Roofing carries the highest completed-operations severity of any trade, because a roof that leaks or fails after the crew leaves can destroy the interior below and stays exposed for years. Carriers scrutinize the products-completed operations grant and the height-of-work classification closely, and a roofer's premium runs well above a lower-hazard trade at the same revenue.
General liability insurance for contractors
Pays when someone other than your crew is injured or has their property damaged on your jobsite, and when your finished work fails after you leave, and it is the policy that names the general contractor as additional insured before you set foot on site.
Why Coverwatch
- Markets
- Specialty construction programs that will write higher-hazard trades, roofers and framers, new ventures, and contractors with a claim, the exact profile a standard carrier surcharges or declines.
- Competition
- 60+ markets put head to head on the products-completed operations grant, the additional-insured wording, and the trade classification, not just the annual premium on your payroll.
- Certificates
- We get the general contractor and owner named additional insured with CG 20 10 and CG 20 37 wording and turn certificates around fast, so a subcontract never stalls on evidence of insurance.
For contractor
- What it covers
- Injury to a passerby, another trade, or the client, or damage to their property, arising from your work on the jobsite or after you have left it.
- What it doesn't
- The cost to tear out and redo your own faulty work, and injury to your own employees.
Trusted by 60+ carrier partners
What does contractor general liability insurance cover?
Contractor general liability insurance covers bodily injury and property damage to third parties on your jobsite, plus completed operations when finished work fails after you leave. It pays the claim and your legal defense, names the general contractor as additional insured, and does not cover employee injury or redoing your own faulty work.
Why completed operations matter for contractor liability
General liability answers for injury or property damage to someone other than your own crew, both while you are working and after you have finished.
The general contractor makes you carry your own
Before a sub sets foot on site, the general contractor requires its own general liability, names the GC and owner as additional insured.
The claim outlives the job
Products-completed operations means a roof, a weld, or a wiring run you finished last year can still trigger a claim now.
Your own bad work is your risk, not the policy's
The cost to rip out and redo work you did wrong is a business expense the insurer will not pay.
How we get you covered
We take general liability for contractor to 60+ markets, build it to fit your contracts, and keep your certificates compliant.
Read your risk
We map what could actually go wrong in your operation, where a claim would come from, and who would bring it.
Shop 60+ markets
We take your risk to the carriers that know your class and make them compete on price and terms.
Build the endorsements
We add the endorsement wording that decides whether the policy responds to a claim, beyond the base form.
Keep you compliant
We handle the COIs, additional-insured certs, and renewals, so you are never the one chasing paperwork.
Get a quoteFlat fee, no markup on your premium.
What's covered, and what isn't
In the policy
Jobsite third-party bodily injury
The policy pays a third party's injury claim and your legal defense when someone who is not your employee is hurt on the site.
Third-party property damage
Damage you cause to property that is not yours during the work, such as a plumber's pipe break flooding the floor below or a crew cracking the client's…
Products-completed operations
Harm that surfaces after you finish and leave the site, when a roof leaks, a deck collapses.
Personal and advertising injury
Coverage B of the general liability policy.
Medical payments
A small no-fault grant that pays a minor third-party injury on the jobsite without a lawsuit or a finding of fault, usually a few thousand dollars per person.
Additional-insured protection for the GC and owner
Your policy extends to the general contractor and owner you name as additional insured.
Not in the policy
Injury to your own employees
A crew member, apprentice, or laborer of yours hurt on the job is a workers compensation claim, statutorily excluded from general liability.
Covered by Workers Compensation
Accidents involving your work trucks and vehicles
A collision in a company truck or van, and tools damaged inside a vehicle, are auto exposures excluded from the general liability form.
Covered by Commercial Auto
Stolen or damaged tools and equipment
Your mobile tools, ladders, and equipment taken from the site or in transit are first-party property, not a third-party liability claim.
Covered by Inland Marine
Damage to the structure under construction
Fire, wind, theft, or accidental damage to the building itself while it is being built, along with materials and soft costs.
Covered by Builders Risk
Ripping out and redoing your own faulty work
The cost to correct work you performed incorrectly, such as re-pouring a slab or re-flashing a roof you installed wrong.
Covered by an uninsurable business risk, not a policy
Design and professional errors
A mistake in a design, engineering calculation, plan you prepared, or professional advice you gave is a professional exposure rather than a physical-injury…
Covered by Professional Liability / E&O
Get a quoteGet a policy built for contractor.
Claims general liability pays
The same trade produces very different claims on the site and after it. These are the third-party liability claims contractors actually face, with the typical cost to defend and settle each.
ScenarioHow the claim happensTypical cost
Jobsite injury to a passerby or another trade
Falling material, a stray tool, or an uncovered trench injures someone who is not your employee, a pedestrian near the site, a delivery driver.
