Contractors & trades · Nova Scotia
The certificate is due Monday. Let’s get it right.
Most contractors buy insurance because a general contractor, a developer or the municipality asked for proof of it. That is a fine reason to start. But the policy behind the certificate is what decides whether a bad claim ends the business, so it is worth ten minutes of attention.
Carpentry · Electrical · Plumbing & HVAC · Roofing · Excavation · Drywall · General contracting
What actually goes wrong
The tools are gone
Theft from trailers and open sites is the most frequent contractor claim there is. Tools coverage is written either as a schedule or a blanket limit, and the limit is almost always set years ago and never revisited.
Your sub was not insured
If you hire someone who cannot produce a valid certificate, their claim becomes your claim. Your insurer will also charge you for their payroll at audit, which is a bill people do not see coming.
The contract wants $5M and more
Contract wording now routinely asks for higher limits, additional insured status, a waiver of subrogation and primary and non-contributory language. Your certificate has to match all of it or it comes back.
The build burns at sixty percent
Work in progress sits outside everybody’s standard property policy. Builder’s risk has to be placed before ground breaks, and on a renovation it is easy to assume the owner already did it when nobody has.
What a contractor policy usually covers
- Commercial general liability at $2M to $5M, with completed operations that keep responding after you leave the site
- Tools and equipment, owned, leased and borrowed, on site and in transit
- Contractors’ equipment for the heavier gear: excavators, lifts, compressors, trailers
- Builder’s risk or course of construction on the project itself, including materials on site
- Installation floater for material you have bought but not yet installed
- Commercial auto, plus non-owned auto for staff running errands in their own vehicles
- Certificates issued to match the contract wording rather than a generic template
What I’ll ask you for
Your trade, the split between residential and commercial work, annual revenue, subcontractor payroll, what your tools are worth, and how high you work.
And the contract, if you have one in hand. Half this job is making the certificate satisfy the clause, and I cannot do that from the request email alone.
Questions I get asked
What is the difference between certificate holder and additional insured?
Certificate holder means they receive a copy of the document and usually notice if the policy cancels. It gives them no coverage at all. Additional insured means your policy is extended to protect them for claims arising out of your work, so your insurer defends them alongside you. They are separate fields on the certificate and they are not interchangeable. If the contract asks for additional insured, the endorsement has to be added to your policy.
Does my liability policy pay to redo my own bad work?
Generally no, and this surprises people every time. Liability covers damage your work causes to other property. It does not pay to rip out and redo the defective work itself. If you cut a line and flood three units below, the policy responds to their damage, not to your labour and material to fix the pipe. That is a business cost, not an insured loss.
Why does my insurer charge me for my subcontractors?
Because if a sub has no policy of their own, your policy is the one exposed to their work. At audit the insurer asks for certificates for every sub you paid. Any sub you cannot produce a certificate for gets treated as your own payroll and rated accordingly. Collecting certificates as you go is the cheapest paperwork habit in the trade.
How fast can I get a certificate?
If you are already a client and the policy already carries what the contract asks for, same day. If the contract needs limits or endorsements you do not currently have, it takes as long as the insurer takes to add them, usually a day or two. The delay is almost never the certificate itself. It is discovering the policy does not support what the contract demands.
Send me the insurance clause.
Paste it out of the contract with your current certificate and I will tell you whether it holds up, before the general contractor does.
Rayanur Rahman 