Choosing More Coverage

Posted on: 9 July 2018

Working as a general contractor comes with a lot of responsibility. Although you don't have to deal with a manager breathing down your neck because you are essentially your own boss there are some other considerations that you have to contend with if you want to avoid certain financial pitfalls. 

One of these involves the very real risk that something will go wrong on the job site where you happen to be working. When this happens, you need to be protected. Contractor's liability insurance provides this protection and listed below are some of the reasons why you should purchase one of these policies.

Liability Doesn't Stop When You Leave The Site 

If you are working on a project that must be completed over a series of days or weeks the risk can be extremely high. You are leaving an unfinished project that might be hazardous to someone who happens to walk onto the site and hurt themselves. It's this kind of risk that contractor liability insurance is designed to buffer you against.

A good example of this would be if you are putting in a banister for a residential client. The banister is going to take a few days so you put up a makeshift wooden replica of the finished product just so there will be something in the space. The homeowners could be walking down the steps and totally forget that the banister isn't bolted down. If they mistakenly hurt themselves because there was no sign up you could be facing a nasty lawsuit. You definitely don't want to know how much financial damage can be done by losing a single case that deals with an issue like the one listed here. 

Liability Covers More Than You Think

As long as you are active on the project your liability insurance will provide coverage for incidents such as the one listed above. It's important for you to remember that liability protection extends to areas that you might not be thinking about. Even if you need to hire an attorney to represent you the liability policy should be able to help you avoid having to come up with the money for legal fees out-of-pocket.

Your job as a general contractor is to protect yourself and those who hire you. Set up your general contractor's liability insurance policy immediately and the coverage should be ready to go in the event that you ever need to use it.