Three sentences describe this trade, and each one is a different coverage problem. You install machines that move under stored energy — that is the technician injury. You work in buildings you do not own — that is care, custody and control. And the equipment keeps cycling for twenty years after you leave — that is the completed-operations tail, and it is where the severity lives.
Look at the workers' comp classifications in this corridor and you find an oddity: the overhead-door and equipment-erection classes are carrying forklift service companies, industrial and mechanical contractors, sawmill and conveyor installers, lighting and sign companies and dock-equipment specialists — alongside actual door businesses. The class is functioning as a regional catch-all, and almost nobody in it is reading a page written for them.
So this is that page. It covers doors and gates specifically, and it covers the broader "we install and service equipment at a customer's premises" model, because insurance-wise those two things share a spine.
The classification language describes installation, erection, service and repair of machinery or equipment at a customer's premises. Read that again: it describes a delivery model, not a trade. That is exactly why it collects such different businesses.
If your operation is mostly mechanical systems rather than doors, read this alongside the HVAC and mechanical contractor page; if it is mostly electrical, the electrical contractor page.
| Line | What drives it on a door / equipment service account |
|---|---|
| Workers comp | Dominant line. Mid-range mechanical rate. Torsion springs and lift work decide it. |
| General liability | Low frequency, concentrated severity. Completed operations is the real exposure, not ongoing operations. |
| Commercial auto | Bigger than most owners expect. This is a route business — exposure is annual miles, not job sites. See covered auto symbols. |
| Umbrella | The gate and door severity claims exceed primary limits. Often the coverage that matters most. See umbrella. |
| Inland marine | Lifts, truck-mounted cranes, parts inventory on trucks. See contractors' equipment. |
This is the defining exposure and it has three parts.
An overhead door, a powered gate, a dock leveler or a truck restraint cycles thousands of times a year for twenty years under spring tension, hydraulic pressure or motor drive. A failure anywhere in that life is a crushing or falling-object injury, not a workmanship dispute. That is a different claim shape from almost every other trade.
The installer, the last servicer, the company holding the maintenance contract, the manufacturer and the property owner. Whether you are ultimately liable is a separate question from whether you incur defense costs — you will incur them.
Injuries arising from your completed work fall under the products and completed-operations hazard, which carries its own separate aggregate and triggers years after the revenue was earned. Three practical effects: letting coverage lapse when you sell or wind down leaves the tail bare; changing carriers without checking how the new form treats prior work can open a gap; and records matter more here than in most trades. On trigger mechanics, see occurrence vs. claims-made.
Read it that way before you read it as revenue. Without a contract, your obligation is generally limited to the specific repair you were called for. With a recurring inspection and maintenance agreement, you have undertaken an ongoing duty to inspect defined equipment on a defined schedule against a defined scope — and a failure to detect or report a condition that later injures someone is measured against that undertaking.
Carriers underwrite gates separately from doors, and they are right to. A sliding or swinging gate is a heavy mass driven by a motor across a path used by vehicles and people — at apartment communities, self-storage, schools and gated subdivisions where children are present. The catastrophic claim is an entrapment or crushing injury to a child or pedestrian, and it produces the largest verdicts in this trade by a wide margin.
Industry safety standards for gate operators address the required combination of entrapment protection — inherent reversing systems plus external devices such as photoelectric sensors and contact edges — along with gate construction, screening of openings, warning signage and classification of the installation by intended use. Three insurance points:
Standards, their editions and any state or local requirements are set by the relevant standards bodies and authorities and are amended — confirm current requirements with the relevant authority.
I'll read your class assignment, your maintenance agreement and your completed-operations position against what your crews actually do — no charge, no obligation.
Get a free risk review →A wound torsion spring holds enough energy to kill a technician, and it releases in a fraction of a second. It is the characteristic severe injury in door work, it is entirely procedural in origin, and it is one of the few exposures where an underwriter will move on training documentation alone. Have a written spring-handling procedure, name the winding bars and the method, and keep the training record. The same logic applies to hydraulic pressure on levelers and to any component under load during removal.
The rest of the comp picture is lift and ladder work at moderate height, overhead work on shoulders and necks, cuts and pinches, and the solo technician — who is frequently alone in someone else's building with nobody to find him. Lone-worker check-in practice is worth having and worth telling the underwriter about. On the recordkeeping side, see recordkeeping for small employers.
Damage to the customer's building and other property from your operations is generally what GL is built to answer for, subject to exclusions. Two categories usually are not covered:
Two more seams worth resolving on paper at renewal. Lift work — scissor and boom, owned or rented — raises which policy covers the machine and whether rented equipment loss of use is included; that is an inland marine question, not a GL one. And a service truck with a crane or hoist sits on the boundary between the commercial auto definition of a covered auto and the GL definition of mobile equipment, which decides which policy responds to a lifting incident.
If you also run a parts counter or a shop, the property and inventory side is worth a separate look, and any customer vehicle you take possession of raises garagekeepers questions. On public and school work requiring bonds, BettrBonds handles the surety side.
Comp is the dominant line, rated per hundred dollars of payroll in the middle of the mechanical trades — comparable to other equipment installation and service work, generally below roofing and structural steel, because the work is at moderate height on lifts rather than on open structure. GL is where the interesting money is: low frequency, unusually concentrated severity. Commercial auto is a bigger share than most contractors expect, because this is a route business measured in annual miles. Five variables move it: the split across new installation, service, and contracted maintenance; whether powered vehicular gates are in the mix; whether you fabricate or modify versus install as furnished; working height and lift equipment; and losses read claim by claim. Rates and rules are set by the applicable rating bureau and state authority and are amended — confirm with your carrier.
