one or two sentences, find an adjuster, or a new agent. Second, you have a "Liability" policy, meaning the policy will cover items that you become "legaly liable" for. Two gropus of people determine legal liability, one is your insurance company, the other is the court system. If either of these two entities determine legal liaiblity, your policy MAY initiate to provide some coverage. For example - let's say you wire a building. It starts on fire, due to an electrical issue that is determined to be your fault. In this instance. your policy probably would cover the damages (talk to the agent, there are a lost of specific details). HOWEVER, there is a BIG, BIG, exception - it's called the "your work exclusion". Almost ever commercial liability policy excludes "your work" - so in the previous example, everything in the building would be covered except the work you performed, in this case the electrical. As to your question about work "within" buildings, you would have to get into the deep details of the policy and definitions. Insurance policies often "reverse" something in the next paragraph. For example (in a different type of policy), you will often see "We do not cover boats or watercraft"....Then two paragrpahs later you see "we do cover boats and watercraft within a fully enclosed building". Hope this helps.