Roof Cleaning Insurance: Cost & Quotes From $11

Roof cleaning is becoming a basic necessity for modern homes. While some homeowners are brave enough to take on the challenge of cleaning roofs themselves, others are clever enough to understand the risks associated with the DIY practice and prefer to have a roof cleaning business do the job. 

This is where you come in. As a roof cleaning business, you are responsible for your client and employees. Not just to deliver clean roofing but also to safeguard them from liability in case of work-related accidents. 

While you might go all out on the necessary safety gear to keep your workers and your client's property safe while on the job, fate has a weird way of turning this around. There's always a chance of something going wrong and finding yourself with a huge repair or medical bill. 

You need to take every precaution to protect your business from liabilities by taking out the necessary roof cleaning insurance. Even if you have a stellar track record of safety, having adequate roof cleaning business insurance will ensure that, on the worst of days, your business doesn't suffer from financial losses resulting in lawsuits filed by clients against you. The insurance also covers employee injuries caused by your company's equipment and cars, among other unprecedented accidents. 

What is Roof Cleaning Insurance?

In the United States, roof cleaning insurance is not just a luxury that saves your business from financial ruin but a fundamental requirement to operate the business.

A roof cleaning company should have various types of small business insurance to ensure it is adequately covered from liability from clients and employees.

Depending on the type of roof cleaning business insurance you take out, the insurance can cover damage to the property you're working on, treatment costs, employee dishonesty, and other exposures.

Why Do Roof Cleaning Businesses Need Insurance?

Every time you respond to a client's call to clean their roof, you expose your business to risks. No matter how well you plan, things can still go wrong while on the job. Although related businesses, such as carpet cleaners, house cleaners, pool cleaners, window cleaners, and gutter cleaners require insurance, a roof cleaning business might require more coverage. Some of the risks associated with roof cleaning include:

• Worker injury – The roof height and slope drastically increase the chances of worker injury. Workers may slip, fall, and get injured. Proper insurance will cover the costs for the recovery of the worker and the business.

• Injury to third parties - If someone gets injured by your cleaning equipment or staff, insurance can cover the damage and treatment. In roof cleaning, it's easy for something to roll off the roof and hit someone on the ground. If the person claims for their injury, your insurance will cover it.

• Property damage - Employees might damage a roof structure. In connection, insurance will help pay for this

Other reasons why you should get insurance for your roof cleaning business are because it can save you the cost of repairing damaged property and damage to your equipment. With adequate insurance, you can run your establishment with peace of mind.

Roof Cleaning Liability Insurance

Liability insurance pertains to an insurance policy that will protect you from third-party claims. This has many types. However, for roof cleaning businesses, insurance companies offer general liability insurance and professional liability insurance.

General Liability Insurance for Roof Cleaning Business

General liability insurance is a versatile type of insurance that every roof cleaning business should have. The coverage of this insurance includes the following:

• Property damage caused by your employees

• Court judgments requiring you to compensate an aggrieved client

• Legal defense costs

• Bodily harm to the client

Besides giving you peace of mind while your company works to keep roofs in the best condition, having general liability insurance can also encourage clients to work with you. In some cases, clients won't even hire you if you don't have general liability insurance.

General liability insurance doesn’t only protect you from claims made by clients. It will also take care of personal injury claims and property damage claims made by visitors, vendors, and other third parties.

In addition, roof cleaning insurance companies include optional policies in general liability insurance. These are:

• Advertising injury coverage

• Products and completed operations coverage

• Rented premises liability coverage

Your roof cleaning business might damage someone’s reputation or cause advertising injuries. Advertising injury coverage will cover costs if someone files a claim against your roof cleaning business for slander, libel, copyright infringement, false advertising, and other related exposures.

Products and completed operations coverage will cover expenses if your business’s completed cleaning service caused property damage or personal injuries to a client

If you’re renting a commercial space for your roof cleaning business, then rented premises liability coverage is useful. You’re responsible for reimbursing the losses of the property owner if his commercial space becomes damaged because of a fire. The job of rented premises liability coverage is to shoulder the expenses on your behalf.

