Mackay Insurance Blog

If you own a home or a car, chances are good you have purchased some type of insurance policy to protect you from loss, theft or damage.

So it just makes good sense that you would want to put the same protection in place for your business! While the self-employment sector of the Canadian workforce continues to grow larger each year, this type of smaller business is also more vulnerable to setbacks ranging from theft or vandalism to natural disaster, lawsuits and personal setbacks.

Contractor insurance is a type of insurance product specifically designed and uniquely well-equipped to help your business handle the inevitable ups and downs of working as an independent contractor. In this post, learn what you need to know about contractor insurance, including how much you need and how to apply.

Mandatory Insurance Coverage for Contractors

Here in Ontario, you are required to register your independent construction company with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) and retain certain mandatory insurance coverages.

This mandate extends to contracting businesses from very small to very large.

Not surprisingly, wading through the complex assortment of laws and regulations regarding contractor insurance can be a full-time job. After you get done sorting out which insurance policies you need, what they cover and what is still missing, then it is time to tackle tax accounting requirements, mandatory worker training, licenses, certificates and day-to-day business management.

This explains why so many independent contractors often feel like they are working themselves to death and still not getting ahead!

We want to make contractor insurance easy to understand and acquire so you can get back to your real job—managing and growing your business.

What Type of Contractor Insurance Do You Need?

Regardless of how small or large your company size is, you will need the same basic types of insurance protection.

Completed operations

Completed operations insurance protects contractors from client lawsuits that may occur months or years after the job is completed.

Customer disputes

Even a single dispute that evolves into a lawsuit can topple a small independent contracting business. Customer disputes can occur despite your best efforts, which is why you need insurance coverage to protect your business itself while the lawsuit progresses.

Equipment

As an independent contractor, you have invested heavily into the success of your company, right down to purchasing and maintaining the equipment and materials you use to do your job. If your equipment breaks down or gets damaged on the job site or en route, this is the coverage you need.

Business interruption

Business interruption can occur for many reasons. This insurance coverage protects your company if your income stream is halted due to insured events beyond your control.

Liability

This general term covers many exposures contractors face, ranging from injuries resulting from work that was performed to simple trips and falls on the job site. This type of contractor insurance is an ironclad necessity in today’s litigious society.

Business property

You need to protect your own business property just as you would your personal residence or vehicle. Materials, equipment, supplies and other assets housed at your business location or job site can be protected under a business property insurance policy.

Crime

Crime is another hazard of doing business today, and an increasingly serious one, at that. From workers with sticky fingers to strangers who see your job site-in-progress as an easy score, you can’t always control who comes by or what damage they may do. But you can control how much it impacts your growing business by adding a crime insurance rider to your contractor insurance policy.

How a Contractor Insurance Policy Can Benefit You

The obvious benefits of a contractor insurance policy are clear at this point: you don’t risk losing your business in the event other people or events intersect in a way that limits or interrupts the work you are doing.

But there are other, less-visible benefits of taking out a contractor insurance policy.

Customer trust

A major benefit is customer trust. When a new client contacts you to bid on a job, having contractor insurance in place can give them valuable peace of mind and increase the likelihood that you will get the job.

Peace of mind

Another major benefit is your own peace of mind. It’s hard to run a successful business from a place of fear, worry and stress! When you know that your best efforts are protected from unknowns such as climate change-related weather patterns and the actions of criminals, you can conduct operations with more confidence and courage.

Freedom to collaborate

Still another benefit that comes along with adding contractor insurance to your risk management program is the ability and freedom to collaborate on construction jobs knowing you are protected if something goes wrong.

As the Canadian Design-Build Institute explains, expert collaboration is a mainstay in an industry where technology is producing sweeping changes to how jobs are planned and executed. But without insurance protection, the blurred lines of responsibility that collaboration sometimes creates can become harder to navigate in jobs gone wrong.

Worker and personal protection

Finally, having a customized contractor insurance policy in place provides protection to those whose livelihoods depend on yours: your workers, vendors, staff and family.

Get in Touch

Here at Mackay Insurance Brokers, we have more than 165 combined years of personal, residential, auto and commercial insurance expertise. Our seasoned staff bring a customer-service-first focus to every consultation and every policy we write.

Chat with us online, email us or give us a call at 1-888-853-5552 to speak with a knowledgeable agent today.