Insurance Coverage for Fire Suppression Contractors
Fire suppression contractors know all about mitigating, suppressing, and controlling the risk of fire. But are you mitigating your own risk by having the best fire suppression contractor insurance for your business?
Are you considering all the risks that affect your business, employee, and customers?
Fire sprinkler installers need to have the right insurance coverage for their business. Fire sprinkler contractors face unique risks and protecting them can be challenging. The growing rate of construction for both commercial and residential properties and the changes to building codes requiring sprinkler systems has caused the demand for these types of contractors.
Fire suppression contractors include the following:
- Automatic Fire Sprinkler Contractors
- Fire Extinguisher Sales & Service Companies
- Restaurant & Special Suppression System Contractors
- Fire alarm/burglary & Security System installers
- Fire Equipment Distributors/fire & Emergency Apparatus Dealers
- Engineered Systems including Halon Systems
- Fire Hydrants
Claims can happen to anyone!
With the increased demand for your services, it can be more likely it is that mistakes can happen. Newer, less experienced employees may be hired, or just the fact that there are more to get done in a day, may cause mistakes.
Every year, fire suppression systems fail to operate successfully in fire situations. Experts believe that in about 1/3 of these cases, the cause is inadequate inspection, testing or maintenance.
Some of the insurance carriers, like Colony insurance, are no longer offering coverage for fire suppression contractors. But Huff Insurance can help.
General liability insurance coverage and professional liability insurance coverage are essential for fire suppression business. It provides protection for your business in the event of damage that arises from your error or omission related to your products or service. This could be from your design, installation, maintenance, or repair.
Some things to look for in your fire suppression contractor insurance quote:
- Blanket additional insured endorsement – Most property management companies and/or contractors that you may be contracted with will require that they be listed as additional insured on your insurance policy. Without the blanket additional insured endorsement, you would have to add every entity individually to your insurance policy as additional insured. With this endorsement, as long as you have a written contract that requires them to be added as additional insured, they are automatically considers an additional insured on your policy.
- Lost key coverage – If you lose the keys to an office building that you are working on, the cost to replace the locks or have them rekeyed can be quite large.
- Waiver of subrogation – Most property management companies, building contractors and government agencies will require this wording in order to bid on their jobs. With this endorsement, your insurance company waives their right to subrogate any insurance claim payment from the contracting entity.
- Per location aggregate or per project aggregate limits- Some jobs that you bid on may require that your policy have a specific project or location aggregate insurance limit. For example, they may require a $1 million job aggregate limit. They want to make sure that their job has the full $1 million limit available to their project. Without the per location or project limit, the $1 million policy aggregate could be used up at other projects or locations, leaving nothing for them to claim if there is a loss.
- Primary and noncontributory wording– As with waiver of subrogation above, most property management companies, building contractors and government agencies will require this wording in order to bid on their jobs.
What do you need if an employee gets injured?
Workers compensation insurance would be needed to cover the medical bills of loss wages related to medical leave due to a workplace injury.
In addition, you should consider property insurance coverage to extend to cover your owned building and/or personal property coverage. You will need to cover your belongings while in the office, storage, in transit, at a job site, etc.
Do you have vehicles in your business name?
If so, then you need a commercial auto insurance policy to cover whether it is one vehicle or 100 vehicles. You will need liability coverage at a minimum on the vehicles. But you can also insure them for comprehensive and collision coverage to cover the cost to repair the vehicle if it damaged.
Other insurance coverages to consider as a fire suppression contractor:
A commercial umbrella insurance policy is away to get additional liability protection over your current insurance limits. You never know how much liability coverage you need until it is too late. So, you should always have as much business liability insurance as you can afford.
Do not forget about cyber liability insurance protection to cover in the event of a data breach or ransomware attack.
Also, think about employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) in the event an employee sues for harassment, discrimination, or hostile work environment.
In addition, Huff Insurance can help you with any of your bonding needs, including bid bonds, performance bonds, licensing bonds, supply bonds, etc.
Why Huff Insurance?
Huff Insurance is a Trusted Choice Independent Insurance Agent in Pasadena Maryland. We know that you will need certificates quickly. Most certificates are completed immediately while we are on the phone with you. Or you can print your own with access through our customer portal.