Professional Liability Insurance for Roof Cleaning Business

Your business can commit mistakes and oversights while providing a service resulting in economic or financial loss to the client. Examples of mistakes and oversights in roof cleaning are aggressive cleaning, use of the wrong cleaning agent, using non-customized power washers, and more.

Clients can file a claim if your mistakes and oversights resulted in losses. And the insurance that will help you wrap things up without spending a single penny is professional liability insurance. Professional liability insurance will cover costs when your business committed or allegedly committed the following:

• Negligence

• Missed deadlines

• Violation of good faith and fair dealing

• Misrepresentation

• Other acts constituting errors and omissions

Other Types of Insurance Policies a Roof Cleaning Business Needs 

Although general liability insurance is versatile and covers most incidents, it is not sufficient to cater to all the business exposures. You will need other types of insurance to cater for other risks like damages caused by your commercial vehicle  and insurance for your commercial location. 

Some of the other types of roof cleaning business insurance you should consider include: 

Roof Cleaning Commercial Property Insurance

Having a commercial building is essential for your roof cleaning business. It’s where clients are admitted, staff are trained, and valuable business assets are stored such as documents, equipment etc. 

Imagine how devastating things would be if your commercial building and the contents inside become damaged or destroyed. And so, it’s smart if you also insure those using commercial property insurance to secure your business’s longevity.  Commercial property insurance has two primary functions:

• Provide reimbursement equal to the value of the commercial building destroyed by fire, extreme weather, and other covered perils

• Provide reimbursement equal to the value of building structures damaged by fire, extreme weather, theft, vandalism, and other covered perils

Commercial property insurance provides more protection for your business’s physical assets with its optional policies. Such optional policies are:

• Business equipment and tools coverage

• Stocks and contents coverage

Inside your roof cleaning business’ commercial building are equipment and tools such as helmets, hoses, ladders, pressure washers, surface cleaners, detergent tanks, chemical transfer pumps, and more. When these become damaged or destroyed due to theft, fire, vandalism, extreme weather, and other covered perils, business equipment and tools coverage will reimburse your losses. 

Aside from equipment and tools, there are important documents, computers, office furniture, and other valuable items in your roof cleaning business’s commercial building. This will get damaged or lost too. And in such a situation, stocks and contents coverage will provide money so that you can recover your investment. 

Replacement Cost vs Actual Cash Value 

There are two ways in which commercial property insurance will cover your losses - provide money based on the replacement cost or actual cash value of the property. 

If you go for actual cash value,  the reimbursements you’ll get from commercial property insurance will be equal to the depreciated worth of the covered property. This means that if your commercial building is worth $1 million and it has depreciated 10% upon the covered peril happened, you’ll only get $100,000. In other words, you’ll only recover a fraction of your investment. 

Going for replacement cost is the best though expensive. In a replacement cost, commercial property insurance will provide reimbursements not taking depreciation of the covered property into account. This means that if your building is $1 million, you’ll also get $1 million insurance money from commercial property insurance. 

Roof Cleaning Equipment in Transit Insurance

Your business’s equipment might get damaged or lost while on the way to a project site. Commercial property insurance doesn’t cover this. Instead, what provides protection is equipment in transit insurance. Equipment in transit insurance will cover costs if your business’s equipment got lost or damaged during the trip because of fire, theft, vandalism, malicious mischief, and other covered perils. 

Roof Cleaning Worker's Compensation Insurance 

Cleaning roofs is not without its risks. It's imperative to ensure your workers are well taken care of from any unexpected work-related accidents that might keep them from work for a significant period. It’s a must to include workers' compensation insurance in your tailored roof cleaners insurance. 

Workers' compensation insurance will cover medical treatment/procedure, hospitalization, rehabilitation, and lost income compensation if an employee becomes injured or sick because of work. 

Speaking of lost income compensation, your employee will receive a weekly allowance if he or she needs to take a break. This weekly allowance is two thirds or 67% of the average weekly wage. With that said, if your employee's weekly wage is $1,678, weekly allowance will be $1,124.26.

