Painting Business Insurance & Painters Liability Insurance Quotes From $5

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Similar to working as an artisan or face painter, working as a painter comes with many risks. Painting insurance is a packaged insurance program that grants protection if you cause damage to a client’s house, spill paint, or have an employee fall from a height. This can also help cover losses if supplies you bought from the paint store get damaged or lost. Read this guide to know how this works, the cost of premiums, and the best companies.

Do Painters Need Insurance?

No one will consider hiring a painter without insurance. You need general liability insurance and workers compensation insurance. Moreover, you must have these to comply with the requirements that authorities imposed. 

In some states such as Oregon, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Utah, painters are required to have $300,000-$1 million general liability insurance for licensing purposes and before starting work. 

Workers' compensation insurance, on the other hand, is a requirement if you have one or more employees. 

Workers' compensation and general liability insurance are included in painting contractor insurance packages together with commercial property insurance, professional liability insurance, and more. 

The next section discusses how these policies work. 

General Liability Insurance for Painters

“A New York painting contractor was sued for $18.4 million after an employee tore a hole in Picasso’s Le Marin artwork”-source

General liability insurance protects you against claims for bodily injuries or property damage that clients and other third parties file. 

The general liability insurance for painters provides $1 million-$2 million minimum coverage for these costs:

• Medical treatment of the claimant

• Reimbursement for the damaged property of the claimant

• Defense costs

• Court judgments

Most underwriters offer painters liability insurance as a broad-form policy that provides these additional perks:

• $2 million for products and completed operations

• $1 million for slander, libel, and copyright infringement claims

• $300,000 rented premises liability coverage

• Non-owned/hired auto liability coverage

Professional Liability Insurance for Painters 

“A Cornell painting contractor was sued for $48,000 for not working on projects despite receiving pay upfront”-source

A comprehensively insured painter doesn't only rely on a general liability policy for protection. It’s also smart to include a professional liability policy in one’s insurance plan. 

Professional liability insurance provides a minimum of $250,000-$2 million when clients file a claim and accuse you of committing negligence, misrepresentation, or breach of contract. 

You can use the money from this painters insurance to cover settlements, defense costs, and court judgments. In fact, professional liability insurance might even provide a helping hand if licensing boards conduct an investigation or lawsuit against your business. 

Equipment Breakdown Insurance for Painters

Painter insurance programs offer a tools and equipment policy as a stand-alone coverage or as part of general liability insurance. 

Tools and equipment insurance provides $2,500-$5,000. You use this to cover repair or replacement costs if sprayers, ladders, lifts, drop cloths, rollers and brushes get lost or damaged because of:

• Fire

• Theft

• Vandalism

• Mechanical breakdown

• Electrical surge

• Electrical shorts

A downtime provision might be included in your tools and equipment insurance. This reimburses expenses if you need to rent another contractor’s equipment while yours is being replaced or repaired.

Commercial Property Insurance for Painting Contractors

There’s a lot of investment when running a painting business. It’s impossible to operate without an office, warehouse, and painting supplies. 

Consider getting commercial property insurance for painting company. This reimburses losses if the office gets damaged or destroyed because of:

• Fire

• Theft

• Vandalism

• Malicious mischief

• Sinkhole collapse

• Volcanic action

• Lightning

• Winds

• Hail

• Snow

• Impact

• Aircraft

• Vehicle

You can also use commercial property insurance to recover losses if painting supplies and equipment get damaged or lost because of fire, theft, vandalism, and other perils we mentioned above. 

Remember that you can’t use this insurance if damage or loss is caused by earthquakes, floods, mudslides, and landslides. 

Commercial property insurance might also provide these additional perks, depending on which carrier your painting contractors insurance program comes from:

• $5,000-$10,000 coverage for lost or damaged credit cards

• $1,500-$2,500 coverage for lost or damaged locks and keys

• $5,000-$10,000 for off-premises property

• $10,000 coverage for accounts receivable

Business Interruption Insurance for Painting Contractors

Temporary suspension of business operations is one of the worst things that can happen to you as a painting contractor. 

Your office can burn and you need to focus on rebuilding it before working again. 

Business might do better than usual and you need to make your office bigger to cater the increasing number of employees. 

Perhaps, you want to try working in another state. Because of this, you might have to close your business temporarily to relocate. 

