With the intricate vastness of the roofing industry and the softening of the insurance market nowadays, without a doubt, there’s a need for roofing contractors insurance to protect the valuable corporate assets of legitimate business owners. For some time, insurance has played its major role in every industry in protecting the employees, equipments and the tangible assets of the company. Legal issues and business protection from revenue loss due to injury benefit from the insurances. Thus, it became imperative that every company should have insurance to avoid any damages unexpected situations might inflict.
The Trouble of Finding Roofing Contractors Insurance
Finding the right roofing contractors insurance could be an overwhelming task to handle by most companies. It cannot be denied that it affected business owners in choosing the type of operation they are going to exercise since insurance choices in the roofing industry is very limited. A lot of exclusions can be found on roofing insurances today. Some providers have provisions for excluding condos and townhomes as they provide full coverage on tract housing and custom homes, and detailed conditions are applied as well. While other insurance providers allow coverage on residential for any existing structures, yet new constructions are not included.
With these drawbacks in the insurance for the roofing contractors, it’s not surprising that many are forced to pull their businesses out the residential market, limit and become specific for the type of residential services they will perform. They bare the legal responsibility to establish exposures or look for roofing insurance providers that are more than willing to cover all the necessary matters in exchange for a hefty bill. And when it comes to the essentiality of these things, brokers ought to know the type of residential exposure they could offer, while the insured should be able to pick up the right direction; that sticking with it will help them prevent from coverage lapses.
The Reality Behind the Roofing Industry: Untold Tales of Roofers
The need to have roofing contractors insurances can be attributed from the everyday task that you as a roofer have to accomplish. You and your clients both need protection, and that’s what insurance can do. One wrong move during your shift, your employee’s or sub-contractors, could cause severe injuries that could affect the overall performance and the capacity to earn income if the most important asset of the job is damaged – which is your body. And if this happens, several components that compose the company will also be affected.
In every 100,000 full-time workers in the roofing industry, there’s a rate of 29.9 roofers death which is considered to be 5th highest work-related death rate ever recorded among many construction workers. It is twice the average of all the construction workers with 15.2 while approximately 50 roofers die from falls each year. Seeing the great risk that you might encounter every day, certainly, you’ll wish that there’s a trusted roofing contractors insurance that could cover all the expenses and the troubles – might as well the headaches.
But do you know that there are insurances that guarantee the safety and protection of not only the roofing contractors but the clients as well? If you’re still not aware of it, then read on because this might help you get acquainted on how you can protect your company, your employees and your clients, with roofing contractors insurance options made available.
An Overview of Roofing Contractors Insurance Options
As roofers may not know it, roofing contractors insurance comes in a variety of forms. It provides the specific coverage a roofer or a contractor might need, and it depends on the nature of the business; whether sub-contractors and staffs are being hired or the work is an all-year-round shift. Not all has the same working shifts since in the colder climates, some roofers work for only 8 to 9 months each year, while the remaining time of the year is dedicated to snow removal or other related jobs. And since the roofing industry has a lot of components, a combination of one or more insurance will be needed to get the necessary coverage you’ll need for your business.
To determine what roofing contractors insurance you’ll need, a list of insurance products available are listed below:
The Business Owners Policy or the BOP
This is an insurance package that organizes all the basic coverage as required by the business owners. It targets the small and medium enterprises and is sold at first-rate which is less than the total price of an individual coverage. It contains business interruption insurance that provides the insurers reimbursements up to a year of revenue loss caused by an insured property loss, crime insurance, property insurance, vehicle coverage, general liability insurance and flood insurance policies. And in case you encountered an additional risk, you can make arrangements for the components you want to be added to the basic package.
Commercial General Liability Insurance
This insurance will protect you from numerous legal hassles including lawsuits that have risen from injury to the employees and the public, damaged property by employees and the injuries experienced by an employee due to their negligence; that you might encounter in the roofing industry. But keep in mind that it won’t protect directors and officers against the errors and omissions.
This can also be used in covering infringement on intellectual property, libel, slander, tenant liability, contractual liability, and the employment practices liability. This type of tailor-made insurance package is best for small or large businesses, partnerships, joint-ventures, and corporations or even with newly-acquired businesses. This insurance policy provides compensation for defending or in lawsuit investigation that includes the court cost, police report costs and witness fees, judgment and settlements from the lawsuits, medical expenses of the injured person.
Professional liability insurance
Also known as the errors and omission insurance. This insurance policy is designed to protect you and your company against the high cost of legal claims if the advice and the recommendations that were provided resulted in the loss of your customer. This is the best insurance options if consulting with the customers and recommending certain products or treatments is included in the services.
Compensation for workers
This insurance package ensures the employees if, for instance, they got ill or got injured in a work-related situation. It provides the lost wages the employees deserve when they cannot continue working. But having this insurance package depends on the number of workforces available.
Commercial Vehicle Policy
This protects the welfare of any vehicle use in the roofing business that includes cars, trucks, vans, trailers or any specialized construction trucks.
Product liability insurance
This policy is for businesses that distribute or sell products. It helps in preventing financial loss if, for instance; the product is defective or has caused harm to customers. And its amount of liability to the product varies with the severity of the risk it may inflict on the company.
The Bottom Line
These are the insurance policies that roofing contractors could count on. A single insurance policy may not cover all the hassles you might encounter, but the best thing that you could do is to try a combination of those. To find the best insurance for roofer contractors, seek the advice and guidelines from highly knowledgeable insurance agents that could provide the full details of the roofing insurance you might come across, as well as the legalities and the pitfalls that can be avoided. In this way, you’ll be confident enough to handle your company, the employees and the clients from any risk, since there’s an effective roofing contractors insurance that could back you up in case of unexpected situations.
Let Farmer Brown experts guide you through the insurance process,
We’ve been working with roofing contractors for more than 20 years.
