You finish a commercial panel upgrade, get paid, and move on to the next job. Six months later, a fire breaks out at that building and the property owner’s attorney is pointing at your wiring. Your first instinct is to call your insurance carrier. But what if the claim gets denied because of an exclusion you didn’t know was in your policy? This happens to Ohio electricians more often than it should.
The “Your Work” Exclusion: What It Actually Means
Standard commercial general liability (CGL) policies include what’s called the “Your Work” exclusion. In plain terms, this means your GL policy will not pay to repair or redo your own faulty workmanship. The policy is designed to cover bodily injury and property damage you cause to others, not the cost of fixing your own mistakes.
Here’s how the line gets drawn in practice:
- Covered: A customer trips over your extension cord and breaks a wrist. Your GL responds.
- Covered: Your installation causes water damage to a client’s ceiling. Your GL responds for the ceiling damage.
- Not covered: The wiring you installed was faulty and needs to be ripped out and redone. That cost falls on you.
- Not covered: A miswired circuit damages a restaurant’s refrigerator and causes spoiled inventory. The GL may cover the physical damage to the fridge, but fixing the circuit itself is excluded.
The Ohio Supreme Court reinforced this in its Custom Agri Systems ruling. The court held that defective construction claims arising from an insured’s own work are not “property damage” caused by an “occurrence” under a standard CGL policy. If your defective roof lets water in, the water damage to the building interior may be covered, but repairing the roof itself is not. The same logic applies to electrical work.
The Completed Operations Gap Most Electricians Don’t Think About
Here’s where things get expensive. Even if your general liability policy includes completed operations coverage, there are still limits on what it will pay after a job is finished.
Completed operations coverage is meant to protect you from claims that surface after a project wraps up. Without it, a fire traced back to faulty wiring six months after installation would not be covered at all. With it, resulting damage to the client’s property may be covered. But the cost to fix your wiring? Still excluded.
A few things Northeast Ohio electricians should confirm before their next renewal:
- Does your policy explicitly include completed operations coverage, or was it left off to reduce premium?
- What is the retroactive date on your policy? Gaps in coverage years can leave older jobs exposed.
- Are your subcontractors listed, or does the “Your Work” exclusion extend to their mistakes as well?
Ohio requires licensed electrical contractors to carry a minimum of $500,000 per occurrence in general liability coverage. Some municipalities require $1 million. That minimum gets you licensed, but it does not mean you are protected from every scenario a job site can throw at you.
Closing the Gap: Endorsements and E&O Coverage
The good news is that the faulty workmanship gap is not a dead end. There are a couple of practical ways to address it.
Faulty Workmanship Endorsements: Some carriers now offer endorsements that specifically cover the cost to repair or replace work that was incorrectly performed. This is increasingly common for specialty trades including electricians, plumbers, and HVAC contractors. It plugs the hole that a standard CGL leaves open and is worth asking about at renewal.
Contractor Errors and Omissions (E&O) Insurance: A contractor E&O policy is designed to cover financial losses that result from mistakes in your work, including the cost to fix the work itself. Unlike professional liability policies written for consultants or designers, contractor E&O policies are structured around trade work. If a miswired circuit forces a restaurant to close for two days, a contractor E&O policy can cover lost income claims that a GL policy will not touch.
Umbrella Coverage: For any electrical project exceeding $250,000 in contract value, or any work in occupied multi-tenant buildings, a commercial umbrella should be part of the conversation. A $1 million to $2 million umbrella on top of your underlying GL is becoming standard practice for larger commercial jobs in Cleveland and the surrounding area.
The Bottom Line
- Your GL policy will not pay to fix your own faulty work. Ohio law, confirmed by the state Supreme Court, treats defective workmanship as a business risk, not an insurable occurrence under a standard CGL.
- Completed operations coverage is not optional. If you do not have it, any claim that surfaces after a job closes could leave you completely unprotected.
- Ask your agent specifically about faulty workmanship endorsements and contractor E&O. If you have never had this conversation, there is a real chance your policy has gaps you are not aware of.
If you are an electrician or electrical contractor in Northeast Ohio and you are not sure what your current policy covers, now is a good time to find out. Andrew Betts at UPIC Commercial works specifically with contractors across the region and can walk through your policy language with you, not just the premium. Get a quote or ask a question at upiccommercial.com/quote or call (216) 714-3377.