These classes function as one of the broadest catch-all buckets in the Southeast, because the language describes installation, service and repair of equipment at a customer's premises — a delivery model, not a trade. So it collects forklift service, industrial and mechanical contractors, sawmill and conveyor installers, lighting and sign companies and dock specialists alongside genuine door businesses. The pricing consequence is that different hazard levels are rated off one base, and the penalised ones have a real argument with supporting payroll records. The coverage consequence is worse: an underwriter reading equipment erection is picturing a hand truck, so if the work is structural, elevated, welding at height, crane work or gates, the carrier accepted a risk it was not shown. Assignments are set by the applicable rating bureau and state authority and are amended.
You will very often be named, and defense costs are separate from ultimate liability. Three parts: the equipment keeps cycling for decades under spring tension, hydraulic pressure or motor drive, so a failure is a crushing or falling-object injury rather than a workmanship dispute; the search for a defendant runs to whoever touched it last, naming installer, last servicer, maintenance-contract holder, manufacturer and owner; and injuries from completed work fall under products and completed operations, with its own separate aggregate, triggered years after the revenue. So lapsing coverage after a sale leaves the tail bare, changing carriers without checking prior-work treatment can open a gap, and a documented service history is frequently the difference between a defended claim and an indefensible one.
It creates a duty that did not exist. Without a contract your obligation is generally the specific repair you were called for; with a recurring agreement you have undertaken to inspect defined equipment on a defined schedule against a defined scope, and a failure to detect or report a condition is measured against that undertaking. Four implications: the scope clause is the exposure, so enumerate components and checks rather than promising safe operating condition; the documentation is the defense, so keep a signed written report per visit; declined repairs must be documented in writing and repeated at the next visit, not noted verbally once; and do not silently absorb duties that belong to the property owner without limitation-of-liability or indemnity language. Contract interpretation is governed by state law — have agreements reviewed by qualified counsel.
A heavy motor-driven mass crossing a path used by vehicles and people, often at apartments, self-storage, schools and gated subdivisions where children are present — and the catastrophic claim is entrapment or crushing injury to a child or pedestrian. Standards address entrapment protection through inherent reversing systems plus external devices such as photo-eyes and contact edges, along with gate construction, screening, signage and classification by intended use. Three points: installing or reconnecting a system with protection devices bypassed is the fact pattern behind the largest verdicts; servicing a legacy gate and leaving it in service can be argued as adopting its condition; and carriers ask because they price it, so state gate revenue share, standards followed, devices installed as standard practice, training, and documentation of any customer refusal. Standards and their editions are amended — confirm with the relevant authority.
Partly. Damage to the customer's building and other property from your operations is generally what GL responds to, subject to exclusions. Two categories usually are not: your own work, since the damage-to-your-work exclusion removes repairing or replacing the door, operator or leveler you installed that failed — what is covered is the resulting damage, typically the vehicle, forklift, inventory or person struck; and property in your care, custody or control, which standard forms address by exclusion, reaching the assembly you removed, the customer equipment you moved for access, and on some readings the unit you are working on. Two further seams: lifts, owned or rented, are an inland marine question including rented-equipment loss of use; and a service truck with a crane sits on the covered-auto versus mobile-equipment boundary, which decides which policy responds during a lift.
A submission that describes the operation rather than the classification. Revenue split across new installation, service and repair, and contracted maintenance, and within that across commercial and industrial doors, residential garage doors, high-speed and cold-storage doors, fire-rated rolling doors and drop testing, dock levelers, restraints and seals, powered gates and other equipment; whether you fabricate or modify versus install as furnished, since modification moves you toward products liability; gate revenue share with devices, standards and training; the torsion-spring procedure and training record; working height and lift equipment with values and loss-of-use; the fleet schedule with annual mileage and MVRs; a sample PM agreement and service ticket showing scope, inspection record and declined-repair documentation; the customer mix, since schools, apartments, hospitals, distribution centers and self-storage differ; subcontract cost split insured versus uninsured with certificates; and three to five years of losses with technician injuries separated from third-party injury claims involving moving equipment.
For general information only. Not legal advice and not a quote or contract of insurance. Policy forms, endorsements, sublimits and exclusions vary by carrier and form edition — damage to your work, damage to your product and impaired property exclusions, products and completed operations aggregates and prior work exclusions, care custody and control exclusions, additional insured wording and whether it extends to completed operations, contractual liability and insured contract definitions, covered auto symbols and the mobile equipment definition, inland marine contractors equipment and rented equipment loss of use terms, and umbrella schedules of underlying insurance must all be read as actually issued. Workers' compensation classification, payroll allocation, overtime treatment, officer inclusion and exclusion, and premium audit rules including the treatment of payments to uninsured subcontractors are set by the applicable rating bureau and state authority; fall protection, lift operation, lockout and stored energy control, and injury and illness recordkeeping requirements are set by federal and state authority; gate operator and vehicular gate safety requirements are set by the relevant standards bodies and by state and local authorities; fire door inspection and testing obligations are set by the applicable code and authority having jurisdiction; contract interpretation, limitation of liability and any statute of repose are set by state statute and case law. All are amended over time — confirm your obligations with the relevant agency and qualified counsel. Coverage subject to policy terms, conditions, exclusions and carrier appetite.