On a flooring job, the care, custody or control exclusion and its neighbors in general liability set aside two things while the work is under way: the particular part of the home or building your crew is working on, and a customer’s movable property in your crew’s hands. The rest of the property is a different question.
What the property damage exclusions take out of a flooring job
The exclusions sit in one paragraph of the general liability form, and together they draw a line around the work zone. Under the standard ISO form as commonly written, the Commercial General Liability Coverage Form (CG 00 01 04 13, the edition we read), exclusion 2.j of Coverage A carries the heading “Damage To Property”.
Its items reach property in several positions. One takes out “Property you own, rent, or occupy”, which is why your own plank, tile and tools were never a liability question. Another takes out “Property loaned to you”. The care, custody or control item takes out “Personal property in the care, custody or control of the insured”. Two more aim at the work itself: the particular part of real property your operations are on, and the particular part that must be redone because your work was wrong.
None of these items excludes the rest of the house. A cabinet face, a wall or the carpet in the hallway are other property, and the general liability page’s section on the install and after it walks through that difference. California’s state insurance regulator lists “care, custody, and control” among the major exclusions of a general liability policy in its Commercial Insurance Guide; the useful work for a flooring contractor is knowing which of these items a given loss touches.
The floor under your tools: the part you are working on
While the job is in progress, damage to the part of the building your crew is working on is usually outside general liability. Exclusion 2.j(5) of the standard form takes out “That particular part of real property on which you or any contractors or subcontractors working directly or indirectly on your behalf are performing operations, if the ‘property damage’ arises out of those operations”.
On a flooring job that part is often the substrate. A slab your grinder scars, a subfloor your sander gouges, a stair tread that splits as it is pried up, or a leveling pour that cures badly are each damage to the thing you were working on, caused by the work. The wording also reaches installers working on your behalf, so a crew of subcontracted installers does not move the damage onto your policy. Who counts as an insured on that policy is the subject of who is an insured on a flooring contractor’s policy.
The exclusion is tied to cause. The damage must arise out of the operations on that part. If a fastener your crew drives punctures a pipe and water reaches a finished basement below, the basement is not the part you were working on.
Where that particular part stops
The hard question is where the part ends, and the form does not draw the boundary for you. Is it the board you were setting, the floor of that room, the whole level, or the subfloor under all of it?
This language has not been read the same way everywhere. One reading treats it as narrowing wording that reaches only the distinct component the insured was working on, and a wood floor is a natural example of such a component. A broader reading, applied to similar wording in some non-standard policies, carries it to property beyond the work the contract described. The answer on a given claim can depend on the policy wording, the facts and the law of the state where the job sits.
Trim is where the question comes up most often on a flooring job. If your scope includes pulling and resetting baseboards, shoe molding, transitions or toe-kicks, they are arguably part of what you are performing operations on. Public specifications treat the edges of the floor as part of the flooring work: the federal resilient flooring guide specification tells the installer to “Cut and fit flooring around all permanent fixtures, built-in furniture and cabinets, pipes, and outlets.” Write the scope so it says plainly what your crew will touch.
Redoing the part you got wrong
The second work-area item reaches the floor itself when the installation was faulty. Exclusion 2.j(6) takes out “That particular part of any property that must be restored, repaired or replaced because ‘your work’ was incorrectly performed on it.”
On an open job that means the floor you are laying. A run of plank set over an uncured patch, tile set out of plane, or a carpet seam that must be cut out and redone is usually your own cost while the job is open, not the policy’s. The general liability page answers whether it pays to redo a floor your crew installed wrong, and this post does not repeat that answer.
What the item does not take out is damage that spreads. If a wrongly installed floor damages something you were not working on, that further damage is read on its own terms. A mistake that began as advice rather than workmanship is a different question again, taken up in professional liability for flooring contractors.
The customer’s furniture and belongings in your hands
A customer’s movable property becomes the care, custody or control question the moment your crew takes charge of it. Clearing a room is the classic case: a dresser carried to the garage, a piano rolled aside, a refrigerator pulled from its alcove so the floor can run under it.
Whether a given item was in your care or under your control is a fact question. A dresser your crew is carrying is in its hands; a china cabinet the homeowner left standing in the next room may not be. The policy wording and the facts of the claim decide each case, which is why careful contractors write down, before the job starts, who moves what.
