Damage to machinery in your care
Rigging, hoisting, and setting high-value equipment creates care, custody, and control exposure if a load is dropped or mishandled.
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Machinery Or Equipment Erection Contractor Insurance
The machine you position may be essential to a customer's production line. Cover for the machinery in your care needs its own review, separate from damage to the factory and any promised restart date.
The Southern Agency can help you align your rigging and installation risks with appropriate insurance coverage.
Industry overview
You maneuver, level, and anchor heavy industrial equipment like turbines and conveyors inside active facilities. A single slipped rigging point or dropped load can destroy valuable machinery, halt a client’s production, and cause severe on-site damage.
The Southern Agency can help you review your lifting and commissioning operations to select appropriate insurance, such as riggers’ liability for the equipment you hold in custody during a move. For example, we can clarify how your coverage distinguishes between damage to a turbine you are installing and damage to the factory building itself.
Risks worth discussing
Client production downtime
An incident inside an operating plant can halt a client's production line, leading to large business-interruption and consequential claims.
Damage to facility and adjacent equipment
Moving heavy loads through tight spaces can strike walls, floors, utilities, or neighboring machines at the customer site.
Rigging and lifting injuries
Workers handling chains, slings, jacks, and skates face crush, struck-by, and pinch injuries during heavy lifts.
Faulty installation or commissioning
Misalignment or improper connection can cause equipment to fail after startup, prompting rework and liability claims.
Owned rigging gear and tooling loss
Gantries, jacks, slings, skates, and precision tools can be damaged or stolen in transit and at job sites.
Coverage worth discussing
Policies to ask about. Which ones fit depends on your operations, your contracts, and the carrier’s forms.
Ready to compare options?
Get a quote for Machinery or Equipment Erection Contractor Or call 1-800-777-1TSA- General Liability InsuranceMay help with third-party bodily injury and damage to a client’s facility during erection work.
- Inland Marine InsuranceMay help with customer machinery and interests, though coverage for testing, breakdown, and loss of use requires specific terms.
- Workers Compensation InsuranceMay provide medical and wage benefits for staff exposed to crush and lifting hazards during heavy lifts.
- Business Auto InsuranceMay help cover vehicles and trailers used to transport rigging gear and cranes between sites.
- Umbrella / Excess Liability InsuranceMay provide additional limits for liability, though this does not automatically cover first-party machinery or production downtime.
- Surety BondsMay help with performance or payment obligations depending on the contract terms and surety approval.
Situations to think through
These hypothetical examples are not agency claim results. Whether a loss is covered depends on the facts, policy terms, and applicable exclusions.
Hypothetical: Dropped press during a lift
A rigging point fails and the press is damaged while being set. Identify the actual load/stage, customer interest, rigging duties, and accepted riggers/installation terms. Review press damage separately from gear, reinstalling work, and production downtime; an installation label does not settle every interest.
Hypothetical: Struck adjacent equipment
A moving load strikes a neighboring machine. Identify the machine being moved, adjacent equipment, and any custody/plant responsibilities, then review actual work-property and resulting-loss-of-use terms. Not every idle-line or contractual shutdown cost follows automatically.
Hypothetical: Rigger injured on a heavy lift
A worker's hand is crushed during a setting operation. Workers' compensation may respond to medical and wage costs, subject to applicable state requirements.
Before you talk to an agent
Questions to raise
- Describe machinery types/values, lifts/crew count, owned/hired cranes/gantries/jacks and actual moving, storage, alignment, anchoring, connection, and commissioning services.
- Map each customer machine from pickup/transit/storage through lifting, installation, testing/startup, and acceptance. Verify actual insured interests, stages, limits, and termination, not a generic installation-floater label.
- Separate liability for a customer load, first-party installation/property interests, owned/rented gear, and adjacent plant equipment; riggers liability and installation coverage are not automatically identical or unlimited.
- Bring load/rigging and site/ground/access allocations, equipment condition, alignment/test, and handoff records. The actual plant's live/idle status and production dependencies matter.
- Review actual testing/breakdown, processing, faulty work, professional, and work-property terms. Re-aligning/reinstalling machinery or meeting promised output differs from resulting property damage.
- Evaluate actual loss-of-use, delay, contract-penalty and consequential-loss terms separately; a high property limit or umbrella does not automatically insure production revenue or every missed startup.
- Obtain actual industrial contract, rental/indemnity and performance/payment bond obligations and additional-insured/excess terms, subject to actual surety and insurance acceptance.
What the agent conversation looks like
Start with the work you do and the questions your current policies leave unanswered. Carrier options depend on your location, risk, and underwriting. Explore our approach.
- ListenReview your operations, current coverage, and past claims.
- AssessIdentify potential hazards and discuss ways to reduce risk.
- BuildDiscuss policy and carrier options, premium costs, and audits.
- SupportReview changes and help you plan ahead as your needs develop.
Questions owners ask
What is an installation floater and why does it matter here?
It covers stated installation interests/stages under its actual terms, not every item merely in your custody. Review pickup/storage/transit, lifting, testing/startup, and acceptance/termination, and distinguish riggers liability from property cover and owned gear.
Does general liability cover machinery in my custody?
Standard GL can exclude personal property of others in your care, custody or control. Review actual riggers endorsements and installation/property terms rather than assume some part of the load is automatically insured.
Why is umbrella coverage important for this trade?
Compare accepted operations, custody/work-property terms, and underlying attachment with actual liability exposures. Extra liability limit does not itself add first-party load insurance or every loss-of-use, penalty or plant-delay demand.
Are my cranes and rigging gear covered in transit?
Owned cranes, gantries, and rigging tools are commonly scheduled on inland marine, which may cover them in transit and at sites, subject to listed limits and policy terms.
Do industrial clients require bonds?
Larger erection contracts sometimes require performance and payment bonds. Surety capacity depends on the contractor's financials and experience and is subject to underwriting.
What if equipment fails after I commission it?
Identify actual cause, damaged interests, test/acceptance stage, and services. Re-alignment/reinstallation and output promises differ from resulting harm; review actual testing/breakdown, work-property, professional, and completed-work terms.
Talk through your machinery or equipment erection contractor coverage
Bring your questions, current policies, and relevant contracts. An agent can review coverage terms, exclusions, and the information carriers ask for, then explain the options available to you.