HVAC Contractor Insurance: Cost & Quotes From $11

HVAC contractors like you install heating and cooling systems so people can comfortably remain inside buildings. You might also work with cold storages. However, this job falls usually falls on the shoulders of refrigeration engineers.

HVAC contractor insurance protects you against heating, ventilation, and air conditioning work risks that will drastically affect income. You’ll find general liability, contractors errors and omissions, commercial auto, commercial property, and workers compensation insurance useful, which are policies that electricians, concrete contractors, and others also need.

Insurance isn’t only a protection but might also be a licensing requirement. Plus, it provides great protection when you’re just starting out as an HVAC contractor. Read this guide to know:

• How much insurance HVAC contractors need

• The functions of different kinds of insurance for HVAC contractors

• The cost of premiums

• The recommended companies for HVAC contractor insurance

HVAC Contractor Liability Insurance

Get general liability insurance to have a shield against claims for bodily injuries or property damage that clients, independent contractors, passerbys, and other third parties might file. These are situations where you’ll find HVAC contractor liability insurance useful:

• You messed up the wiring of an HVAC unit during installation. As a result, the HVAC’s motor started smoking and got busted. 

• You and a client are carrying an HVAC unit to a building’s second floor. You lost grip by accident, and the client’s foot got crushed. A claim is filed asking compensation for medical treatment, pain, and suffering

• You refilled the HVAC unit with the wrong refrigerant, and it got busted. The client asks for refund

• You and an employee are fixing a solder leak without taking the pressure out. An explosion happened, injuring the client and damaging the building. 

You can use HVAC general liability insurance to cover these costs each time a third party files a claim:

• First aid treatment, surgery, and other medical treatment expenses

• Reimbursement for financial losses due to property damage

• Attorney fees, court filing fees, investigation fees, and other defense costs

• Court judgments 

Additional Coverages Included In General Liability Insurance for HVAC Contractors 

Similar to the general liability insurance for tile contractors and paving contractors, general liability insurance for HVAC contractors is underwritten as a broad-form policy. And so, it provides further protection against these risks:

Advertising Injuries And Defamation

General liability insurance protects HVAC contractors like you against claims for copyright infringement, slander, libel, invasion of privacy, and breach of confidentiality. 

Contractual Liability

Your general liability insurance can have contractual liability coverage, which takes care of costs if the liabilities you assume in a project contract occur.

Liability Over Products And Completed Operations

General liability insurance has products and completed operations coverage. This is helpful if a client files a claim for bodily injury or property damage after you installed, cleaned, or repaired an HVAC unit.

Liability Over Damage To Rented Premises

Your HVAC business’s general liability insurance comes with rented premises liability coverage. And so, the policy can indemnify the losses of the landlord if his commercial space gets damaged by fire because of your fault. 

Non-Owned/Hired Auto Accidents

General liability insurance with non-owned/hired auto liability coverage can take care of medical treatments or refunds for damaged properties if a vehicle you hired or borrowed causes a vehicular accident.

HVAC Contractor Professional Liability Insurance

Most HVAC contractors get $1 million-$2 million professional liability insurance. This HVAC business insurance covers claims filed due to misdeeds you committed while installing or maintaining an HVAC unit. Professional liability insurance is useful when:

• A client accuses you of installing an HVAC unit hastily resulting in leaks or damaged ductworks

• A client accuses you of lying about your credentials and portfolio to get a project

• You inflated the cost of your services to get a higher commission 

• You allegedly used substandard ducts, pipes, or even switched the original unit with a cheaper one

• A client claims you hired the wrong subcontractors for an HVAC service

• Your advice about HVAC installation and maintenance resulted in financial losses for a client

Professional liability insurance takes care of settlements, defense costs, and court judgments each time you face a claim for missed deadlines, violation of fair dealing, inaccurate advice, or negligence. 

You can find a professional liability policy for HVAC contractors that also provides a $25,000 cost reimbursement for legal actions taken against your business by OSHA and other professional regulatory bodies. 

Commercial HVAC Equipment Insurance 

Screwdrivers, pliers, drills, ladders, flashlights, headlamps, gauges, and other equipment you use for HVAC work are costly. 

Protect yourself against equipment loss or damage with HVAC contractors equipment insurance. As an HVAC contractor, you need at least $5,000-$15,000 of this HVAC installation insurance. 

HVAC contractors equipment insurance will pay the repair or replacement of the tools and equipment you use for work. Coverage applies when loss or damage is caused by:

• Theft

• Vandalism

• Malicious mischief

• Mysterious disappearance

• Impact

• Operator error

• Mechanical breakdown

• Electrical surge

• Electrical shorts

You must know that some insurance companies offer commercial HVAC equipment insurance as an optional coverage in general liability insurance. 

Commercial Auto Insurance for HVAC Contractors 

It’s impossible to work efficiently in the HVAC business without a pickup truck, cargo van, flatbed truck, or other commercial vehicles that are useful for transporting personnel, equipment, and HVAC units. 

Consider adding commercial auto insurance to your HVAC installer insurance plan. Commercial auto insurance offers the following shields for your business:

Auto Liability Coverage

Auto liability coverage is the primary protection included in the terms of commercial auto insurance. This will pay for the medical costs and indemnify the losses of victims if your HVAC business’s vehicle is liable for a vehicular accident.

