Landscaping and lawn care insurance in Spokane

Snow removal changes your policy

This is the one that catches Spokane landscapers out. Snow and ice work carries a slip-and-fall exposure that has nothing to do with mowing, and many general liability policies either exclude it or rate it separately. If you plough in winter and did not tell your agent, you may be uninsured for the half of the year with the highest claim frequency.

Carriers also want to see a written service log — when you were on site, what you applied, what the conditions were. In a slip-and-fall claim the log is often the entire defence, and the contractors who keep one settle for less.

Equipment is the asset nobody insures properly

A mid-size crew can have $60,000 of mowers, trimmers, blowers and a trailer sitting in a yard overnight. Commercial auto covers the truck; commercial property covers what is inside a building. Equipment on a trailer or at a job site needs an inland marine or contractor’s equipment floater, scheduled properly with current values. Theft from landscaping operations is common and the recoveries are poor without it.

Chemical application

Applying pesticides or herbicides commercially in Washington requires licensing through the Department of Agriculture, and the liability that comes with it is specific — drift onto a neighbouring property, over-application that kills established plantings, or a treatment applied before rain. Some general liability forms exclude chemical application altogether. Check rather than assume.