$25K–$300K
Completed-operations failure after you left
A roof you finished leaks and ruins the interior below, a deck you built collapses under guests, or a wiring run you closed up starts a fire months later.
$100K–$1M+
Property damage to the client's existing structure
Your crew cracks the client's existing foundation, floods a finished floor below the work area, or damages a neighbor's wall while you build.
$25K–$250K
Additional-insured tender from the general contractor
An injury or defect arising from your scope of work draws a suit that also names the general contractor and owner.
$50K–$500K
Ranges are typical defense and settlement bands for these claim types, not a quote. Actual exposure depends on trade, project size, contract terms, location, and limits.
Get a quoteGet covered before a claim lands.
What contractor buyers are required to carry
The limits contracts and statutes set for this line, and what moves your premium and terms.
What buyers require
- General contractor subcontract
- $1M occ / $2M agg
- Owner prime contract
- $1M / $5M umbrella
- State license board
- Varies by state
- Owner-controlled program (OCIP/CCIP)
- Wrap-up on site
The subcontract almost always requires the sub to carry general liability at one million per occurrence and two million aggregate, name the GC and owner as additional insured for ongoing and completed operations, add a waiver of subrogation, and provide the coverage on a primary and noncontributory basis.
On larger commercial and institutional projects the owner's prime contract sets a one-million primary plus a five-million umbrella minimum, and specifies the CG 20 10 and CG 20 37 additional-insured forms and the waiver-of-subrogation wording the general contractor flows down to every sub.
Several state contractor license boards require proof of general liability to issue or renew a license. California's CSLB, for example, requires licensed contractors to carry general liability, with the minimum set by the board, and a lapse can suspend the license.
On a large project the owner or general contractor may enrol every contractor in a single wrap-up policy that covers general liability on that site. You still carry your own general liability for off-site and non-enrolled work, so confirm what the wrap covers before you assume you are insured.
What sets your cost and terms
- Trade and class of work
- Your trade is the single biggest input to the premium.
- Payroll and receipts
- General liability for contractors rates on payroll and gross receipts as a proxy for how much work you do and how large your jobs are.
- Additional-insured and endorsement load
- Each general contractor and owner you add as additional insured, plus the waiver-of-subrogation and primary-and-noncontributory wording your subcontracts…
- Claims history
- A run of jobsite injury or construction-defect claims sets the rate and can push the required limit up.
How this changes by contractor segment
The policy is the same product; the exposure, the limit, and the exclusions to watch shift by segment.
General contractors carry the vicarious exposure for every sub on the site and are the party demanding additional-insured and waiver wording downstream. Their own policy has to answer when a sub is uninsured or underinsured, so the sub-tender flow and the CG 20 10 and CG 20 37 forms flowed down to each trade matter as much as the base limit.
A handyman handling small, varied jobs is a broad, lower-hazard operation, but the exposure is still real, because one damaged floor or one injured client turns into a claim fast. The story here is a right-sized one-million policy that clears the certificate a property manager or client asks for, without the trade classification or completed-operations load a roofer or framer carries.
Landscaping is the trade where the standard pollution exclusion does the damage. A pesticide, herbicide, or fertilizer that drifts onto a neighbor's plants or into a waterway is read as a pollutant and denied unless the policy adds an applicator endorsement.
The plumber's defining claim arrives after the job, when a fitting or supply line lets go and floods the finished space below. That is a products-completed operations loss, so the completed-operations aggregate, not the general aggregate, is the number that answers.
HVAC carries two exposures a base form fights. A vented or leaked refrigerant charge is treated as a pollutant under the CGL pollution exclusion, so the policy needs a refrigerant buyback tied to the EPA Section 608 rules.
The electrician's biggest claim is a faulty-wiring fire that surfaces months or years after the work is closed up, which lands squarely in products-completed operations. Because most states adopt the National Electrical Code into law, a code violation that causes the loss reads as negligence per se and hardens the case.
Endorsements that close the gaps
The base form is the start. These add-ons are where the policy gets built to fit contractor.
Additional insured, owners, lessees or contractors, ongoing operations
CG 20 10The endorsement a general contractor requires most often.
Additional insured, owners, lessees or contractors, completed operations
CG 20 37The companion to CG 20 10.
Waiver of transfer of rights of recovery (waiver of subrogation)
CG 24 04Bars the contractor's carrier from recovering against the general contractor or owner after it pays a claim.
Primary and noncontributory
Subcontracts almost always require the sub's general liability to respond first and not seek contribution from the general contractor's or owner's own policy.
By the numbers
The form numbers, contract floors, and loss data that surface when a contractor gets quoted for general liability or answers a general contractor's certificate request.
