Builders risk vs installation floater: which one covers the pallet of pavers

The honest answer is that the pallet of pavers is yours until the owner signs off, and the policy that covers it is the one most hardscape crews don’t have. Not the equipment policy. Not the GL. Not the owner’s builders risk, which usually doesn’t exist on a patio job and usually doesn’t name you when it does. The installation floater is the form written for exactly this: your materials, on site, in transit, and in storage, until acceptance. Here’s where the seam runs between builders risk and the floater, what each one typically does on a hardscape job in Castle Rock, and which one you buy.

Two policies, two owners

Builders risk insures a structure under construction and the materials going into it. Under most forms it’s written for the whole build: foundation, framing, the roof, the mechanicals, and the site work that’s part of the contract. The owner or the GC usually buys it, because they own the structure, and subcontractors are supposed to be named on it. Supposed to.

Installation floater insures one contractor’s materials and work. From the supplier’s yard, on the truck, on the lot, in the storage unit, and in place until the owner accepts it. You buy it. It typically doesn’t cover the owner’s house or anyone else’s work. It covers your block, your geogrid, your drain rock, and the wall those things have become so far.

Both live in the inland marine family, which is why people assume the equipment policy already handles it. It doesn’t. The contractor’s equipment form is for the Yanmar mini skid steer and the plate compactor. Under most standard forms, stock and materials are excluded or sit under a small incidental limit that won’t touch three pallets of wall block.

Where the seam runs

Picture two lots on the same street south of Castle Rock.

Lot one is a finished house with a new backyard going in. Segmental retaining wall, paver patio, a run of irrigation. There is no structure under construction, so there is no builders risk. Everything on that lot that isn’t the house is somebody’s materials, and until the owner accepts, it’s yours. Floater territory, start to finish.

Lot two is a new build. The GC is framing a detached garage and your crew is doing the site walls and the driveway pavers under a subcontract. The owner’s builders risk covers the garage and, depending on the form and the contract, may or may not cover your site work and your stockpiled block. If you’re named on it, and the form reaches site improvements, you might be covered there. If you aren’t named, or the form stops at the building, you’re back to the floater.

The question on lot two isn’t which policy is better. It’s whether your name is on the one that exists, and whether the contract makes the materials your risk until acceptance either way. Most do. So the floater is usually the answer on lot two as well, and the builders risk is a bonus you confirm in writing.

What can actually go wrong

The builders risk and installation floater page lists the coverage. Here’s the version with Colorado weather in it.

A hail cell off the Palmer Divide on a June afternoon, the swale above the lot runs, and the base course you spent Friday compacting is under six inches of washed clay by Monday. That’s an installation floater claim under most forms: the work in progress and the materials it took to get there, less the deductible. Theft is the other one. A truck backs up to the lot Saturday night and the block is gone. Under most forms that’s covered when there’s evidence of theft; some forms want signs of forced entry or a fenced site, and materials that simply aren’t there Monday can fall under a mysterious disappearance exclusion. Ask which form you have before the first delivery.

Then there’s the ground itself.

A base course that heaves because the bedrock under it moved is a design and engineering question, not a floater question, and it’s the reason the retaining wall article exists. The floater typically covers your materials against outside events. It doesn’t cover the wall failing because of how it was built, and neither, under most standard forms, does the GL. Two exclusions, one seam, and it’s worth knowing where it is before you stack the first course on expansive clay.

Transit and storage

Two places the pallet lives that people forget. The supply yard in Parker to the lot in Castle Rock is transit, and a load that shifts on a windy afternoon on Founders Parkway is a transit claim under most floater forms, subject to a transit limit that’s often lower than the on-site limit. The storage unit where you keep the leftover block and the spare valves between jobs is temporary storage, with its own limit. Read both limits against what you actually move and stash. A floater written with a small transit limit and a big materials package on the truck is a floater with a gap in the middle.

What the equipment policy and the GL do instead

Every exclusion above has a coverage on the other side of it.

The equipment theft article covers the machine side of the first two rows, and the equipment values article covers why the schedule has to say what the machine is worth now.

What to read in the contract

One paragraph, usually titled risk of loss. It says who eats it when materials or work are damaged before acceptance. If the clause puts that on you, and it usually does, the owner’s builders risk is irrelevant to your block whether or not it exists. If the contract says the owner’s builders risk covers your work, get the certificate and the endorsement naming you, because a policy you’ve never seen is not coverage. On public work the same question gets a bond wrapped around it, and the bonds article explains why the bond doesn’t pay for the pallet either.

Where to go from here

If you have an equipment policy and think it covers the block, send the dec page through a policy review and we’ll mark what it actually lists. If you’re building coverage for a hardscape crew from scratch, Get Insured starts with what you stage on a lot and for how long. And if you work the Castle Rock and Douglas County side of the metro, the irrigation page covers the same materials question for pipe and controllers instead of block. The landscaping hub has the rest of the stack.

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