As a subcontractor, you often face many risks when completing a project. You must purchase, store, transport, stage, process, and install materials, machinery, equipment, and supplies.

Throughout these stages, your property may be at risk. Given that most commercial property insurance policies offer limited, if any, coverage for property once it leaves your premises, what can you do to protect your assets? The answer is installation floater insurance.

So, what is installation floater insurance? Installation floater insurance coverage insures a subcontractor’s materials, machinery, equipment, power tools, building materials, and supplies from the moment they leave your premises until job completion. This means that your property will be insured while it is:

• Being stored at a temporary location
• In transit to a job site
• Being staged or awaiting installation
• Being installed
• Pending acceptance by a project owner or general contractor

Essentially, installation floaters protect your property before it becomes a permanent feature of a project or structure.

While installation floaters offer similar coverage to builder’s risk policies (another form of inland marine insurance), there are important distinctions between the two.

Installation floater insurance policies are typically purchased by subcontractors that have a limited scope of work on a job because they provide coverage only for the insured subcontractor’s portion of a project.

For example, subcontractors installing high-value equipment or materials not covered under the builder’s risk policy may need to purchase an installation floater to be adequately insured. Depending on the terms of the builder’s risk policy, it can be more cost-effective for a subcontractor to rely on an installation floater.

Installation floaters are “all risks” policies, meaning they cover all exposures other than those expressly excluded by the policy. Policies generally cover losses caused by fire, theft, explosions, traffic accidents, vandalism, property damage, and several other perils.

As a subcontractor, your tools are your livelihood. That’s where tool insurance comes in. Contractor tool insurance covers the costs of your valuable tools in case of theft or damage. It’s crucial, especially if you’re storing or transporting tools to and from a job site.

An installation floater often includes coverage for tools, but be sure to check with your commercial insurance broker to confirm this.

To discuss whether an installation floater is the right form of coverage to address your business’s property exposures, please get in touch with CMB Insurance Brokers today. Installation floaters can provide the peace of mind to focus on what you do best: delivering high-quality work on every project.