Two neighboring questions have their own answers elsewhere. Scratching the existing floor in the next room while moving that dresser is damage to property you were not working on, and the residential page’s FAQ on the homeowner’s existing floor covers it. A ladder, dolly or shop vacuum a customer or general contractor lends the crew is “Property loaned to you” and sits outside general liability for the same reason the furniture does.
Real-World Scenario: A crew arrives to install engineered plank the homeowners bought themselves, stacked in boxes in the dining room. Clearing the kitchen, two installers carry the family’s hutch to the garage and a leg snaps. Later, prepping the hallway, the grinder catches a high spot and chips out a section of slab. Overnight a supply line weeps onto the stacked boxes and swells the bottom courses. On the call the next morning, none of the three losses is likely to read as a general liability claim under the standard form: the hutch was in the crew’s hands, the slab was the part being worked on, and the plank was customer property in the crew’s care. The contractor’s inland marine floater, written to include property of others, is where the plank goes first.
Customer-bought plank and tile before it goes down
Material a customer or general contractor buys and hands to you is someone else’s personal property in your care until it is installed. On the liability side that puts it inside the care, custody or control item, so it needs another policy.
A commercial property form does have a slot for it, tied to your own premises. The Building and Personal Property Coverage Form (CP 00 10 10 12, the edition we read) covers “Personal Property Of Others that is:” “In your care, custody or control” and “Located in or on the building or structure described in the Declarations” or nearby in the open. A pallet staged at a customer’s house is not at the described building; the property page’s FAQ on tile at a customer’s house explains where that leaves you.
California’s guide puts the need plainly: “Personal Property of Others refers to property that is in your business’s care, custody and control.” It adds that “Inland marine also covers the liability exposure for the damage or destruction that may occur to property in your care, custody, or control during transport.” An installation floater written to include property of others is the usual answer; the inland marine page’s section on plank, tile and carpet rolls explains how it works and when it ends.
When the contract makes the floor yours until acceptance
Many contracts put the in-progress floor and the delivered material on you regardless of what the policy says. That is the gap these exclusions open.
Federal construction contracts are explicit. The federal clause on protecting existing structures has the contractor “repair any damage to those facilities, including those that are the property of a third party” when the damage comes from a failure to take reasonable care. The federal clause on permits and responsibilities makes the contractor “responsible for all materials delivered and work performed until completion and acceptance of the entire work”. The resilient flooring guide specification adds its own rule: “From the time of installation until acceptance, protect flooring from damage as recommended by the flooring manufacturer.” It also says to “Remove and replace flooring which becomes damaged, loose, broken, or curled”.
Read together, those promises make the floor in progress and the stacked material yours to protect and replace, which is the property the general liability exclusions leave out. An installation floater, or the owner’s or general contractor’s builder’s risk coverage if it names you, may fill part of that gap. Indemnity promises raise their own questions, covered on the commercial page under the hold-harmless promise.
When the work-area exclusions stop applying
The particular-part items are rules for work in progress. The standard form treats “Work that has not yet been completed or abandoned.” as outside the completed operations hazard, and the item for redoing incorrect work does not apply to damage that falls inside that hazard once the work is complete.
After completion the question changes. Damage to your own finished work is read under the separate exclusion for your work, with its exception for work a subcontractor performed. The tile and stone page’s answer on resetting a cracked floor covers that ground, and occurrence vs claims-made policies for flooring contractors covers the timing of when a policy answers.
Leftovers do not make a job complete. The definition of the completed hazard leaves out “The existence of tools, uninstalled equipment or abandoned or unused materials”, a point the carpet installation page’s FAQ on leftover tack strip takes up.
Questions to ask before the next job
The cheapest fix is a question asked before the job starts. California’s guide says that “It is always important to read and understand all coverage exclusions; however, it is particularly critical in a liability policy.”
Start with the forms schedule on your general liability declarations and look for any endorsement that changes the property damage exclusions; reading flooring policy declarations walks through that page. Then compare the floater: does it include property of others, and does it follow material to a customer’s house? Finally, read the contract for who owns the floor until acceptance.
The flooring contractor insurance hub shows how the policies fit together. If your crews regularly handle customer furniture or customer-bought material, send us a typical scope of work and we will read it against your policies.