- Base form behind contractor general liability
- ISO CG 00 01
- Ongoing-operations additional-insured form
- ISO CG 20 10
- Your-work exclusion and subcontractor exception
- Exclusion l, exclusions j.(5) and j.(6)
- Average construction general liability premium
- About $82 per month
- Standard contractor GL limit structure
- $1M occ / $2M agg / $2M products-completed ops
A contractor's general liability is the standard ISO commercial general liability coverage form. Coverage A responds to jobsite and completed-operations bodily injury and property damage; Coverage B responds to personal and advertising injury.
The additional insured, owners, lessees or contractors endorsement names the general contractor and owner as additional insured for the subcontractor's ongoing operations, but not for completed operations, which requires the companion CG 20 37.
The your-work exclusion bars coverage for the insured's own defective work within products-completed operations, with a subcontractor exception; exclusions j.(5) and j.(6) bar damage to the part of property being worked on during operations.
Construction and contracting businesses pay an average of roughly eighty-two dollars a month, near nine hundred eighty dollars a year, for general liability, though roofers and structural trades pay several times more than lower-hazard trades.
Most contractor general liability policies carry a one-million per-occurrence limit, a two-million general aggregate, and a separate two-million products-completed operations aggregate, and general contractors now routinely require at least a one-million per-occurrence floor.
Common questions
about general liability for contractor insurance
Contractor general liability covers bodily injury and property damage to third parties arising from your work, both on the active jobsite and after you finish it. On site, that means a passerby, a delivery driver, or another trade who is hurt, or the client's existing property your crew damages. After the job, products-completed operations answers when finished work fails, such as a roof that leaks or a deck that collapses. The policy pays the claim and your legal defense. It does not cover injury to your own employees, accidents in your work vehicles, stolen tools, damage to the structure under construction, or redoing your own faulty work, which sit in the workers compensation, commercial auto, inland marine, builders risk, and business-risk categories.
Because when an injury or a defect arises from your scope of work, the suit almost always names the general contractor and owner alongside you, and the GC wants your policy to defend all three rather than its own. The sub adds the GC and owner as additional insured using CG 20 10 for ongoing operations and CG 20 37 for completed operations after the job is finished. The subcontract also requires a waiver of subrogation and primary-and-noncontributory wording, so your policy responds first and your carrier cannot pursue the GC afterward. This structure lets the GC tender a claim arising from your work straight to your insurer, instead of fighting a cross-claim while the injured party's claim sits open.
Both name the general contractor and owner as additional insured on a subcontractor's general liability, but they cover different periods. CG 20 10 covers the additional insured for liability arising from the subcontractor's ongoing operations, while the work is still underway on the site. CG 20 37 covers them for completed operations, the period after the sub has finished and left, when a defect surfaces later. CG 20 10 does not extend to completed operations on its own, so a subcontract that asks only for CG 20 10 leaves the general contractor unprotected for defects found after the job closes. A contract that wants full protection requires both forms, and a careful contractor confirms both are on the certificate before mobilizing.
Generally no. The cost to tear out and redo work you performed incorrectly is treated as a business risk, not an insured loss. If you install a roof wrong, the cost to re-flash and re-lay that roof is your own expense. What general liability does cover is the resulting damage that faulty work causes to other property, such as the ceilings, drywall, and contents the leaking roof ruins below. The policy also contains a subcontractor exception to the your-work exclusion, so damage to or caused by a sub's work, once it falls within products-completed operations, is not excluded the way your own direct work is. Contractors read the your-work exclusion and the completed-operations grant carefully before assuming a defect claim is covered.
Two inputs set the number, and you carry the higher of the two. The first is the floor your subcontracts and the general contractor require. Most start at one million per occurrence and two million aggregate, while large commercial and institutional projects often require a five-million umbrella over that primary. The second is what a serious claim in your trade could cost. A roofer or framer faces far higher completed-operations severity than a painter, because a failure of finished work can injure people or destroy a structure. Running many jobs at once also depletes your aggregate faster. A growing book and a higher-hazard trade are both reasons to raise limits even when one contract does not force it.
No to both, and each sits on a different policy. An injury to one of your own crew is a workers compensation claim, statutorily excluded from general liability, and any contractor with payroll carries workers comp separately. Your tools, ladders, and mobile equipment are first-party property, insured on an inland marine floater rather than on the general liability policy, whether stolen from the site or damaged in transit. Accidents in your work trucks and vans, including tools inside the vehicle, are auto exposures that belong on a commercial auto policy. General liability answers only for injury or property damage to third parties, so a complete contractor program pairs it with workers comp, commercial auto, and an inland marine floater.
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