Your employee might die from a work-related injury or disease. Workers' compensation insurance also covers this by providing death benefits. Death benefits include but are not limited to:

• Funeral payments

• Allowance to dependents

How Common Are Work-Related Hazards in Roof Cleaning Businesses?

The Bureau of labor statistics estimates the incidence rate of accidents in roof cleaning businesses at 3.3. This means that per 100 employees, 33 might experience slip and fall injuries and other work-related hazards. 

Roof Cleaning Commercial Auto Insurance 

Commercial auto insurance applies to the vehicles registered to the business you use to provide roof cleaning services. In a nutshell, commercial auto insurance will cover exposures associated with the use of a vehicle for business purposes. The following are the protections you can get from commercial auto insurance:

• Auto liability coverage

• Physical damage coverage

• Medical payments/personal injury protection

Your roof cleaning business’s vehicle will cause an accident and injure third parties or destroy property and auto liability insurance will provide protection. How? Auto liability coverage will pay for the medical expenses of third parties injured and reimburse owners or custodians of damaged properties. 

You, the driver, as well as the passengers might incur injuries when a vehicular accident happens. And so, commercial auto insurance comes with medical payments/personal injury protection (depending on which is available in your state). Medical payments/personal injury protection will cover your medical treatment/procedure, hospitalization, medication, as well as the passenger’s and the driver’s. Coverage applies whether the accident is your vehicle’s fault or another vehicle’s fault. 

Physical damage coverage will take care of your commercial vehicle’s looks. This has two types - comprehensive and collision. Comprehensive physical damage coverage will take care of parts repair or replacement if fire, hail, storm, other acts of nature, vandalism, or other covered perils damaged your commercial vehicle. Collision physical damage coverage, on the other hand, will cover parts repair or replacement if your commercial vehicle collided with an object or another vehicle and sustained damage. 

Remember one thing though that, in most cases, collision and comprehensive physical damage coverage doesn’t cover replacement or repair of aftermarket vehicle parts.

Roof Cleaning Employee Dishonesty Insurance

Your employee might commit dishonest acts. This will result in heavy losses for your business. While it’s not common to get insurance for such an exposure, doing so will be very helpful. That’s why consider getting employee dishonesty insurance. Employee dishonesty insurance will cover your losses if an employee or group of employees commit:

• Fraud 

• Manipulation of financial documents

• Unauthorized use of business funds for personal gains

• Social engineering

• Destruction of money and securities

• Theft

Roof Cleaning Commercial Umbrella Insurance 

Commercial umbrella insurance is a safety net that guarantees your business will not pay out of pocket for compensation if your liability coverage gets exhausted in a settlement. This type of insurance steps up to cover the difference in your liability insurance which could be a substantial cost that could bring your business to a standstill. 

Business Owner’s Policy for Roof Cleaning Business

Instead of purchasing general liability insurance and commercial property insurance,  going for a Business Owner's Policy is more economical and offers the same level of coverage with numerous added benefits. Depending on where you get it, a business owner’s policy will include workers compensation insurance, professional liability insurance, or data breach protection and commercial property insurance, among other available insurance products.

Roof Cleaning Insurance Cost 

Your roof cleaning business insurance and roof cleaner insurance costs will vary. The commercial insurance provider you select will also determine the cost of your insurance premium. Typically, the variables that will affect your roof cleaning insurance cost include: 

• Your business's location 

• Number of employees 

• Your coverage limit and deductibles 

• Coverage length

• Value of equipment and tools 

• The type of insurance you take 

• Average business income

The premiums for roof cleaning businesses are $100 per month and about $1,200 per year for a $1 million general liability insurance.

A general liability policy with a $2 million aggregate limit is the most common for roof cleaning businesses. As the business grows, you can increase your policy limits to maintain adequate coverage as the risks increase. 

Additionally, to get more idea about the pricing, here’s a table showing the rates of the best roof cleaning insurance companies: