The terms a GC, an HOA, or a carrier will throw at you.

Settlement that pays what the machine was worth the day it rolled, depreciation included. Cheaper than replacement cost, and on older equipment it may be the only option a carrier offers. A ten-year-old dozer scheduled at ACV pays a used-dozer number, not what it takes to put a comparable machine back on the job in Fairplay next week.

See also: replacement cost, scheduled equipment

Someone added to your policy by endorsement so they can claim coverage under it, usually the GC, HOA, or owner who hired you. Not the same as a certificate holder. A GC in Castle Rock asking for additional insured status on a trenching sub's GL wants an endorsement on the policy, not a line in the certificate's description box. Blanket endorsements cover whoever your next contract names.

See also: certificate holder, certificate of insurance, primary and non contributory, completed operations

The most a policy pays for all claims in one policy year, as opposed to per occurrence, which is the most it pays for one event. A $1M/$2M general liability policy pays up to $1M for the trench collapse in May and up to $2M for the whole year. Some contracts ask for a per-project aggregate so one bad job doesn't drain the limit for the others.

See also: occurrence, umbrella, drop down

The limit where the underlying policy stops and the umbrella starts paying. If the auto policy carries a $1M combined single limit and the umbrella attaches there, a bigger haul-truck claim is paid $1M by the auto and the rest by the umbrella. The umbrella carrier sets minimum underlying limits, and a truck carrying Colorado's 25/50/15 minimum is not an attachment point any umbrella will accept.

See also: underlying insurance, umbrella, self insured retention

A bond submitted with your bid promising that, if you win, you'll sign the contract and post the performance and payment bonds. Usually a percentage of the bid amount, and cheaper than tying up cash in a certified check. A grading outfit bidding a Weld County road regrade needs one in the packet before the county will open the envelope.

See also: performance bond, payment bond

One total limit for a class of equipment, usually small tools and attachments, with a per-item cap, instead of listing each piece. Simpler than scheduling, and the cap rarely matches a big machine. The common setup on a dirt outfit is scheduling the excavator and the 84" Bomag and running a blanket for the hand tools, chains, and buckets in the truck.

See also: scheduled equipment, inland marine

How much bonded work a surety will back for you at once, set by character (history and credit), capacity (crew, equipment, past jobs of similar size), and capital (a financial statement, ideally CPA-reviewed). It grows with clean work-in-progress reports and finished jobs. Start with a small bonded job this year if you want to bid the county road next year.

See also: performance bond, general indemnity agreement

The part of a cyber policy that pays for the first steps after a breach: forensics, notifying the employees and customers whose data you held, credit monitoring where it's owed, and the legal cost of doing it right. A plow contractor holding resident lists and gate codes for six HOAs has more of this exposure than the crew size suggests. It's also how you meet a contract clause on data incidents.

See also: cyber liability, social engineering fraud

Property insurance on a structure under construction and everything going into it, until the owner accepts or occupies it. The owner or GC usually buys it and the subs are supposed to be named. If you're excavating and pouring for a pole barn near Bailey, the question is whether your name is on the owner's policy. If you can't get the certificate, buy your own installation floater.

See also: installation floater, course of construction, risk of loss

Coverage that pays what the shop would have earned while it's shut down after a covered loss. A grading outfit that loses its pole barn can run Monday's job from the yard, so the exposure is small. A tree service with a chip yard or a snow contractor with a salt shed in December loses revenue the day the roof comes off. Size it to what the shop actually produces.

See also: extra expense, business owners policy

A bundled policy that packages commercial property and general liability at one price, built for shops, offices, and small service businesses. Most BOP programs decline excavators, tree services, and hauling outfits because of the equipment values, the auto exposure, and the class of work. A landscaper with a small shop and a mowing route is sometimes eligible. Most dirt outfits go monoline.

See also: business personal property, business income, off premises property

The stuff inside your building that isn't the building: hand tools, the welder, the parts shelf, the office computer, the pallets of bagged de-icer. Covered on a commercial property or BOP policy at the limit you set. Machines and attachments are not business personal property under most forms, even parked inside. The John Deere 772GP in the bay is on the equipment policy.

