Your Policy Covers You on the Job. What About Six Months After?

Most contractors think about insurance while the job is active. They think about it when a certificate is required, when a claim happens on site, when a GC asks for proof of coverage.

Almost none think about what happens six months, a year, or five years after the work is done. And that is the part nobody tells you: the work you finished is still your exposure long after you have packed up and moved on.

What Completed Operations Coverage Actually Is

Completed operations is the part of your commercial general liability policy that covers claims arising from your work after it is finished and you have left the site. It is built into the standard CGL policy, which means you very likely already have it.

It covers bodily injury and property damage that your finished work causes to others. It is a distinct exposure category from ongoing operations, which covers you while you are actively working on a job. Ongoing operations protects you during the work. Completed operations protects you after.

What It Does Not Cover

Here is the distinction that confuses most contractors. Completed operations does not pay to repair or replace your own faulty work. It pays for the harm that faulty work causes to other property or people.

Say you install a floor and a year later it fails, and the failure causes water damage to the property below. Your completed operations coverage pays for the water damage to that other property. It does not pay to rip out and redo your floor.

This is called the "damage to your work" exclusion. The policy covers the harm your work caused to others, not the cost to fix your own work. Knowing that line matters before you assume you are fully covered.

How Long Your Liability Actually Lasts

This is the part that surprises people. In most states, the statute of repose allows someone to file a construction defect claim up to 10 years after the project is completed. Some states allow even longer for certain latent bodily injury claims.

Your exposure does not end when the invoice is paid. It can run for a decade. A roof you installed in 2020 that fails in 2028 can still come back to you.

The Cancellation Trap

Here is the trap that catches contractors who retire, switch carriers, or let a policy lapse. Completed operations coverage generally has to be active when the claim is filed, not when the work was done.

Consider this scenario. A contractor builds a house in 2022. He retires and cancels his policy in 2023. In 2024, a floor fails and injures someone. The claim happens after the policy is gone. There may be no coverage at all.

Canceling your policy can erase protection for every job you have ever done. If you are thinking about retiring, switching carriers, or letting a policy lapse, this is the conversation to have before you cancel anything.

Three Things to Check on Your Completed Operations Coverage

First, confirm your policy includes products-completed operations coverage and look at the separate aggregate limit. It is distinct from your general aggregate, and it can be exhausted by a single large claim.

Second, if a contract requires you to maintain completed operations coverage for a set period after the job, often one to five years, confirm you are actually keeping it active that long. Failing to do so can trigger a breach of contract claim.

Third, before you ever cancel, retire, or switch carriers, ask your agent what happens to coverage for your past work. Do not cancel blind.

If you have been in business a while and have never looked at your completed operations coverage, or if you are thinking about retiring or switching carriers, that is worth a 15-minute conversation before you make any changes.

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