Contractor Insurance FAQ

It depends far more on your operation than on your zip code. Commercial auto is usually the largest line — driven by truck count, driver records, radius and hours — followed by general liability, which is priced on revenue, contract mix and claims history. A one-truck driveway operator and a nine-truck company servicing grocery-anchored centres are both 'snow removal' and are nowhere near the same premium. Our cost breakdown walks through each line.

Three structural reasons: the claim is delayed and hard to defend because the fall happens hours after you left; the driving conditions are the worst of the year by definition; and losses correlate, so one bad ice event across a portfolio produces many claims from a single night. On top of that, property owners push liability down to contractors through indemnity clauses, and carriers price that. The full explanation is here.

Parts of it, yes. Seasonal payroll for workers' comp and a storage-only structure for trucks that sit April to October are both normal. General liability is the one to keep in force year-round — slip-and-fall claims are routinely filed months after the snow is gone, and a lapsed policy leaves last winter uninsured.

Timestamped service documentation, driver screening before hire, negotiated indemnity language, written trigger depths, a documented fatigue policy, and continuity with clean loss runs. What does not lower it in any real sense: a cheap policy with a snow-and-ice exclusion, or under-reported payroll that the audit finds in April.

Five policies cover almost everything: commercial auto for the trucks and blades, general liability for slip-and-fall and plow damage, workers' comp for your crew, inland marine for the equipment itself, and an umbrella for the excess limits better contracts require. If you can only start with two, make them commercial auto and general liability.

No. Personal auto policies exclude vehicles used for commercial snow removal, and most exclude a plow blade regardless of payment. The moment you are paid to clear someone else's property you need commercial auto — whether that is two driveways or twenty lots.

Not usually. Attached equipment is scheduled and valued on the policy, and a blade sitting on a rack in the off-season is covered by neither your auto policy nor a building policy. Inland marine is what closes both gaps.

That is the core claim it exists for. What matters is that your policy includes products-completed operations — because in this trade you are almost never on site when the fall happens — and that it carries no snow-and-ice exclusion. Both are things we check before binding rather than after a claim.

If you want the contracts worth having, usually yes. Retail centres, healthcare campuses and municipal work commonly require $2M to $5M in excess limits. It is also the cheapest limit per dollar on the schedule — one serious fall can exhaust $1M before the defence is paid for.

The certificate is a summary issued for information — it confers no rights and says so in the small print. The endorsement is an actual change to your policy that extends coverage to the named party. Only the endorsement gives a property owner anything. Believing otherwise for two years and finding out at claim time is the most expensive mistake in this trade. More on COIs here.

It depends which of the three forms it is. Limited indemnity — your own negligence only — is fair and normal. Intermediate is usually workable. Broad form asks you to pay even for the owner's sole negligence, is frequently uninsurable, and is void by statute in a number of states. Send it to us before you sign; here is what to redline.

Same day in season. Snow contracts are awarded in a hurry and a slow certificate loses work. Send the insurance exhibit and the certificate holder details and we will turn it around — with the endorsements genuinely added to the policy.

$1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate is the common floor. Retail and property-management portfolios often add an umbrella of $2M or more; healthcare, campus and municipal work regularly asks for $5M along with a waiver of subrogation and primary and non-contributory wording.

Photograph the area before anything is changed or re-treated, record the time and conditions, note any witnesses, and notify us the same day. Do not discuss fault at the scene. Late notice to a carrier is its own coverage problem, entirely separate from the merits of the claim.

Three seasons minimum. Personal injury limitation periods commonly run two to three years and longer where a minor is involved, so the records that decide a claim are usually from a storm you have completely forgotten. What to capture is here.

At audit, what you paid them is generally added to your payroll and you are charged premium on it — a busy winter of subbed routes can produce a five-figure bill in April. Worse, if they are injured on your job the claim may land on your policy. Collect a certificate before their first route.

In most states yes. The requirement turns on employee count and status, not on whether the work is seasonal. Policies can be structured around a winter-only payroll, which is the sensible answer for a pure snow operation.