See also: business owners policy, tenant improvements, coinsurance

The clause in most personal auto policies that removes coverage when the vehicle is used for business: hauling for pay, plowing for pay, carrying a crew to jobs. A pickup with a Boss blade clearing an HOA lot in Parker at 4 a.m. is business use, and a claim adjuster will ask what the truck was doing. Commercial auto is what covers it.

See also: hired and non owned auto, combined single limit, underlying insurance

The entity a certificate is issued to. A holder gets a copy of the certificate and, depending on the carrier's form, notice if the policy cancels. That's it. An HOA listed as certificate holder on your plowing certificate has no rights under the policy; being an additional insured is what gives them that.

See also: certificate of insurance, additional insured

A one-page summary of your policies, limits, and dates that a GC, HOA, lender, or rental yard asks for before you start. It's evidence, not coverage: a certificate can't add anything the policy doesn't carry, and 'additional insured' typed in the description box is not an endorsement. Certificates usually go out the same business day; it depends on the carrier and what the holder is asking for.

See also: certificate holder, additional insured, primary and non contributory

A policy trigger that responds to claims made during the policy period, subject to a retroactive date, instead of to events that happened during it. Common on pollution, cyber, and EPLI forms. Let a claims-made policy lapse and the septic failure that surfaces next year has nothing to land on. Occurrence is the other trigger, and we lean that way for installers.

See also: occurrence, retroactive date

The NCCI category your payroll is rated under for workers' compensation. Landscape gardening, lawn maintenance, excavation, tree work, and stand-alone snow clearing typically rate under different codes, and the carrier makes the final assignment. Payroll you can't split by task lands in the highest-rated code on the policy. Records showing who ran the grader and who did the books pay off at audit.

See also: governing class, premium audit, experience mod

A clause that says you agreed to insure the machine or the building to a set percentage of its value, and if you didn't, the carrier pays proportionally less at claim time. A dozer scheduled at a number from three purchases ago on a policy with coinsurance gets penalized for being underinsured. Not every form has it. Ask, and keep the values current.

See also: replacement cost, scheduled equipment, business personal property

One pool of money for everything in one accident, injuries and property damage together, instead of split limits like Colorado's 25/50/15 minimum. Contracts commonly ask for a $1M combined single limit on commercial auto. A loaded dump truck coming down Crow Hill can use up a split property-damage limit on one parked car; a CSL pays whatever the accident costs, up to the number.

See also: hired and non owned auto, symbol 1 any auto, umbrella

General liability coverage for damage your work causes after you've left and been paid. A retaining wall in expansive clay that leans two springs later, or a drain field that surfaces effluent, lands here. Contracts commonly ask for it on the additional insured endorsement too, which is the completed-operations form GCs request by number.

See also: additional insured, occurrence, faulty workmanship exclusion

A stand-alone policy that follows your operations to the job site and pays for cleanup, third-party injury and damage, and defense after a pollution release. The spill from your excavator, the drift from your sprayer, the septic field you installed in bentonite near Bailey that surfaces effluent two years on. Most crews in our three trades that need pollution coverage need this form.

See also: pollution exclusion, site pollution liability, occurrence

Liability you take on by signing a contract, usually an indemnity clause covering the owner's or GC's loss. Under most standard forms, general liability covers it only within the definition of an insured contract, typically the other party's tort liability for injury or damage. An HOA snow contract that asks you to cover the owner's own negligence may ask more than the policy will follow.

See also: insured contract, primary and non contributory, waiver of subrogation

Another name for builder's risk: coverage on the project while it's being built. Contracts and lenders use the two phrases interchangeably. Either way, it ends at acceptance, occupancy, or the end of the policy term, whichever the form says comes first. After that, damage the garage slab you poured causes is completed operations on your GL.

See also: builders risk, completed operations

Coverage for theft by your own people: an office manager writing checks to herself, a crew lead selling the spare buckets. Cyber covers the outsider who tricked you; crime covers the insider who stole. The two are different policies, and a small outfit is often missing both. If one person runs the books and the bank, this is the one to ask about.

