Contractor General Liability

The Basics Of A Contractor's General Liability

Any prospective contractor should know more than just the logistics of construction and machine operation. A contractor needs to know how to protect themselves for liability incidents. Every contractor should know about the different types of insurance protection so that you can prosper as a professional. Because people are so eager to sue over the most minor reason, you need to cover your business with Contractor's General Liability Insurance. This will help to protect you from any accidents, contractual liability, and any possible law suit that results from work you have been contracted to perform. A good attorney is expensive and you may lose when you should in fact have won. The Contractor's General Liability Insurance has their own staff of very experienced litigation attorneys and will fight on your behalf because they are just as much at risk as you.

Choosing the liability amount is difficult. The more money you have to cover you, the higher your premium rates will be. If you go too low and wind up needing more coverage because of an incident, you will be stuck footing the bill. They can force you to pay the judgment if the suing party wins and if you don't have the money they can force you to liquidate your assets and they can garnish your wages.

What are you capable of paying? How much risk is involved with the line of work you are in? How many people are in your work crew that need to be covered? What is the likelihood of injury? These are all things to consider when choosing you Contractor's General Liability Insurance.

If you are partners with sub contractors that you hire out to do some specialized work be sure they too have Contractor's General Liability insurance as well. Your premium rates will drop drastically if you can prove to your insurance company that your sub contractors have insurance too.  Typically, you as the general contractor are not responsible for your sub contractor's mistakes, but attorneys for sub contractors have found ways to sue the general contractor for neglect and that is why you must all protect yourselves.

Once you have learned the trades for contracting then you should learn the tort laws that allow people to sue you and over what. Talk to the insurance companies agents and brokers to discuss these issues and answer any questions you have regarding coverage or prices of policies. Protect your trade, your business and yourself and don't skip on Contractor's General Liability Insurance.