Contractor insurance that survives a general contractor review.
Most contractors do not lose work because they are uninsured. They lose it because the certificate arrives late, the additional insured wording is wrong, or the limits do not match what the contract demanded. We write the coverage and we handle the paperwork that proves it.
The coverage a South Florida trade needs
General liability
Classified to the work you genuinely perform. A misclassified policy is cheap right up to the point a claim gets denied or an audit reclassifies you retroactively.
Workers compensation
Florida sets a much lower employee threshold for construction than for other industries, and officer exemptions have their own rules. We confirm what applies to your operation rather than guessing.
Commercial auto
Trucks, vans, and trailers, including hired and non-owned exposure for the crew who takes their own vehicle to the site.
Tools and equipment
Inland marine for what lives in the truck and on the job. Theft from an open site is the loss trades actually file, and a property policy at your shop will not answer for it.
Surety and license bonds
County licensing bonds for Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, plus performance and payment bonds when you move up to bonded work.
Builders risk
Cover for the structure while it is going up. Neither your GL nor the owner property policy reliably covers work in progress, and in Florida that gap has a hurricane season attached to it.
Four things that cost South Florida contractors money
Your subcontractor was not really insured
If a sub cannot produce a valid certificate, your workers compensation audit can pick up their payroll as if they were your employee, and your general liability responds to their work. Collecting certificates before the job starts is the cheapest risk management in construction.
The endorsement was missing, not the policy
General contractors require additional insured status, often primary and non-contributory, frequently with waiver of subrogation. Those are endorsements. Having the underlying policy is not the same as having the wording the contract demanded.
Binding stopped because a storm entered the box
When a named storm threatens Florida, carriers suspend new business and coverage increases. If your job starts in September and you were planning to arrange builders risk that week, you may find the market closed. Placing coverage early is not caution, it is scheduling.
The audit found payroll the policy never rated
Workers compensation and general liability both audit. Growth during the year, cash labor, and reclassified duties all surface at audit as a bill you did not budget for. Reporting honestly up front is almost always cheaper.
Certificates, without the phone tag
Certificate requests are the reason most contractors change agencies. Tell us the holder, the job, and the wording the contract requires, and we issue it. If a general contractor needs specific endorsement language, we check the policy actually carries it before we send anything out.