See also: social engineering fraud, funds transfer fraud

Coverage for the money, data, and systems you lose to an outside attack: ransomware on the laptop that runs the plow routes and the books, breach notification to the customers whose gate codes you hold, and, on forms that include it, funds tricked out of you by a spoofed invoice. General liability has nothing to say about any of it. Start with a backup, then decide.

See also: social engineering fraud, funds transfer fraud, breach response

The umbrella stepping in below its attachment point when the underlying policy can't respond, usually because the primary's aggregate has been used up by a bad year. Some forms drop down; some don't. A grading outfit that burns through its GL aggregate by August wants to know which it has before September. The policy language controls.

See also: self insured retention, aggregate, umbrella

The second part of a workers' comp policy. Comp pays the injured employee, no fault question. Employer's liability responds when someone sues you around the no-fault system: a spouse's claim, or a third party who paid your employee and wants it back from you. GC contracts and umbrella underwriters check these limits first, and raising them above the statutory minimum usually costs little.

See also: waiver of subrogation, umbrella, underlying insurance

Coverage for wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims from employees and applicants, paying the defense and any settlement. A plow operator hired in November and laid off in March who files in April is the claim it's written for. Headcount matters less than turnover, and a seasonal landscape-and-snow crew does the thing that produces most claims every year.

See also: third party epli, wage and hour exclusion, claims made

An endorsement, where the carrier offers one, that covers sudden mechanical or electrical failure inside the machine. Wear and breakdown are excluded under most standard equipment forms, so a blown final drive on a machine with 6,000 hours is maintenance, not a claim, unless this is on the policy. It doesn't replace the warranty. Read the terms.

See also: rental reimbursement, scheduled equipment

Coverage for the machine while it's on your trailer or a rented lowboy between jobs. The trailer is typically on commercial auto; the Yanmar mini skid steer strapped to it is inland marine, and only if transit is on the form. Some policies limit it or leave it off. It's one of the most common gaps we find in a policy review.

See also: inland marine, physical damage, transit coverage

A policy that adds limit over one underlying policy, usually general liability, and adopts that policy's terms exactly. It satisfies some contracts word for word and leaves the auto claim, the one most likely to run past the limit on a hauling or plowing outfit, sitting at the auto policy's number. Most contractor umbrellas are closer to this than the name suggests.

See also: umbrella, follow form

A multiplier applied to your workers' comp premium once you're big enough to have one, comparing your loss history to outfits like yours. Above one costs you; below one saves. Frequency hurts more than one severe claim, so three small trench injuries move it more than one big one. You can't change this year's mod. You can change the records and the habits that set next year's.

See also: class code, premium audit

The cost of working around a loss, paid alongside business income: renting a bay in town while the roof is rebuilt, hauling the parts inventory somewhere dry, running generators. A hauling outfit in Greeley with a hail-opened roof and three Mack trucks still working has extra expense before it has lost income. Some forms bundle the two; some sell them separately.

See also: business income, soft costs

The clause that removes damage caused by your own bad work or bad design. A wall that fails because the base wasn't compacted is not a covered loss; that's your warranty. What most forms still cover is resulting damage from a covered cause, and on some forms the resulting damage after a workmanship failure with the defective part excluded. The policy language controls.

See also: completed operations, installation floater, builders risk

An umbrella or excess policy that adopts the terms of the policy underneath it, so what's excluded below is excluded above. A GL with an XCU exclusion means a trench collapse is excluded on the primary and on the umbrella. The umbrella can't repair a bad primary. Fix the underlying form first.

See also: umbrella, excess liability, xcu exclusion

A loss where someone gets into your bank or your email and moves money out without tricking a person at all. Close cousin to social engineering fraud, and forms treat the two differently, so a policy can cover one and not the other. Size the limit to your largest receivable, and put a phone-confirmation rule on every bank change whether you buy the coverage or not.

See also: social engineering fraud, cyber liability, crime coverage

The agreement you sign before a surety writes anything bigger than a permit bond, and so does your spouse in most cases. It says you'll repay the surety every dollar it pays on any bond, plus its costs, and it usually reaches your personal assets. It outlives any single bond. Read it with your attorney before you sign, not after the obligee sends a letter.

