Contractor's Equipment Insurance

The right equipment needs the right inland marine insurance.

Your customers need specific equipment to do their jobs the right way. And they need the right insurance coverage to protect the tools of their trade. An RLI inland marine policy offers the best coverage for contractor’s equipment, as well as outstanding standard inland marine protection and additional coverages

Coverage

We usually write coverage on a scheduled blanket basis. We will consider the equipment schedule as the best estimate of both the insurable value for each item listed and the maximum amount payable. Each anniversary requires an updated schedule submission, and we adjust the prior year’s premium accordingly. In addition to insuring your customers’ equipment:

• We also cover equipment leased, rented or loaned to your customers.
• We ask for a separate rate and deposit premium, with annual premium adjustment based on the insured’s annual expenditures.
• As an option, we offer coverage for rental or lease payments that continue while repairs are being made to damaged leased equipment.

Additional Coverage Details

• We can also cover equipment leased to others by your customers, with a separate rate and deposit required. Annual adjustment is based on your customer’s gross revenues generated by leasing operations.
• ACV valuation is standard. While replacement cost valuation is available as an option, special underwriting considerations must be taken into account, including the age of the equipment and how readily new equipment can be purchased from local dealerships. Though normally it is necessary to write coverage for equipment over 10 years old on an ACV basis, we waive depreciation on partial losses that do not exceed 20 percent of the limit of the covered property.
• We provide broad “all risk” coverage in a basic policy without “boom” or “weight of load” exclusions — a feature not always available from other carriers. Waterborne coverage is built-in, as are substantial sub-limits for construction trailers, employees’ tools, and spare parts and fuel.

Additional Benefits

Experienced underwriting — Our underwriters are among the most experienced in the industry, which allows us to tailor coverage to your specific needs.
Commitment to loss control — RLI Marine claims experts are committed to helping you reduce loss costs with proven risk control methods.
Financial strength — RLI is rated “A+” (Superior) by A.M. Best and “A” (Strong) by Standard & Poor’s.

Appetite and Coverage Amounts

We consider this a highly desirable class of business. We will consider writing most types of contracting operations, but favor earth movers, pavers, and general contractors who only use cranes on a limited basis. Frequent and heavy crane usage requires completion of a crane questionnaire and more detailed underwriting. Logging, oil well drilling, tunneling, and underground mining are all types of risks we generally will not consider writing.

Our focus is limited to risks where values at any one location do not exceed $10MM, with the value of a single item does not exceed $1.5MM. While the maximums for standard coverage extensions vary for each risk, the per item limits for waterborne equipment and equipment leased or rented from others usually do not exceed $500,000 and $1MM, respectively. Each risk is individually underwritten on its own merits.

Target Customers 

We reserve our best rates and policy terms for customers who are safety-oriented, closely adhere to published maintenance guidelines, and take all possible steps to protect their equipment from theft and vandalism. We also favor those general and specialty contractors who have a successful track record in the geographical area where they operate and a solid reputation for completing their work on time. We avoid risks where there is evidence of prolonged exposure in CAT-prone areas, i.e., situated in high hazard earthquake areas, flood zones A or V, or in South Atlantic or Gulf coastal areas.