Risk & Business Magazine Mooney Insurance Fall 2015 | Page 26

R
& Ask an Expert
B We are Here for All Your Insurance Needs
BY: ROGERS INSURANCE LTD.

Q. How much Liability
coverage do I need?
Commercial General Liability coverage
protects your business and employees
against claims stemming from bodily
injury and/or property damage if you are
found negligent. It includes litigation
costs and out of court settlements.
• Your Liability requirements might
be contractually driven. This will
determine minimum limits you should
carry. In the absence of a contract we
would recommend at minimum a $2
Million limit per Occurrence with a
higher Aggregate. This would apply
to both Automobile Liability and
Commercial General Liability for your
business. Certain sectors within the
Canadian economy (the Oil & Gas
industry as an example) require higher
limits as project values in this sector
can be in the 10’s of millions of
dollars and the potential for loss
extremely high.

Q. As a Sub-Contractor,
what do I need to know in
order to protect myself?
When it comes to claims, generally,
insurance companies will go straight
to the contact before providing or
denying coverage.  When subcontractors
enter into a contract with a General
Contractor, there are many things to be
aware of:
Have you provided the contract and scope
of work to your Insurance Broker to
review BEFORE signing the contract?
Some General Contractors carry $100k
or $250k deductibles when it comes
to project-specific insurance.  We
have reviewed contracts where the
subcontractor was responsible for the
deductible of a project-specific insurance
policy up to $1M.

If a subcontractor is working on a project
where a Wrap-Up Liability policy has
been setup by the General Contractor, it
is important their insurance company is
aware, as many liability policies exclude
work under the Wrap-Up Liability
policy and may not provide coverage for
your deductible.  Have you added the
extension to your policy to cover this gap?
What about damage the subcontractor
causes to the project? Do both parties
know the ramifications of who will
be responsible to pay what? Does the
subcontractor have capacity to pay for
a deductible? Is the General Contractor
authorized to do hold payments from the
subcontractor in order to recover
the deductible?