See also: surety bond, principal obligee surety, bonding capacity

The class code that carries the largest share of your payroll, and the one that sets how the carrier reads the whole operation. An outfit that mows in summer and plows in winter can carry more than one code, but the governing class is the one the underwriter sees first. Keep winter payroll separate from summer payroll so the split holds up at audit.

See also: class code, premium audit

Two add-ons to a commercial auto policy. Hired covers vehicles you rent or borrow, like a lowboy for a weekend excavator move. Non-owned covers vehicles you don't own that get used for the business, usually a crew member driving his own pickup for parts. His personal policy typically responds first; yours picks up what's left. It's the line people skip and then wish they had.

See also: business use exclusion, symbol 1 any auto, combined single limit

A carve-back in most general liability pollution exclusions for smoke, heat, and fumes from a fire that got out of where it was meant to be. A slash pile on a defensible-space job above Bailey that escapes and smokes out the neighbor's cabin can fall under it. It's narrow. Fuel, brine, and herbicide don't qualify. Read the exact wording on your form.

See also: pollution exclusion, time element pollution

The old name for insurance on property that moves. Contractor's equipment is the inland marine form for machines that go job to job; an installation floater is the inland marine form for materials on site. Your excavator, skid steer, and attachments live here, not on general liability. Theft off a lot outside Fairplay, a rollover on a wet cut, a machine fire during mulching: all inland marine.

See also: scheduled equipment, installation floater, equipment in transit

An inland marine policy for one contractor's materials and work, from the supplier to the point the owner accepts it. Three pallets of wall block staged on a lot in Castle Pines, a paver patio half set, an irrigation main in an open trench: all here. Your equipment policy covers the skid steer setting the block. It does not cover the block.

See also: builders risk, inland marine, transit coverage, theft from jobsite

The general liability form's definition of which contract promises the policy will back. Under most standard forms it includes a lease, an easement, and an agreement where you take on someone else's tort liability for injury or damage. A GC's indemnity clause that goes past that, like paying for the GC's own negligence, may fall outside it. The policy language controls.

See also: contractual liability, primary and non contributory

Coverage for machines you don't own but are responsible for, scheduled or under a blanket limit. Most rental agreements make you responsible for the excavator from pickup to return, regardless of fault, and the yard's damage waiver is not insurance and carries its own exclusions. Check the policy before you sign for the rental, not after the machine rolls on a wet cut near Bailey.

See also: rental reimbursement, inland marine

A small bond a city requires with a contractor license or a right-of-way permit, promising you'll follow its code and restore what you open. Denver wants one before it issues a demolition permit; Aurora wants one before a trenching crew cuts the curb. Colorado has no state license for our trades, so these are local, and no two cities' forms match. Send us the form the city hands you.

See also: surety bond, right of way permit, bonding capacity

The request you file with Colorado 811 before you dig, and the record that you did. Colorado requires notice at least two business days before excavating, not counting the day you call, and the marks stay valid while visible but no more than thirty calendar days after the locate due date. Dig without a valid ticket, hit a gas service in Castle Rock, and the law presumes you're liable.

See also: xcu exclusion, completed operations

A bond promising the work holds up for a stated period after final acceptance. Common on municipal utility and paving work: the city wants to know the patch over your water tap won't settle next spring. It stays open after the job is paid, so it's still counted against your capacity while it runs.

See also: performance bond, surety bond, bonding capacity

A federal endorsement attached to a commercial auto policy that satisfies the financial-responsibility filing for-hire motor carriers have to make. It isn't a separate coverage. If you haul material you don't own for someone who pays you, like running pit run from South Park to a job in Fairplay for another outfit, you may be a for-hire carrier and need it. Ask before you assume either way.

See also: radius of operation, combined single limit

Coverage on a contractor's pollution policy for a permitted disposal site you hauled to but don't own, if that site later has a release and comes looking for everyone who dumped there. A demolition crew hauling contaminated spoils to a licensed facility in Denver has this exposure. Deliberate dumping at an unpermitted site is excluded. Keep the manifests.

See also: transportation pollution, contractors pollution liability

One accident or event, and the trigger on most contractor policies: an occurrence form responds to damage that happens during the policy period, whenever the claim shows up. A septic field near Bailey that fails eighteen months after you closed the trench is a claim against the policy that was in force when it failed. The other trigger is claims-made.

