Who is an insured on a flooring contractor’s liability policy starts with one line: the business named on the declarations. The general liability form then adds people by role, such as spouse, partner, member, officer, employee or volunteer, each only within that role. Independent installers, temps and a second company are not on that list by default.
The name on the declarations comes first
Every other answer depends on the name printed as the named insured. Under the standard ISO form as commonly written, the Commercial General Liability Coverage Form (CG 00 01 04 13, the edition we read), the opening lines say: “Throughout this policy the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ refer to the Named Insured shown in the Declarations, and any other person or organization qualifying as a Named Insured under this policy.” The word insured is defined separately: “The word ‘insured’ means any person or organization qualifying as such under Section II – Who Is An Insured.”
So there are two circles: the business itself, and everyone Section II adds around it. The policy has the “right and duty to defend the insured” against a suit seeking covered damages, so being inside the circle matters when a suit names you.
The name also has to be right. In accepting the policy you agree that “The statements in the Declarations are accurate and complete”. A flooring business that became an LLC, added a trade name or bought out a partner should check that the declarations still describe the business that signs the contracts. Reading a flooring policy’s declarations walks through the rest of that page.
Owners and building departments check it. The Pikes Peak Regional Building Department’s insurance requirements for contractors say: “The name of the insured must match the name of the company on your application/license/registration EXACTLY.” A California county’s contract template puts it in one line: “The named insured must match the name of the entity with whom we are contracting.”
What your business form adds: spouse, partners, members, officers
The first paragraph of Section II decides who comes with the business, depending on how the declarations describe you. Each rule ties a person to a role.
If you are named as an individual, the form says: “An individual, you and your spouse are insureds, but only with respect to the conduct of a business of which you are the sole owner.” For an owner-operator, that keeps a spouse who answers the phones or runs the books inside the circle for that business only.
For a partnership or joint venture, the partners and members and their spouses are insureds, “but only with respect to the conduct of your business.” The Internal Revenue Service describes a partnership in plain terms: “A partnership is the relationship between two or more people to do trade or business.”
Many flooring businesses are limited liability companies. The IRS page on the limited liability company notes that “Owners of an LLC are called members.” and that “Most states also permit ‘single-member’ LLCs, those having only one owner.” The form’s rule for an LLC reads: “Your members are also insureds, but only with respect to the conduct of your business. Your managers are insureds, but only with respect to their duties as your managers.”
For a corporation, executive officers and directors are insureds for their duties as officers or directors, and “Your stockholders are also insureds, but only with respect to their liability as stockholders.”
Employees and volunteer workers while they are on the job
Your crew is added in the next paragraph. Under the standard form, the policy names as insureds your volunteer workers while doing work for the business, and your employees “but only for acts within the scope of their employment by you or while performing duties related to the conduct of your business.” An installer on payroll who scratches a customer’s door frame while carrying in plank is an insured for that claim; the same installer moving a friend on a weekend is not.
Two terms do the work here. An employee “includes a ‘leased worker’” and “does not include a ‘temporary worker’”, and both terms carry their own definitions. A volunteer worker is “a person who is not your ‘employee’, and who donates his or her work and acts at the direction of and within the scope of duties determined by you”. A family member on payroll is an employee; an unpaid relative who helps at your direction may be a volunteer worker, if nobody pays them for the work. The medical payments article explains how that unpaid helper is treated on the medical side of the policy.
Being an insured means the policy can defend that person, not only the business, when a covered suit names them. The general liability page explains what the policy answers for and what it hands to other lines.
Where an employee stops being an insured
The form then takes some claims back: “However, none of these ‘employees’ or ‘volunteer workers’ are insureds for:” a list of situations, two of which matter on a flooring crew.
The first is injury inside the business. An employee is not an insured for bodily injury to the owner, partners or members, or “to a co-‘employee’ while in the course of his or her employment”, and the rule reaches the co-worker’s family too. Separately, the employer’s liability exclusion removes injury to an employee of the insured, and “This exclusion applies whether the insured may be liable as an employer or in any other capacity”. If one installer’s nailer injures another, the injured worker’s path is usually the workers compensation policy, not a general liability suit against the co-worker.
The second is damage to the business’s own property. An employee is not an insured for property damage to property owned, occupied or used by, rented to, or in the care, custody or control of “you, any of your ‘employees’, ‘volunteer workers’, any partner or member (if you are a partnership or joint venture), or any member (if you are a limited liability company).” A crew member who backs into the company van or breaks a co-worker’s saw is outside the policy for that loss. Damage to the customer’s floor or furniture in your hands is a different exclusion, covered in the care, custody or control exclusion for flooring contractors.