Your HVAC service business must conform with state requirements. For example, if you’re in New York, your commercial auto insurance must have $25,000/$50,000/$10,000 auto liability coverage. 

Physical Damage Coverage 

Commercial auto insurance helps you pay for the cost of repairing or replacing the damaged parts of your commercial vehicle through its physical damage coverage. Physical damage coverage is sold as a collision policy or comprehensive policy. 

Collision physical damage coverage will cover parts repair or replacement after your commercial vehicle crashed into something. 

On the other hand, comprehensive physical damage coverage will cover parts repair or replacement if your commercial vehicle got damaged because of fire, theft, vandalism, hail, snow, and other covered perils. 

Rental Reimbursement Coverage

If you need to hire another vehicle because the one that your business owns is being repaired, rental reimbursement coverage will refund the expenditures for vehicle rental. Note that some insurance companies underwriting this will require you to rent from a specific vehicle rental company for coverage to take effect. 

Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage

Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage will provide the money you can use to cover costs if your HVAC business’s commercial vehicle got involved in a crash and the driver, who caused the accident, isn’t insured or doesn’t have enough insurance. 

Commercial Property Insurance for HVAC Contractors 

You need an HVAC insurance policy that will protect the office and the valuable inside. Commercial property insurance satisfies this purpose well. 

Commercial property insurance will allow you to account for repair or reconstruction costs by reimbursing losses if the office is damaged or destroyed by:

• Fire

• Theft

• Vandalism

• Malicious mischief

• Impact

• Aircraft

• Vehicle

• Winds

• Snow

• Hail

• Rain

• Sprinkler leakage

• Smoke

• Volcanic action

• Sinkhole collapse

• Civil commotion

• Riot

This type of HVAC insurance coverage will also reimburse the replacement cost of furniture, important documents, money, credit cards, computers, HVAC equipment, and other valuables that get damaged or lost due to the perils above. 

Remember that commercial property insurance doesn’t provide help if business property gets lost or damaged while in transit. Moreover, it doesn’t cover building damage or loss as caused by flood, earthquakes, mudslides, landslides, or war. 

This kind of business insurance hvac contractors might come with employee dishonesty coverage, which is useful for recovering losses in case an employee commits forgery, misrepresentation, embezzlement, theft, and other fraudulent crimes against your business. 

Inland Marine Insurance for HVAC Contractors 

As we said earlier, commercial property insurance doesn’t cover HVAC equipment that gets lost or damaged while in transit. Purchasing inland marine insurance will solve this problem. 

Inland marine insurance reimburses the value of HVAC equipment that gets lost or damaged while in transit. 

Coverage applies to items you already own or about to own. Inland marine insurance is available as a stand-alone policy. However, most insurance companies offer this as a commercial HVAC insurance floater.  

HVAC Contractor Workers Compensation Insurance

Similar to the employees of siding and plumbing businesses, the workers of HVAC businesses face a lot of perils. And so, the law requires a worker's compensation policy to be added to commercial heating and cooling insurance programs. 

When an employee of your HVAC service business sustains an occupational injury or disease, workers' compensation insurance takes care of these resulting expenses:

Medical Expenses

HVAC installation and maintenance is very perilous. Accidents are common. An employee can fall from a height, get electrocuted, or sustain burns. In connection, if a work-related accident happens and an employee gets injured, workers' compensation insurance will cover ambulance fees, surgeries, therapies, and other medical expenses. 

Hospitalization

By purchasing workers' compensation insurance, your business can cover the hospitalization of an employee if he or she experiences a severe work-related injury or disease and needs to be admitted for days, weeks, or months.

Medication

Workers' compensation insurance can be claimed so that your business can buy prescription medicines that the employee needs without incurring any losses. 

Rehabilitation

Any employee that needs rehab to recover/adapt from a permanent impairment or temporary impairment is covered by workers' compensation insurance. Particular costs covered are rehab equipment and therapist fees. 

Lost Wages

Workers' compensation insurance covers the lost wages of an employee of your HVAC business who can’t work due to a work-related injury or disease. This inclusion in commercial HVAC insurance provides a weekly allowance equal to two-thirds or 67% of the average weekly wage. 

Death Benefits

Accidents at work can result in death. Workers' compensation insurance covers the resulting costs on behalf of your HVAC business in such a situation. Particularly, it will pay for the dead employee’s funeral. Workers' compensation insurance will also give an allowance to dependents. 

Employer’s Liability Insurance for HVAC Contractors

Employer’s liability insurance covers settlements, defense costs, and court judgments if an employee holds your business liable for his or her occupational injury or disease. As an HVAC contractor, you need an employer’s liability insurance providing $500,000 coverage for each employee's injury by accident or disease. 

HVAC Business Insurance Cost

The HVAC business insurance cost differs for each policyholder. For one, pricing is heavily dependent on which insurance policy you decide to get. 

Each type of insurance for HVAC contractors has its own rate. This table shows the HVAC insurance cost based on this factor:

Expect to pay $37 per month or $444 per year for a $1 million general liability insurance policy. This HVAC liability insurance cost estimate assumes that you have 5 employees and generate $500,000-$750,000 revenue per year. 

To know more about HVAC contractor insurance cost, we suggest you take a look at this second table that shows the rates of the best companies:

Don’t forget to compare quotes to get a more accurate picture of your premiums. By doing so, you can see the actual cost of each carrier. Furthermore, you’ll see how their perks differ from one another. Click the “Get Quotes” button to start.