Contractors often depend on expensive tools, portable equipment, work vans, trucks, trailers, and mobile machinery to complete jobs. These assets may be exposed to theft, collision, fire, vandalism, weather, accidental damage, and losses that occur while traveling between jobsites. Standard general liability insurance usually does not replace a contractor’s own stolen tools or repair a business vehicle after an accident, which makes specialized coverage important.
This category explains the insurance options used to protect contractor property and transportation risks. Readers can learn how tools and equipment coverage, inland marine insurance, commercial property insurance, rented equipment coverage, and installation floater coverage may differ. The guides also address common questions about tools left in a vehicle, equipment stored at a jobsite, property in transit, leased or borrowed gear, and the amount of coverage a contractor may need.
Vehicle-related guides explain the difference between personal and commercial auto insurance, when a work van or truck may require a business policy, and how hired and non-owned auto coverage can apply when employees use personal or rented vehicles for business purposes. Readers will also find information about trailers, mobile equipment, and situations where commercial auto and equipment coverage may overlap.
The goal is to help contractors identify which assets are exposed, understand common policy limitations, and avoid assuming that one policy protects everything. Actual coverage depends on policy language, deductibles, limits, exclusions, vehicle use, storage practices, and the insurer’s underwriting rules.
Tools and equipment insurance helps pay to repair or replace a contractor’s portable tools and machinery after a covered loss. Depending on the policy, coverage may apply when equipment is stolen, vandalized, damaged in transit, destroyed by fire, or affected by another covered event. This insurance is commonly written as a contractors’ equipment floater, tools…
Inland marine insurance helps protect a contractor’s tools, equipment, building materials, and other movable business property while it is being transported, stored away from the main business location, or used at a temporary jobsite. Despite its name, inland marine insurance generally has little to do with boats or oceans. It developed from marine insurance used…
Rented tools may be covered by contractor insurance, but only when the policy includes protection for equipment rented, leased, or borrowed from others. This coverage is commonly provided through contractors’ tools and equipment insurance, a contractors’ equipment floater, or another form of commercial inland marine insurance. General liability insurance does not ordinarily pay to repair…
Contractor insurance may cover tools left at a jobsite overnight, but coverage is not automatic. The tools generally need to be insured under a contractors’ tools and equipment policy, equipment floater, or another type of inland marine insurance. Commercial general liability does not ordinarily cover theft of the contractor’s own tools. A standard commercial property…
Contractor insurance may cover tools stolen from a work truck, van, or trailer, but the claim is usually handled under contractors’ tools and equipment insurance or another form of inland marine coverage—not standard commercial auto insurance. Commercial auto insurance primarily protects the vehicle and addresses auto-related liability. Even when comprehensive coverage pays for damage to…
