Five Things You Need to Know About Contractors General Liability Insurance Before You Buy
Know Your Facts
Certain basic information is needed to develop a premium quote for you. Be sure to do your homework before you start making calls. Have all your information handy from your licensing information to your current and projected payroll, gross annual receipts and subcosts. You should also know the breakdown of how much of your comes from residential work vs. commercial work and note any work that is part of new residential ground up construction.
Know Their Facts
You don’t like it when customers call you asking for a type of service you rarely do or advertise for, right? Sure, if the money’s right you might sub out the work anyway but at the end of the day it’s just not your forte and sometimes this work costs you more than it’s worth. Same thing with insurance companies. Try to shop only at places that specialize in insurance such as contractors general liability insurance to get the best coverage and best prices.
Know What You Want
Learn your coverage options, decide what you want and go for it. Make sure that all of your clients’ requirements are met, of course, and know what other options are available that you might need. Knowing what you want also keeps comparing different policies from different insurance providers as unbiased as possible.
Everything That Glitters
Sometimes discount policies are so inexpensive because of exclusions that could very well render their policy worthless at times. The whole point of buying contractors general liability insurance is to get you the best coverage and not take a lot out of your pocket. Take the time to make sure that the coverages in the contract are adequate.
The Subcontractor Question
Different states have different rules but as a general rule subcontractors are required to have their own insurance. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s up to date, so you should certainly verify it and put it on your to do list of things to check up on every few months. The worst case is that you can get in trouble over their work and they’ve let their policy cancel or expire and they are unable to indemnify you. You’ll want to make sure of your policies’ penalties in an event such as this.
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