Electricians carry high-value gear per pound, from testers and meters to conduit benders and cordless platforms. A single stolen tester or bender is expensive enough to schedule by name rather than lean on the blanket, so the scheduled-versus-blanket line and the per-item cap matter more here than the overall limit.
Contractors tools and equipment insurance
Pays when the tools and equipment you own or rent are stolen, damaged, or destroyed while they are in transit, on the jobsite, or stored away from your fixed premises, the exact gap a commercial property form leaves open.
Why Coverwatch
- Markets
- Specialty inland marine markets that will schedule high-value gear and pick up rented equipment, where a standard property agent stops at the fixed address and leaves the jobsite uncovered.
- Competition
- 60+ markets put head to head on replacement cost versus actual cash value, the small-tools sub-limit, and blanket versus scheduled, not just the annual premium.
- Certificates
- We add the rental house or lessor as loss payee and additional insured on the floater fast, so a rental counter or equipment lease never stalls on evidence of insurance.
For contractor
- What it covers
- Your movable tools and equipment, owned or rented, while they are in transit or away from your premises.
- What it doesn't
- The work truck or van itself, and the structure and installed materials you are building.
Trusted by 60+ carrier partners
What does contractor tool and equipment insurance cover?
Contractor tool and equipment insurance covers your movable tools and equipment while they are in transit, on the jobsite, or in temporary storage away from your shop. It pays for theft, fire, vandalism, and accidental damage to gear you own or rent, the off-premises exposure a commercial property policy does not follow.
Why contractor equipment coverage must follow tools off site
A contractors equipment floater is defined by where your property is, not what it is.
The property form stops at your address
Standard commercial property and business owners policies insure tools and equipment while they sit at the fixed premises.
The gear moves job to job every day
Your tools and equipment spend their working life in trucks, on sites, and in temporary storage, not at your address.
Rented equipment carries a contract obligation
When you rent a lift or an excavator, the rental agreement makes you responsible for damage and theft while it is in your care.
How we get you covered
We take inland marine 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
Owned hand and power tools on a blanket limit
Covers your small hand and power tools against theft, fire, vandalism, and accidental damage under a single pooled blanket limit, rather than a value per item.
Scheduled larger equipment
Covers high-value machines you name on the policy, each listed at its own replacement cost.
Property in transit
Protects your movable tools and equipment while they are hauled over land between your shop, a supplier, and the job.
Leased, rented, and borrowed equipment
Picks up equipment you rent or borrow once the rental contract makes you responsible for damage or theft.
Property at a temporary jobsite or storage
Keeps your gear insured while it sits in a gang box, a container, a yard, or a temporary storage site away from your fixed address between jobs.
Employee tools coverage option
Extends the floater to tools your employees own and bring to the job, when you add the option.
Not in the policy
The work truck or van itself
Physical damage to the vehicle is an auto exposure, not inland marine.
Covered by Commercial Auto
The structure and installed materials under construction
Materials that become part of the building you are erecting are a course-of-construction risk, because each one is absorbed into the finished structure.
Covered by Builders Risk
Injury to a third party on the jobsite
A visitor, a subcontractor, or a passerby hurt at the site, or their property damaged, is a third-party liability claim, not damage to your gear.
Covered by General Liability
Injury to your own employees
A crew member hurt on the job, whether loading a truck or running a machine, is a workers compensation claim, statutorily excluded from an equipment floater.
Covered by Workers Compensation
Wear, mechanical breakdown, and unexplained shortage
An engine that fails from age, a tool that wears out, or gear that goes missing with no explanation is maintenance or a mysterious-disappearance loss.
Covered by no coverage / equipment breakdown
Get a quoteGet a policy built for contractor.
Claims inland marine pays
The same gear produces very different losses. These are the tool and equipment claims contractors actually file, with the typical cost to repair or replace each.
ScenarioHow the claim happensTypical cost
Tools stolen overnight from a jobsite gang box
A crew leaves a loaded gang box or trailer on an unattended site over the weekend, the peak window for jobsite theft, and it is broken into.