Business interruption insurance can help in these scenarios. While your business is closed and not making income, this painting business insurance provides the money for recovering lost earnings and paying mortgage, loans, taxes, utility services, payroll, and other operational costs. 

You can get business interruption insurance as an add-on to commercial property insurance. It’s also possible to get this as a stand-alone policy that you can bundle with general liability and commercial property insurance in a business owner’s policy. 

Commercial Auto Insurance for Painting Contractors

Commercial auto insurance is a must if you own a cargo van or flatbed truck that’s used for reaching different project locations. 

By having commercial auto insurance, you get assurance that costs will be covered if something happens to your vehicle while it’s used for work. The functions of this insurance are as follows:

• Cover the medical treatment of persons who sustained property damage or bodily injuries in an accident your vehicle caused

• Account for parts repair or replacement expenses if your vehicle gets damaged by a collision, fire, theft, vandalism, and other covered perils

• Reimburse rental expenses by up to $90 per day capped at $1,500 max if you need to hire another contractor’s vehicle

• Cover the driver and the passenger’s medical treatment if they get involved in an auto accident caused by an uninsured/underinsured vehicle

Commercial auto insurance isn’t a primary inclusion in exterior and interior painting insurance programs. 

You can always choose to exclude this if you don’t use a vehicle for business purposes in the first place. 

Aside from policy bundle discounts, there are insurance companies that further decrease your premiums if you get commercial auto insurance. Examples are Progressive and GEICO.

Workers Compensation Insurance for Painting Contractors

Painting contractors like you need to get workers' compensation insurance as soon as there are one or more employees. 

Workers compensation insurance sees to it that you can provide adequate benefits if an employee experiences an occupational disease or injury. 

You can use this insurance to cover the following costs on behalf of a part-time or full-time employee:

• EMT services, first aid treatment, surgeries, and other costs for medical treatment

• Hospitalization

• Medication

• Rehabilitation and retraining

• Lost wages

• Funeral expenses and death benefits in case of death

Note that workers' compensation insurance also grants legal protection. 

When you have this insurance, employees can’t hold you liable for their work-related injury or disease. Note that this only applies if you’re in a state that grants an exclusive remedy to employers. 

Employer’s Liability Insurance for Painting Contractors 

Sometimes, an employer can still be sued by employees even if he or she has workers' compensation insurance. 

Because of this, painting contractor insurance programs allow you to get employer’s liability insurance. 

Employer’s liability insurance grants $500,000-$5 million worth of coverage. You can use it to cover defense costs if an employee blames your negligence or misconduct for a work-related injury or disease. 

Employment Practices Liability Insurance

Aside from workers' compensation and employer’s liability insurance, you might also need employer’s liability insurance. 

Employment practices liability insurance grants protection when employees file a claim and accuse you of committing:

• Discrimination

• Sexual harassment

• Exploitation

• Failure to promote

• Failure to pay wages

• Stealing a portion of their pay 

• Wrongful termination

• Other violations of employee rights

Employer’s liability insurance is rarely offered as part of workers' compensation insurance. This is commonly offered as a stand-alone policy. 

Employee Dishonesty Insurance for Painting Contractors 

It’s possible for you to incur losses due to the dishonest acts of employees. And so, it’s smart to get employee dishonesty insurance. 

Employee dishonesty insurance reimburses the money that you lost when an employee or a group of employee commits these against your business:

• Fraudulent refunds

• Unauthorized use of credit cards

• Misrepresentation of balance sheets and sales records

• Theft of money and other securities

• Social engineering

A $5,000-$10,000 worth of employee dishonesty insurance is included as part of commercial property insurance. 

However, it’s best to get employee dishonesty insurance if you wish to get $100,000-$1 million worth of coverage from it. 

Painters Insurance Cost

Expect to pay $44 per month or $528 per year for a $1 million general liability policy. This painter's insurance cost estimate assumes that you have 5 employees and make $500,000-$750,000 per year. Get the cheapest painters insurance by:

• Removing floaters if you don’t need them

• Having high deductibles

• Bundling two or more insurance policies

• Availing commercial auto insurance discounts for safe driving, having a commercial driver’s license, having safety driving devices installed on the commercial vehicle, etc. 

In connection, here’s a table showing the cost of the recommended carriers for getting comprehensive coverage:

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