See also: claims made, aggregate, completed operations

The small limit most property policies carry for your stuff when it's away from the yard. It won't cover pallets of pavers on a job or the tools that ride in the truck. Materials on a job are an installation floater; tools and machines are the equipment policy. The seam runs at the yard gate, and that's what the fine print sublimits.

See also: installation floater, business personal property

An election that lets certain owners, officers, and members opt out of their own workers' comp coverage, depending on entity type and ownership share. It lowers the premium and removes your own injury from the policy. If you're the one in the trench running the excavator, think hard before you sign it. It doesn't remove your duty to cover employees, and some GCs want the form on file.

See also: class code, employers liability

A bond promising your subs and suppliers get paid. On public work there's no lien to file against a county road, so the payment bond is the aggregate supplier's and the trucking sub's only claim. It's usually issued alongside the performance bond for the same contract sum. If a supplier goes unpaid, the surety pays and then collects from you.

See also: performance bond, surety bond

A bond promising the owner the job gets finished per the contract, by you or by someone the surety hires. Public work (county roads, school district site packages, municipal utilities) usually requires it for the full contract sum, and some CDOT access permits ask for one. The surety underwrites the whole outfit before writing it, and nobody gets one on a first call.

See also: payment bond, bid bond, bonding capacity

Coverage for your own truck, bought per vehicle: collision (you hit something) and comprehensive (hail, theft, fire, a deer at dusk on Kenosha Pass). Liability pays other people; physical damage pays for the Mack. A paid-off older truck may or may not justify it. A truck with a lien on it doesn't get the choice. The machine on the trailer is a separate policy.

See also: replacement cost, actual cash value, equipment in transit

The clause in most standard general liability forms that removes claims from the release of pollutants: diesel, hydraulic oil, brine, herbicide, effluent. A hydraulic hose draining into a storm inlet in Castle Rock or a pre-emergent drifting onto the neighbor's garden is excluded, so contractor's pollution liability exists. What GL still covers is the injury and damage from everything else.

See also: contractors pollution liability, hostile fire exception, time element pollution

The carrier's year-end check of the payroll you estimated against what you actually paid, by class code. Bring payroll records, quarterly tax filings, and a certificate for every subcontractor. A sub without one is treated as your employee and their payments get added at the highest rate on the policy. Records that show who did what make it a twenty-minute meeting.

See also: class code, statutory employer, certificate of insurance

Contract wording that says your policy pays first on a covered claim and doesn't ask the GC's or owner's policy to share. Nearly every GC contract and most national snow management subcontracts require it. Under most standard forms it's an endorsement, not automatic, so the certificate can only say it if the policy actually carries it.

See also: additional insured, waiver of subrogation, certificate of insurance

The three parties on every bond. The principal is you, the contractor making the promise. The obligee is whoever the promise runs to: the city issuing the permit, the county awarding the road job. The surety is the outfit that backs the promise and then comes to you if it has to pay. Insurance has two parties. Bonds have three, and that's the whole difference.

See also: surety bond, general indemnity agreement

A rating for how well a location is protected from fire: distance to a fire station and to a hydrant, and the fire district's resources. A yard in South Park rates very differently from one in Aurora. Combined with wildfire scoring on a mountain shop above Bailey, it's a big part of what moves property pricing, and some carriers decline the worst classes outright.

See also: wind and hail deductible, business owners policy

How far your trucks typically travel from the yard, and one of the first questions on a commercial auto application. A dump truck that stays in Park County rates differently from one running South Park pits to Denver jobs every day. Answer it straight. A claim on I-70 with a local-radius policy is the wrong time to discover the difference.

See also: mcs 90, physical damage

An endorsement on the equipment policy that pays for the rented machine you run while yours is in the shop after a covered loss. The policy pays for the machine; this pays for the downtime. On a grading job with a schedule penalty, the rented excavator can matter more than the repair. Typically optional, and typically sublimited.

See also: equipment breakdown, leased and rented equipment

Settlement that pays what it costs to buy a comparable machine or rebuild the building today, without deducting depreciation. It costs more than actual cash value. On a five-year-old mid-size excavator the gap between the two can be the difference between a new machine and a down payment. The policy language controls how it's calculated, and some carriers only offer it on newer iron.