$5K–$60K
Equipment falls off during transit
A scissor lift or a piece of survey equipment shifts on the trailer and is crushed on the way to the job.
$10K–$150K
Rented lift damaged on site
A rented boom lift or excavator tips, is struck, or is vandalized while in your care.
$15K–$250K
Theft from a locked van
A parked van is broken into overnight and the tools inside are taken.
$5K–$60K
Ranges are typical repair and replacement bands for these claim types, not a quote. Actual exposure depends on the value of your scheduled equipment, your blanket limit, your rented-equipment sub-limit, and your deductible.
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
- Equipment rental house
- Full replacement value + loss payee
- General contractor or CM
- Insure your own tools
- Equipment lender or finance company
- Financed equipment value
- No statutory minimum
- Contract-driven
Rental agreements make you responsible for damage and theft, so the rental company requires All-Risk or Special Cause of Loss physical damage coverage equal to or greater than the replacement value of the rented unit, with the rental company named as loss payee and often additional insured on your floater.
A general contractor or construction manager routinely requires each subcontractor to carry coverage on its own tools and equipment, so a loss to the sub's gear does not become the GC's problem or delay the schedule.
When equipment is financed, the lender requires physical damage coverage equal to the loan balance and names itself as loss payee on the scheduled item for the life of the note.
Unlike workers compensation, there is no state-mandated minimum for tool and equipment coverage. What you must carry is set entirely by the rental agreements, subcontracts, and equipment loans you sign, not by law.
What sets your cost and terms
- Total insured value of the schedule
- Premium tracks the total replacement value of the tools and equipment you put on the floater.
- Owned versus rented mix
- Renting lifts and earthmoving equipment adds a rented-equipment sub-limit and its own rating, because rented machines move more, run harder.
- Actual cash value versus replacement cost
- Replacement cost valuation costs more than actual cash value because it pays with no depreciation deducted.
- Loss history and jobsite security
- A run of theft claims sets the rate and can force a higher deductible or a security requirement.
How this changes by contractor segment
The policy is the same product; the exposure, the limit, and the exclusions to watch shift by segment.
HVAC crews mix expensive owned gear, such as recovery machines, vacuum pumps, and gauge sets, with rented lifts for rooftop work. That owned-plus-rented mix drives both a real scheduled inventory and a rented-equipment sub-limit sized to the lift on rent.
General contractors run the widest gear mix and lean hardest on rented heavy equipment, from excavators to boom lifts. The rented-equipment sub-limit has to match the priciest machine on rent, and subcontracts and equipment leases both require the GC to insure its own tools.
Endorsements that close the gaps
The base form is the start. These add-ons are where the policy gets built to fit contractor.
Rented and leased equipment coverage
Extends the floater to equipment you rent or borrow when the rental contract puts the risk of damage on you.
Employee tools coverage
Adds the personal tools your crew owns and brings to the job to the floater.
Replacement cost valuation
Pays to replace newer equipment with like kind and quality rather than actual cash value, which deducts depreciation.
Loss payee or waiver of subrogation for rental houses
Names the rental house or lessor on the floater through a loss-payable clause.
By the numbers
The form mechanics, scheduling thresholds, theft data, and rental-contract requirements that surface when a contractor applies for a tool and equipment floater or gets underwritten for equipment coverage.
- Form behind contractor tool and equipment insurance
- Inland marine floater
- Typical scheduling threshold
- About $1,500 per item
- Average construction equipment theft loss
- ~$30,000
- Recovery rate for stolen gear
- ~21% heavy, under 7% tools
- Rental house insurance requirement
- Full replacement value + loss payee
Contractor tool and equipment insurance is a contractors equipment or tools and equipment floater, an inland marine form. The Insurance Information Institute defines inland marine as property insurance for movable property and property in transit over land, the exposure a fixed-premises property policy does not follow.
Carriers commonly require gear valued over roughly fifteen hundred dollars to be scheduled by item at its replacement cost, while smaller hand and power tools ride on a single blanket limit with a per-item cap inside it, often one thousand to five thousand dollars.
