General Liability for Colorado Contractors

General liability is the policy every GC, HOA, and municipality asks about first, and it’s the one most likely to have a hole in it that nobody mentioned at the sale. On a dirt outfit the hole has three letters. On a landscape or snow outfit it’s usually a contract clause the policy was never endorsed to match. Here’s what a GL policy typically does on a Colorado job, what it doesn’t, and what to look for on your own dec page before a GC does.

What general liability does on your job

Start with the claim, not the definition. A utility trenching crew in Castle Rock is opening a service line in expansive clay. The 811 ticket is valid, the marks are visible, and the bucket still clips a gas service that was never marked. The line gets repaired, the street closes for a day, and the neighbor’s furnace is down for a week. That’s bodily injury and property damage to people who aren’t you, caused by your operations. Under most standard forms, that is exactly what general liability responds to: the repair, the neighbor’s damage, and the lawyer if it turns into a suit.

Same policy, different trade. A hardscape crew sets a paver patio in Lakewood and a wall block rolls into the customer’s car. A plow truck with a Western blade catches a curb and the chunk goes through a storefront window. A mower throws a rock into a windshield on a lawn route in Aurora. All third-party damage. All GL, subject to the limits and the policy language.

Two things to keep separate in your head: ongoing operations and completed operations. Ongoing is the job while you’re on it. Completed is the same job after you’ve left and been paid, which is where a septic system in bentonite near Bailey that fails eighteen months later lands. Most contracts ask for both. Some carriers price them separately. Check.

Defense is worth a question too. Under most standard forms the lawyer’s bill is paid outside the limit. Some forms put it inside. The policy language controls.

What it does not do

• Explosion, collapse, and underground (XCU). Some GL forms carry an exclusion for all three. If yours does, a trench sidewall failure, a foundation cracked next to your cut, or a struck water main is not covered. What is covered: the same claim on a form written without the exclusion. We won’t place an excavation GL with XCU excluded, and we read the endorsement schedule to confirm it isn’t there.
• Your own work. GL doesn’t rebuild a wall you built wrong. It covers the damage that wall did to the neighbor’s fence when it let go. Redoing your work is your warranty.
• Your own equipment. A mini excavator that walks off a lot in Fairplay is not a GL claim. That’s contractors equipment.
• Your employees. An operator hurt in a trench is excluded under most standard forms. That’s workers’ compensation.
• Vehicles on the road. A Mack dump truck rear-ending a car on US 285 falls under the auto exclusion. That’s commercial auto. The form draws the line between an auto and mobile equipment, and a plow truck is an auto.
• Pollution. The exclusion is broad under most forms. A hydraulic hose draining into a creek or herbicide drifting onto the neighbor’s roses is pollution liability.
• Fines. Commission fines for a locate violation are not insurable under most standard forms. What is covered is the damage the strike did, if the form is clean and the ticket was valid.

Who needs it

Anyone who puts a machine on someone else’s property. In practice that’s every contractor under our excavation, landscaping, and snow removal hubs, whether the work is a driveway above Bailey or an HOA in Highlands Ranch. Owner-operators too. A one-person outfit with a John Deere 772GP has the same exposure as a six-person crew, and the person who signed the contract is the one who gets sued. If you sub for a GC, they’ll require it before you unload. If you hold a CDOT or municipal permit, the permit requires it.

How it’s rated

No premium figures here, on purpose. What moves the number:

1. Class and payroll. Excavation rates above hardscape, which rates above mowing. Payroll split by what people actually do.
2. Type of work. Utility, septic, and demolition sit higher than driveways and sod.
3. Subcontractor cost. Sub payments count, and whether you collect certificates changes how the underwriter sees it.
4. Contract requirements. Blanket additional insured, primary and non-contributory, per-project aggregates. Each one is an endorsement with a price.
5. Loss runs. A strike with a valid ticket reads differently from one without.
6. Territory. Wildland-urban interface work, mountain lots, and how much of the year you run.

Colorado notes

Presumed liability on a strike. Under C.R.S. 9-1.5-104.5(2)(d), a contractor who damages an underground facility after failing to notify Colorado 811, or failing to use reasonable care, is presumed liable for the owner's repair or replacement costs, litigation costs and attorney fees, and any resulting injury or property damage. (C.R.S. 9-1.5-104.5(2)(d)) The presumption doesn’t void your policy. It does mean the carrier is paying a claim the law already assigned to you, and the carrier will ask why there was no ticket.

Fines are separate. SB 18-167 (2018) created the Underground Damage Prevention Safety Commission (C.R.S. 9-1.5-104.2), whose maximum fines under C.R.S. 9-1.5-104.4(3) run from $250 for a first minor violation to $75,000 for a fourth or later major violation within twelve months. (C.R.S. 9-1.5-104.2; 9-1.5-104.4(3); SB 18-167) Those come out of your pocket, not the policy. The repair and the neighbor’s damage are the GL claim.

Where $1M/$2M comes from. CDOT utility and special-use permits for work in state highway right-of-way require commercial general liability of $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate and $1,000,000 auto liability, with CDOT named as additional insured and certificates furnished before work starts; access-permit projects may also require a performance bond. (CDOT Form 1233 (Utility Permit) and Form 1283 (Special Use Permit); 2 CCR 601-18 § 2.2.2) [VERIFY] That’s the template most counties, cities, and GCs copy, which is why the same numbers show up on a driveway sub-contract in Parker.

Snow contracts and indemnity. Colorado's Snow Removal Service Liability Limitation Act (C.R.S. 13-21-129, effective August 8, 2018) voids any snow-and-ice contract clause that requires one party to indemnify, hold harmless, or defend the other for the other party's own acts or omissions, but only where the service provider was prohibited, by the contract or in writing, from mitigating the specific snow or ice event at issue. (C.R.S. 13-21-129(3), (4); SB 18-062) If you plow in winter, the indemnity clause in your HOA contract may be asking for more than the law allows and more than your GL’s contractual liability coverage will pay. The commercial snow page goes deeper.

Contract language you’ll see

• “Additional insured, CG 20 10 and CG 20 37.” Two endorsement forms: ongoing operations and completed operations. The contract may specify an edition date. Older editions are broader, and some carriers won’t issue them.
• “Primary and non-contributory.” Your policy pays first and doesn’t ask the GC’s policy to chip in. An endorsement, not a default.
• “Waiver of subrogation.” Your carrier agrees not to chase the GC after paying your claim. Usually blanket, usually paired with the same request on your workers’ comp.
• “$1,000,000 per occurrence / $2,000,000 aggregate.” Sometimes with a per-project aggregate so one bad job doesn’t drain the year’s limit for the others.
• “Occurrence form.” Not claims-made. Claims-made GL is rare in the trades and creates a completed-operations gap the day you switch.
• “Thirty days’ notice of cancellation to the certificate holder.” The carrier’s form decides what notice it gives. We can’t promise what the form doesn’t. Our certificates page covers how those requests go out.

Where to go from here

If you already have a GL policy, the fastest move is a policy review. Send the dec pages and the endorsement schedule and we’ll mark the XCU line, the additional insured forms, and the contractual liability wording against the contracts you actually sign. Starting fresh? Get Insured lists what to have ready. Bidding bigger work? The umbrella sits on top of this policy, so read that page next.

Serving businesses located in Colorado. Coverage is determined by the policy language and the carrier.

Terms on this page: additional insured, aggregate, occurrence, xcu exclusion, completed operations, contractual liability, primary and non contributory, waiver of subrogation, certificate of insurance, insured contract. Full glossary.