See also: actual cash value, coinsurance, scheduled equipment

The date on a claims-made policy before which nothing is covered, no matter when the claim comes in. A new pollution policy with today's retro date doesn't cover the drain field you finished last year. Contracts sometimes require a retro date no later than the contract date. Keep the policy continuous and the retro date moves with you; let it lapse and it resets.

See also: claims made, occurrence

Permission from a city, county, or CDOT to work in the public right-of-way: cutting a curb, opening a street for a water tap, building a driveway approach onto a state highway. CDOT permits require general liability and auto at set limits with CDOT named as additional insured, and access permits may add a performance bond. Most cities copy that template.

See also: license and permit bond, additional insured, performance bond

The contract clause that says who bears the loss if materials or work are damaged before acceptance, and most say the contractor does. If it hands you the risk and you carry no floater, you're betting your own money on a weekend with three pallets of block on the lot. Read it before you deliver, and send it to us to match the floater to what it says.

See also: installation floater, builders risk

Machines listed on the equipment policy one by one, with serial number and a stated value. The policy pays up to that value, so an excavator scheduled at the price you paid years ago pays the old number in a claim. A machine you bought in March and forgot to call about is not on the policy in July. Pull the schedule once a year and put a current number on every line.

See also: blanket coverage, replacement cost, actual cash value

The amount you pay yourself before a true umbrella responds to a claim the underlying policies don't cover at all. It works like a deductible for the umbrella's drop-down coverage. On most contractor umbrellas it's small and rarely touched, because most claims come up through GL or auto first. Ask what the retention is and which claims it applies to.

See also: drop down, umbrella

Pollution coverage for a fixed location you own or lease, like a yard with a fuel tank in it. A contractor's pollution policy typically excludes your own premises. A hauling outfit with a diesel tank behind the shop in Greeley sometimes needs both forms. Most dirt and landscape crews only need the contractor's form.

See also: contractors pollution liability, pollution exclusion

An outsider tricking you or your customer into sending money to the wrong place, usually a spoofed invoice email with a new bank routing number. A GC in Castle Rock pays your retaining wall invoice to an account that isn't yours, and the money is gone. Some cyber forms cover it, some leave it off, and the limit is often a fraction of the policy. Ask for it by name.

See also: funds transfer fraud, cyber liability, crime coverage

Expenses that pile up when a covered loss delays the project: extended loan interest, extra permit fees, re-inspection, architect and engineer fees. Builder's risk covers them only when the endorsement is on the policy. On a driveway and wall job they barely exist. On a bonded county road with a schedule penalty they can pass the repair cost.

See also: builders risk, extra expense

Colorado's rule that can make you the employer of record for an uninsured subcontractor's injured worker. The sub you handed three HOA plow routes has no comp policy, one of his guys breaks a wrist on the ice, and the claim and the audit both come to you. The fix is a certificate on file before the sub starts, checked for dates and re-collected at renewal.

See also: premium audit, certificate of insurance

A three-party promise: you (the principal) promise the city or owner (the obligee) you'll perform, and the surety backs it. If you don't, the surety pays the obligee and collects every dollar from you under the indemnity agreement. A bond is credit with a fee, not insurance. It never pays you. Aurora's right-of-way bond before you cut a curb is the common one.

See also: principal obligee surety, general indemnity agreement, license and permit bond

The coverage symbol on a commercial auto policy that includes owned, hired, and non-owned vehicles under liability. Contracts that say 'automobile liability, any auto' are asking for it. A policy written for scheduled autos only covers the trucks listed, so the crew member's own pickup and the rented lowboy fall outside it. Check the symbol on the dec page before you sign.

See also: hired and non owned auto, combined single limit

Coverage for materials sitting in a rented yard, a conex box, or the customer's garage before installation. Most floaters include it at a stated limit, and some require the owner's written consent for off-site storage. An irrigation contractor keeping controllers and valves in a storage unit in Aurora between jobs wants to know the limit and the location conditions.

