General Liability — Done Right at Bind, Not at Claim Time

What GL Actually Covers

Third-party bodily injury and property damage arising from your operations. The plumber who flood-damages a finished basement during a job. The painter whose ladder takes out a customer's window. The GC whose sub injures a building visitor. The electrician whose work allegedly caused a fire eighteen months after completion. All of that.

The four coverage parts

• Premises & Operations — BI and PD from your operations at the job site or your premises.
• Products-Completed Operations — claims after the work is complete. NJ's construction defect statute of repose runs ten years on most residential. Your limit needs to last that long.
• Personal & Advertising Injury — libel, slander, copyright in advertising, wrongful eviction.
• Medical Expense — small no-fault medical for third-party injuries. Keeps small claims from escalating to liability claims.

Standard Limits Aren't the Whole Story

NJ contracts almost always require $1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate. That's the floor — and not where most contractors should stop. A serious bodily injury claim can blow through $1M. The fix isn't a $5M GL (expensive); the fix is a $1M GL backed by a $2–5M umbrella. We talk about that on the Umbrella page.

What matters more than the limit is the structure:

• Additional Insured endorsements — naming your GCs, property owners, and project managers. Most NJ commercial contracts require this; most contractor policies issue it incorrectly.
• Primary & Non-Contributory wording — your policy responds first, the AI's own policy doesn't have to chip in. Contract-required on most commercial work.
• Waiver of Subrogation — prevents your carrier from suing your contractual partners after a claim. Required on most commercial work.
• Per-Project Aggregate — separates aggregate limits by project so one claim doesn't eat your aggregate for every other job. Available on most carriers, often by endorsement.
• Products-Completed Operations included — not all GL policies include this; some carriers offer it as a separate sublimit. Yours should be included with adequate limits.

When a GC requires AI + primary & non-contributory + waiver of subrogation + 30-day notice — that's four separate endorsements. Most contractor policies have one or two by default and the others require issuance, sometimes at additional cost. We map your GC requirements to your endorsement package at bind. We don't wait for the panic call the day before the job starts.

Trade-Specific GL Notes

• Roofers — products-completed operations is critical (most claims come post-completion). Some carriers exclude or sublimit roofing operations; we know which.
• Restoration — pollution exclusions matter; mold exclusions matter; CPL (V2) addresses gaps GL won't cover.
• Excavation — underground utility damage and adjacent structural damage are common; XCU coverage is sometimes excluded by default.
• Electricians — fire causation is the biggest exposure; products-completed limits matter long after the job ends.
• Plumbers — water damage to finished spaces is the most common claim; subrogation by property carriers is aggressive.
• General Contractors — your subs' coverage matters as much as yours. See COI workflow.

Cross-Border Work — Including NYC

If your work crosses state lines — PA, NY, DE — we handle that as part of your normal policy structure. If you do meaningful work in the five boroughs of New York City, that's a different conversation. New York Labor Law creates exposure that needs to be priced and underwritten by carriers who specialize in five-borough construction. Tell us your work territory on the intake form. If you're an NJ contractor doing the occasional Brooklyn job, we've got you. If you're effectively a NYC contractor with an NJ address, we'll refer you to a specialist who'll serve you better than we will.

Carrier Panel for NJ Contractor GL

Standard markets: Travelers, Nationwide, The Hartford, AmTrust, Allstate, Nat Gen, Cumberland Mutual, Farmers of Salem, Preferred Mutual, Merchants Mutual, and Next. For harder placements — significant loss history, distressed operations, unusual trades — E&S markets.

Our job is to match your business to the carrier that fits best — your trade, operations, revenue, loss history, work territory, endorsement requirements. We don't shop you across 12 markets just to look busy. We pick the right 2–4 markets for your specific risk profile and we explain why.