What Is Covered by Contractor General Liability Insurance?

Liability claims are some of the costliest claims against business owners. According to research, the average cost of just a minor injury to a third-party can be $20,000. Maybe your business is just starting out, or you have good margin returns. However, repeated liability claims could bankrupt your business if you don’t have the right insurance coverage.

While business owners understand the importance of having General Liability Insurance cover, most of them aren’t aware of what the coverage entails.  General Liability Insurance helps protect your business from financial loss. In this guide, we will go through the main benefits to having General Liability Insurance for your business.

What Is Contractor General Liability Insurance?

General Liability Insurance for contractors offers protection for bodily injuries, property damage or advertising injuries caused to third parties. A third party is someone who doesn’t work for you. This includes visitors to your job site, delivery people or even your clients. If they sue you and claim your business is responsible for their injuries or property damages, then General Liability Insurance will cover you in case they find you guilty.

However, it’s important to remember that General Liability Insurance covers injury-related expenses for third parties. It does not cover on-the-job injuries for your employees. To protect your employees from work-related injuries or illnesses, you need to get Workers Compensation Insurance.

7 Great Benefits of Contractor General Liability Insurance

Use your Contractor General Liability Insurance in the following circumstances:

1. Injury claims to a third party:

An example of this would be if you were removing shingles from a roof, and a strong gust of wind came along. If the shingles fell and injured the pedestrian, you would be liable.

2. Damage claims to a property belonging to a third party:

This would include damages to your client’s properties caused by you or your employees while working on a project.

3. Completed products claims:

For example, if you were working on a roofing project and by mistake, your work leaves a leak in the roof. When a heavy rainstorm strikes, water drips to your client’s sitting room causing thousands of dollars in water damage.

4. Harm to reputation:

Your General Liability Insurance helps protect your business against certain claims of false arrest, malicious prosecution, libel, slander, wrongful eviction, violation of the right of privacy, and more. For example, advertising your work using pictures from past projects without your clients’ consent. If they sue your business your General Liability policy will cover you.

5. Advertising injury:

Your Contractor General Liability Insurance helps protect your construction business from claims if others allege you infringed on their copyrights when advertising goods, products, or services in your advertising campaigns, social media or websites. An example is when you use an image you find on the internet and edit it to fit your promotional campaigns. If they file a lawsuit against you for violating copyright policies, then you will receive an attorney to defend you and costs covered.

6. Damage to premises rented to you:

It helps protect your business against certain claims for damages caused to the premises that you rented. So, if you rent premises, and there is damage caused by an accidental fire, your Contractor General Liability is on hand to cover the costs caused by the damage.

7. Immediate third-party medical expense claims:

A visitor or client is injured on your property. If they require immediate medical attention, then this will help cover that cost. Typically, it is a “goodwill” gesture from an insurance standpoint. Insurance companies have the belief that if you compensate for immediate medical costs, such as a trip to the ER, it lowers the chances of a lawsuit at a future date.

Get General Liability Insurance Protection for Contractors

When injuries occur and you receive complaints against your construction business, you could be in trouble even if it is not your fault.  Just in case your contractor business is guilty, you might end up paying out large sums of money as compensation and legal or medical fees. The good news is, General Liability Insurance will assist in covering all these and much more, so you can stay focused on running your construction business.

Have any more questions about General Liability Insurance? Contact the construction insurance experts at Contractors Liability. Call 888-676-0923