See also: transit coverage, installation floater, theft from jobsite

What you built or installed inside a leased shop: the lift, the wiring, the office walls, the mezzanine. The landlord's policy stops at the walls under most leases, so the improvements are yours to insure on your own property policy. A tree service that put a wash bay and a lift into a rented shop in Longmont has a real number here, and the lease usually requires it.

See also: business personal property, business owners policy

Theft of materials or work from the lot, covered under most floater forms when there's evidence someone took them. Some forms require signs of forced entry or a fenced and locked site. Block that isn't there Monday morning with no sign of a break-in falls under mysterious disappearance, which some forms exclude. A delivery log and a locked conex turn a maybe into a claim.

See also: installation floater, temporary storage

The part of an EPLI policy that responds when a customer or a member of the public, not an employee, accuses your crew of harassment or discrimination. A resident on an HOA lawn route in Aurora makes a complaint against a crew member, and the claim comes against the business. Not every EPLI form includes it. Some HOA and property management contracts ask for it by name.

See also: employment practices liability

A buyback endorsement on some general liability policies that brings back a sudden, accidental release you discover and report inside a short window, measured in days. It lives on a policy you already carry and costs less than a stand-alone policy. It doesn't touch a gradual condition, which is how a leaking saddle tank shows up. Fine for a mowing route. Not enough for septic or utility work.

See also: pollution exclusion, contractors pollution liability, hostile fire exception

Coverage for materials while they move: from the supplier to the site, on your trailer, or between jobs. A wire spool on a pickup hit on Lincoln Avenue in Parker, a load of road base that goes off the trailer on a mountain switchback. Some floaters include it at the full limit; some sublimit it. Ask which before the first delivery.

See also: installation floater, temporary storage, equipment in transit

Coverage on a contractor's pollution policy for a release while you're hauling pollutants: contaminated spoils, fuel in a transfer tank, brine in a spreader. A transfer tank that tips on a delivery truck on US 285 falls here, if the form includes it. Many contracts ask for it by name alongside non-owned disposal sites. Hauling and dumping are separate coverages on most forms.

See also: non owned disposal site, contractors pollution liability

A policy that pays above the limits of the policies underneath it, typically general liability, commercial auto, and employer's liability, once a covered claim runs past them. A loaded haul truck through an intersection on US 285 with two people hurt doesn't stop at the auto limit. Municipal, CDOT, and larger GC contracts commonly ask for more than the primaries carry. The umbrella gets you there.

See also: excess liability, attachment point, underlying insurance, follow form

The list of policies an umbrella sits on top of, with the minimum limits the umbrella carrier requires on each. A truck or a location missing from the underlying is missing on top too. The gap we find most on snow outfits: the plow truck with the Boss blade is still on the owner's personal policy, so it isn't on the auto schedule, so the umbrella doesn't respond.

See also: attachment point, umbrella, employers liability

The clause in most EPLI forms that removes overtime and unpaid-wage claims, or gives back defense cost only under a sublimit. Colorado has its own wage rules and its own state enforcement, and a claim can start with a letter, not a lawsuit. The coverage that matters there is a clean payroll process. We can say what the policy does; an employment attorney can say what the rules require.

See also: employment practices liability

Your carrier's agreement not to chase the GC, owner, or HOA to recover what it paid on your claim. It shows up on general liability and on workers' compensation, usually as a blanket endorsement. A property manager in Highlands Ranch asking for it on your comp policy wants the carrier to give up its right to sue the manager after paying your employee's claim.

See also: primary and non contributory, additional insured, employers liability

A separate, usually larger deductible that applies only to wind and hail losses, and on the Front Range it's often a percentage of the building value rather than a flat amount. On a pole barn in Weld County that percentage is a real number. Ask what it is, what it applies to, and whether an older roof settles at replacement cost or actual cash value.

See also: replacement cost, actual cash value, protection class

An endorsement on some general liability forms that removes explosion, collapse, and underground property damage. On a roofer's policy it costs nothing. On an excavator's policy it removes the trench sidewall, the struck gas line, and the foundation next to your cut, which is most of what you do. We won't place an excavation GL policy with it, and we read the endorsement schedule to confirm.

See also: completed operations, pollution exclusion, locate ticket, follow form