Leased workers, temps and installers you pay by the job
The employee definition matters for a business that staffs up for a busy season. A leased worker is “a person leased to you by a labor leasing firm under an agreement between you and the labor leasing firm, to perform duties related to the conduct of your business.” So a leased worker is an insured within the scope of the work.
A temporary worker is the opposite. The form defines one as “a person who is furnished to you to substitute for a permanent ‘employee’ on leave” or to meet a seasonal or short-term workload, and it says the employee definition does not include a temporary worker. So an agency temp is outside the employee paragraph.
Section II has no paragraph for independent contractors at all. A 1099 installer you pay by the job is not an insured on your policy by that status, even though your business still answers for the installer’s work as part of yours. The same county’s contract insurance template requires the contractor to “maintain and require all of its subcontractors and other agents to maintain the insurance listed below”. Whether an installer is legally an employee is for the law and the facts to decide; the general liability and workers compensation pages take that up, and the flooring contractor insurance hub shows how the lines fit together.
A second company, a new company or a joint venture
The policy does not follow the owner into every business the owner touches. Where the declarations name you as an individual, the protection reaches only “a business of which you are the sole owner”, so a tile-supply company or a rental-property company held in a separate entity sits outside it.
A newly formed or acquired company gets limited help: “Any organization you newly acquire or form, other than a partnership, joint venture or limited liability company, and over which you maintain ownership or majority interest, will qualify as a Named Insured if there is no other similar insurance available to that organization.” That status lasts only for a period the policy states and does not reach injury, damage or offenses from before. Because LLCs are carved out, a new LLC formed for commercial work gets nothing automatic here.
Joint ventures are the sharpest edge. The closing paragraph of Section II reads: “No person or organization is an insured with respect to the conduct of any current or past partnership, joint venture or limited liability company that is not shown as a Named Insured in the Declarations.” Two firms teaming on a commercial bid may have formed a joint venture without calling it one; the agreement and the facts decide.
Real-World Scenario: An owner-operator who has always installed under her own name agrees to team with another installer on a school renovation, and the two sign the subcontract through a new company they formed for the job. Midway through, a teacher trips over a stack of underlayment in a corridor and sues the new company and both owners. Each owner’s policy names only that owner’s own business. Each insurer first asks whether the new company was ever shown as a named insured, and neither declarations page lists it.
Stand-ins the form names, and how each insured is treated
A few people become insureds only in narrow situations. The form adds “Any person (other than your ‘employee’ or ‘volunteer worker’), or any organization while acting as your real estate manager.”
Two more apply if a sole owner dies with jobs half finished. Anyone with proper temporary custody of the business’s property is an insured for its maintenance or use “Until your legal representative has been appointed.” Then the legal representative becomes an insured for those duties, and “That representative will have all your rights and duties under this Coverage Part.” The occurrence versus claims-made article covers what happens to finished work when a business closes.
Once someone is inside the circle, the policy treats each insured separately. The separation of insureds condition says the insurance applies “As if each Named Insured were the only Named Insured” and “Separately to each insured against whom claim is made or ‘suit’ is brought.” A county’s guide to general liability explains that this allows “coverage for suits brought by one insured against another insured.” The limits are the exception. The form’s limits “fix the most we will pay regardless of the number of” insureds, among other things, and the same guide adds: “The more insureds and additional insureds, the lower the amount of coverage available to each one.” The umbrella liability page covers limits above that.
Additional insureds enter through a different door
An additional insured is not one of the people Section II lists on its own. It is added by endorsement. The standard owners, lessees or contractors endorsement (CG 20 10 04 13, the edition we read) says that “Section II – Who Is An Insured is amended to include as an additional insured the person(s) or organization(s) shown in the Schedule”. New York’s insurance regulator, in a legal opinion on certificates of insurance, describes the term this way: “‘Additional insured’ is an insurance industry term that refers to a person or entity that has been added to an insurance policy as an insured by the insurer at the behest of the insured that purchased the policy.” The commercial flooring page covers the endorsements a general contractor asks for and why a certificate is evidence, not coverage.
The workers compensation policy has its own, narrower who-is-insured clause. The Workers Compensation and Employers Liability Insurance Policy (WC 00 00 00 C, the edition we read) says a partner is insured “but only in your capacity as an employer of the partnership’s employees.”
If you have formed a new company, added a trade name or are teaming with another contractor, send us your declarations and the entity names, and we will match them before the next contract goes out. The professional liability article covers a different gap in the same policy.