Commercial general liability is a must for general commercial purposes, but landscapers and lawn care businesses are niche businesses requiring expertise. Lawn care specialists face unique risks that can only be fully covered by specialty insurance coverages relevant in the green industry.
What business owners in the lawn care and landscaping industry need to protect themselves and their businesses is an insurance broker or agent who can offer the right landscaper insurance products. They need someone they can turn to who is willing to share essential information about industry trends, and can help prevent risks with equipment and running the business overall.
You may be familiar with some of the common risk scenarios landscaper insurance will cover. We will shed some light on additional claims examples you may not have considered, and how to cover them with special insurance for a lawn care business.
The Advantages of Having Blanket Additional Insured Coverage
Very often in the landscaping business, third parties will require a landscaping company to add their company to the landscaper’s insurance policy. A commercial general liability policy only covers the insured, which is the business. The coverage does not extend to contractors or subcontractors.
For example, if a landscaper subcontracted with a fence installer to install a fence as part of an overall landscaping design and the fence became faulty or caused an injury, there would be no coverage for the fence installer under the landscaper’s policy.
This is a good reason for brokers and agents to recommend adding an endorsement for blanket additional coverage. In the busyness of everyday work, landscape business owners may forget to add a third party as an additional insured to the policy. With blanket additional insured coverage, third parties get covered automatically.
Blanket additional insured coverage prevents administrative errors and reduces costs. Business owners and their staff will save time by not having to get coverage for an additional insured every time they need it. Moreover, adding this coverage is a green strategy, as it also reduces paperwork. A business owner in the green industry is apt to take notice of green strategies.
When Basic Bodily Injury Is Not Enough
While standard general liability covers most cases of bodily injury, it does not cover some of the more worrisome claims that can occur within landscaping and lawn care services.
Landscapers and lawn care specialists work outdoors most of the time. They also spend much of their time at customer locations, working on their properties and beautifying them. Many landscaping businesses use heavy equipment to move dirt, mulch, stone, and large rocks around. Landscapers also commonly engage in tree removal or contract other businesses to cut down trees and remove them.
Since these dangerous types of activities happen on a customer’s property, there is always a chance a landscaping client could accidentally get hurt. When that happens, the landscaping business could be held liable.
What could happen? As an example, we will say that a landscape contractor failed to see a large rock as they were mowing a customer’s lawn. The worker ran over the rock, and it flew up in the air, hitting the customer who had just come outside to check the progress on his lawn. As it turned out, the rock hit the customer in the eye. The worker called an ambulance right away, but the customer’s vision got permanently damaged.
Losing sight is a traumatic experience for someone. It is a situation that will certainly cause mental anguish for the customer. A standard commercial general liability may exclude coverage for mental anguish and mental injury.In this case, the customer’s medical bills would be paid up to the policy limit, but the landscaping company would be on the hook if the customer also sued for mental anguish.
An extension of coverage endorsement on landscaper insurance extends coverage for mental anguish claims.
Honest Mistakes in Workmanship Cause Unexpected Claims
Even the best-laid plans can go awry when communication is not clear. As much as landscapers and lawn care services create policies and procedures to make sure their workers operate safely and follow all of the customer’s instructions, mistakes occasionally happen. Unfortunately, even a little mistake can set a big landscaper insurance claim in motion.
Insurance for a lawn care business will not cover a mistake in a customer’s order where the customer alleges damage to their property.
An example of a landscaping claim involving an error will help illustrate this point. For instance, let us say a work order described a task to prune a Japanese maple tree on a customer’s property. Perhaps the landscaping worker misread the work order, or the person read it and forgot about it. Either way, the worker removed the Japanese maple tree rather than pruning it. The customer became livid and demanded the company replace the tree.
Because the commercial general liability did not cover errors and omissions, the landscaping company would be held liable for the damage and to replace the tree.
To have coverage for this type of incident, insurance for a lawn care business that includes an endorsement for workmanship errors would have covered the loss.
Pollution Risks Are Not Always Covered by Insurance for Landscapers
Owners of landscaping and lawn care businesses often use chemicals during a normal workday. Chemicals help get rid of pesky weeds and help plants, flowers, and trees grow healthy and strong.
As helpful as chemicals can be for greenery and lawn beautification, chemical pollutants can harm people, pets, and other plant life. The wrong chemicals on the right plants will cause them to wilt and die in short order.
Liability for pollution-related claims is not covered under a standard commercial general liability insurance policy. It is excluded, and landscaping professionals may not even be aware of it.
Here is what could happen. A landscape worker was treating a customer’s lawn using the relevant chemicals in the proper quantity. The nozzle suddenly clogged, and he lost control of the sprayer for a few minutes while trying to get it unclogged. Everything seemed fine at the customer’s residence, but the customer called a week later to complain about a row of ornamental bushes turning brown and dying.
When the business owner contacted the worker for an explanation, the worker described the problem with the sprayer. It was clear the ornamental bushes were over sprayed in the struggle with the equipment. The landscaper would be liable to replace the damaged bushes.
Limited pollution coverage could have been added to the policy to cover such a claim.
Auto Pollution Broadened Coverage Covers the Unexpected
As landscapers and lawn care specialists travel regularly to customers’ property, commercial auto liability is a must. However, a commercial auto liability insurance policy will not necessarily cover all types of losses. Here is an example of how an exclusion for auto pollution can come into play.
A landscaping company carefully screens all employees who drive their trucks. A landscaping company sent a worker out to a customer’s farm to manicure the landscaping. As the worker neared the property, a deer jumped out in front of the truck. The driver swerved to avoid hitting the animal and toppled over into a pond on the customer’s property. Fortunately, the driver was not injured, but the truck sustained much damage. The fluids from the truck leaked out into the farmer’s pond and polluted it. The farmer filed a claim against the landscape owner because he used the pond for his cows to drink, and it was no longer safe for them.
On a standard commercial auto policy, auto pollution is excluded. Had the farmer added auto pollution broadened coverage to his policy, the claim would have been covered.
Final Thoughts
The solution for all the claims examples described above could easily be covered by LandPro insurance for landscapers and lawn care professionals with NIP Group insurance. LandPro includes blanket additional insured, extension of coverage for bodily injury, workmanship errors, limited pollution, and auto pollution broadened coverage. It is an all-in-one package “must-have” for your landscaping and lawn care customers.
When your customer calls in a claim that is out of the ordinary, agents and brokers will be glad to say, “Do not worry, the incident is covered under your policy.”
To give brokers and agents, as well as their customers the all-important peace of mind, call our experts at 866-780-8076 to learn more about LandPro insurance.