Insurance Journal Forums

Looing for markets for an electrical contractor, al work is interior commercial nothing over 2 or 3 stories. no new construciton or residential. Basic re-wiring and installaiton of lighting system. their payroll is about $1mil projected, with revenues of 6-7mil. Currently with Farmers and rates are going up. they will bring commercial auto and a $6 mil umbrella. Need 2mil/4mil on the BOP.

Thanks

There are any number of Preferred carriers (Allied, CNAInsurance) who write commercial contractors. Have you checked with your Direct writiers?

Victory has a good admitted program.

I found commercial led lighting for electrical contractor for commercial and home used.

If they have a good loss history then the preferreds are the way to go if you want a ture BOP (Travelers, CNA, Allied etc). You will still need to write the umbrella and comm auto seperate. You can access these through several wholesales if you don't have the diect appointment. Builders and Tradesmens has an excellently priced contractor program, but everything is monoline. They will write 1/2/2 mil cgl on the underlying, and then up to a 5 million seperate excess. They can also write the inland marine / contractors equipment and the commercial auto. These will all be seperate policies, but they do offer multi-policy discounts for some of them.

"Competing" with Farmers is usually like waiting for Godot. You'll get your best coverage with them but if you want to move for money, then you accept the possible consequences. I suggest that you get your client to sign off that he wants to buy price rather than coverage. If he's not willing to do that up front, then take the lead from there.

@mightyquinn, are you telling me that Farmers has better coverages than other preferred carriers? I have come up against their homeowners policy many times, and there is nothing special about this. I have taken a close look at their BOPS's/

JOEY52 - I don't know how you correlate Homeowners coverage with BOP coverage. There simply is no comparison. The Farmers Contractors BOP is highly competitive in coverages for some classes, including Electricians. The only problem is an 11/85 form or equivalent is needed. Farmers generally will not supply that. Be aware that Farmers will only go to $1,000,000 in payroll for the Contractor BOP. So, if you do get this guy to leave Farmers and a problem occurs and his payroll is too high, Farmers will not take them back and you may end up with a problem, especially if you move the guy from a preferred market to surplus lines, which is illegal in California. Be careful.

Commercial LED lighting save power energy, maintenance and cost and its natural fit for renovation for new
projects.

Moving a policy from preferred lines to Surplus lines is not illegal, IF you do it for Forms or Coverages, and not for price. If Farmers cannot offer the CG2010 11/85, and the E &S carriers will do so, then you move it.

Farmers is barely catching up on their BOPS now. They are also getting rate increases all the time. Other preferred carriers will do better. Also,Their EPLI does not cover Wage and Hour.

Good point about the Wage and Hour on the EPLI. That is a material coverage deficiency for Farmers. I am actually surprised they have not addressed that yet.

@JAM Scottsdale offers Wage and Hour endorsement. Almost all wholesalers have access to Scottsdale

Travelers Select will most likely write this risk. If you don't have access to them, we can access them for you. We are a wholesaler in CA handling both E&S and Admitted markets in most states.

If you need help placing it, give me a call at 775-722-3959.

Chris Garrison

RIC