Generally speaking, a contractor’s commercial general liability (“CGL”) policy is designed to cover personal injury or property damage caused by an accident resulting from the contractor’s work. The policy is not meant to be a guarantee of the contractor’s work and therefore does not cover damages to the work itself – instead, these are known as “business risk” damages. The concept that is inherent in every agreement for the performance of construction work is the risk that the work will be done improperly.
By selecting a particular contractor, the owner has to make a business judgment as to the qualifications and reliability of the selected contractor, and therefore assumes the risk that the work will be done incorrectly. If the work is done improperly and needs to be corrected, the contractor, and ultimately the owner, bears the burden of repairing or fixing that faulty work. The contractor’s insurance is not a performance bond guaranteeing the work; instead, the commercial general liability insurance is designed to cover any unexpected damages that arise from the contractor’s work, such as damage to other property caused by the faulty work.
Consider a roofer hired to install a new roof on a building. Once completed, the roof is the roofing contractor’s “work.” If the roofer installs the wrong type of shingles, but does everything else correctly, the only “damage” to speak of would be to the roof shingles themselves, i.e. the roofer’s work. The cost of replacing the shingles is therefore that “business risk” not covered by insurance.