Most contractors start with one policy from whoever picked up the phone. Then a second agent writes the auto, a bond shop handles the license bond, and the workers’ comp renews with a carrier nobody has spoken to in three years. It works until the company grows. Then the gaps, the double-coverage, and the renewal scramble start costing real money.
Here are the five signs a construction company has outgrown that setup, and what changes when one broker runs the whole program.
1. Your renewals land in four different months
General liability in March, auto in June, comp in October, umbrella whenever. Every renewal is its own fire drill, and nobody is looking at the program as a whole. Aligning renewal dates to a common date is the first thing a program broker does, because it lets every line be shopped and negotiated at once, with one set of applications and one set of loss runs.
2. Owners and GCs are sending back your certificates
At a certain project size the insurance exhibit in the contract stops being boilerplate. Owners ask for higher limits, additional insured on a primary and non-contributory basis, waivers of subrogation, completed-operations coverage that runs for years after the job, and sometimes a per-project aggregate. If your office is forwarding those requests to three different agents and hoping the endorsements exist, jobs get held up. A program is built so the endorsements are already on the policies and the certificate reflects them the moment it is issued.
3. You have subcontractors, and someone is chasing their paperwork
Once you carry subs, their insurance becomes your problem twice: on the jobsite if they are uninsured, and at your own workers’ comp audit, where an uninsured sub’s cost is added to your payroll. Growing contractors need certificate tracking that runs itself, not a spreadsheet the bookkeeper updates when there is time.
4. Your experience mod shows up in bid reviews
Many general contractors and public owners now screen bidders by experience modifier. A mod above 1.00 costs you on the comp premium and, worse, can cost you the invitation to bid. That number is a management problem, not just an insurance line item, and it takes a broker who reads loss runs to move it.
5. You have started bidding work that requires bonds
The first time a bid package requires a bid bond and a performance bond, contractors discover that surety is underwritten on the financials, not on a phone call. Getting bond capacity in place takes months of preparation. A broker who handles both the insurance program and the surety relationship can line that up before the bid, not after.
What a program review actually covers
- Every policy on one page: limits, carriers, endorsements, and renewal dates side by side, so overlaps and gaps are visible
- Contract requirements against actual coverage: we read the insurance exhibits from your two or three biggest current contracts and mark what your policies do and do not satisfy
- Workers’ comp class codes and payroll splits, which is the most common place growing contractors overpay
- Experience mod and loss runs, with a plan for claims still open
- Subcontractor compliance: how certificates are collected today and what your last audit charged you for
- Bonding: whether you need it in the next 12 months and what the surety will want to see
The output is a written program, not a quote. Pricing follows, and it usually improves once carriers see a contractor who runs a tight program, but the point is that nothing in your contracts is uncovered and nothing is paid for twice.
How Insureaze runs it
We only insure construction, and we only work in California. Every client gets a self-serve portal that issues certificates instantly, tracks subcontractor certificates, and keeps every policy document in one place, so your office is not waiting on an agent to send a COI. Behind that sits a team that reads contracts and shops A-Rated Carriers at every renewal.
If two or more of the signs above describe your company, request a program review. It takes about an hour of your controller’s time and costs nothing.
Common questions
When should a contractor move from an insurance agent to a broker-managed program?
When renewals are scattered across the year, owners are rejecting certificates over missing endorsements, subcontractor paperwork is being chased by hand, your experience mod is showing up in bid reviews, or you are starting to bid bonded work. Any two of those means the policies should be managed as one program with aligned renewal dates.
What does an insurance program review include?
Every policy laid out on one page with limits, endorsements and renewal dates; a comparison of your current contracts’ insurance requirements against the coverage you actually carry; a workers’ comp class code and payroll split check; a look at your experience mod and open claims; how subcontractor certificates are being collected; and whether you will need bonding in the next year.
Does a construction insurance broker cost more than an agent?
Brokers are paid by the carriers through commission built into the premium, the same way an agent is, so the review itself costs nothing. Aligning renewals and shopping every line at once usually lowers the total cost, and the bigger saving is avoiding uncovered contract requirements.