The National Equipment Register estimates the average single equipment theft at roughly thirty thousand dollars, counting the machine value, rental costs during replacement, and project downtime, on an estimated eleven to twelve thousand incidents a year.
Only about one in five pieces of stolen heavy construction equipment is ever recovered, per NER and NICB data, and recovery for hand tools and small gear runs below seven percent, so the floater limit is what makes a contractor whole rather than the odds of getting the gear back.
Rental agreements typically require the renter to carry All-Risk or Special Cause of Loss physical damage coverage equal to or greater than the replacement value of the rented equipment, naming the rental company as loss payee and often additional insured. A loss damage waiver is not insurance and does not remove that contract liability.
Common questions
about inland marine for contractor insurance
Only barely, and usually not enough. A commercial property or business owners policy insures your tools and equipment while they sit at your fixed address. Off the premises the coverage thins to a small property-off-premises extension, often only a few thousand dollars, or nothing at all. That is a problem because your tools spend their working life in trucks, on sites, and in temporary storage, which is exactly where theft and transit damage happen. Contractor tool and equipment insurance, an inland marine floater, is built to fill that off-premises gap. It follows the gear wherever the work is, so a saw stolen from a site three counties away is covered the same as one lost in your own yard.
A tool floater, also called a contractors equipment or tools and equipment floater, is the inland marine form contractors use to cover the gear they take from job to job. It pays for theft, vandalism, fire, and accidental impact to tools and equipment off the premises. High-value machines are scheduled, meaning listed by item with a stated limit, while smaller hand and power tools are covered under a single blanket limit with a per-item cap inside it. The word floater refers to the coverage floating with the property rather than staying at one address. A drill stolen from a parked truck or a generator crushed in transit is covered, even though neither loss happened at your business address.
Yes, once you add the rented and leased equipment grant, which most contractors floaters carry as a sub-limit. It responds when the rental contract makes you responsible for damage or theft to a machine in your care, which nearly every rental agreement does. The rental house usually requires you to insure their equipment to its full replacement value and to name them as loss payee, and sometimes additional insured, on your floater. Size the rented-equipment sub-limit to the most expensive unit you will ever have on rent at once, not the average. A loss damage waiver from the rental counter is not insurance and still leaves you liable under the contract, so the floater is the reliable way to cover rented gear.
Both policies respond, to different parts of the loss. The commercial auto policy covers the vehicle itself, so a broken window, a damaged door, or a stolen van is an auto claim. The tools and equipment inside the truck are your property, so their value falls to the tool and equipment floater, not the auto policy. Coverage on the floater applies whether the truck was at a jobsite, a supplier, or parked overnight. How much you collect comes down to the math on the floater. Each high-value item pays up to its scheduled limit, the rest of the load pays out of the blanket limit subject to its per-item cap, and your deductible comes off the top of the claim. Some forms exclude tools left in an unlocked vehicle, so read that condition.
It depends on the valuation basis on your schedule, and the difference is large at claim time. Actual cash value pays the depreciated value of the tool or machine, so a five-year-old saw pays out at what a used one is worth, not what a new one costs. Replacement cost pays to replace the item with like kind and quality and takes no depreciation, so you get a working tool back. Carriers commonly write replacement cost on gear under about five years old and drop older items to actual cash value. Replacement cost costs more in premium, but it is the basis that actually makes you whole after a theft. Confirm which basis applies to your blanket tools and to each scheduled machine before you rely on it.
Premium tracks the total replacement value of the property you put on the floater, your owned-versus-rented mix, your valuation basis, and your loss history. A modest tool inventory is inexpensive to insure. A small blanket covering hand tools under about fifteen hundred dollars each often runs a couple hundred dollars a year, while a scheduled Bobcat might run a few hundred and a heavy excavator closer to a thousand or more annually. Two levers move the price most. A higher deductible, commonly five hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars, lowers the premium, and accurate scheduling avoids paying for limits you do not need. Understating your blanket tools limit saves a little premium but leaves you short at claim time, so aim for a limit that genuinely pays out when you file.
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