What insurance does a snow removal contractor need in Ontario?

What insurance does a snow removal contractor need in Ontario?

Snow removal contractors in Ontario commonly carry three core coverages. Commercial general liability, or CGL, answers claims that your work injured someone or damaged their property, and in snow work that usually means a slip-and-fall. Commercial auto typically covers plated plow and salt trucks on the road. Equipment coverage, often called contractors equipment, typically covers loaders, skid steers and blowers against damage and theft.

That's the common core, not the whole answer. The right mix and limits depend on the work, the contracts and the equipment, and no two snow operations line up exactly, which is why we review each one before the season.

Bigger contracts often call for an umbrella or excess liability policy, which sits on top of the CGL and raises the limit when a contract asks for more than the base policy carries. Operators running several trucks sometimes move them onto commercial fleet insurance. Your crew is a separate question again, and our contractors insurance page covers how WSIB works for the trades.

Is snow removal covered if I already have business insurance?

Not automatically. Insurers typically rate snow and ice work as its own operation, separate from whatever else the business does, because the claims come from people slipping hours or days after your crew left the site. Insurers generally expect snow work to be declared on the policy, with the sites and the type of work, before the season starts. An undeclared operation is the kind of gap that turns a routine claim into a coverage dispute.

From the insurer's side, that's fair, and it's entirely their right. A crew doing summer work in July and a crew salting a plaza parking lot at 4 a.m. in January are two different risks, and they get priced that way. What worries me is the contractor who picks up a few snow accounts in November and never mentions it to anyone. The snow side of a policy usually starts with a phone call before the first storm.

Why is snow removal insurance so expensive in Ontario?

Three things drive most of the premium: how often slip-and-fall claims happen, how long they take to surface, and contracts that move a property owner's liability onto the contractor. Each insurer sets its own appetite for snow work, so the number of markets willing to quote changes from year to year. The premium then follows your sites, the service you promise, your records and your claims history.

None of that is a penalty. It's an insurer pricing a claim that hasn't happened yet, on sites it's never seen, for a contractor it's only just met, and your file is how it gets to know you.

What do insurers ask before they quote snow work?

Insurers usually ask about the site list, with addresses and site types, because a residential driveway, a retail plaza and a condo lot carry very different traffic. Many also ask to see contract wording, how service gets recorded (logs, GPS, photos, salt records), whether subcontractors do any of the work, and the claims history. A complete file usually makes for a cleaner quote.

Who is liable if someone slips on a property I clear in Ontario?

Both the property owner, called the occupier under Ontario's Occupiers' Liability Act, and the contractor hired to clear the snow can be named in a claim. Since January 29, 2021, a person injured by snow or ice on private property has to give written notice within 60 days, served on the occupier or on the contractor, before a lawsuit can go ahead.

The notice sets out the date, time and location of the fall and goes by personal service or registered mail. There are exceptions, including a reasonable excuse where the defence isn't prejudiced, and the rule sits alongside the usual two-year limitation period under the Limitations Act, 2002. Whoever receives the notice passes a copy on: an occupier to its contractors, a contractor to the occupier that hired it. Falls on municipal roads and sidewalks follow a separate 10-day notice rule under the Municipal Act, 2001.

That rule works in your favour. Before 2021, a contractor sometimes heard about a fall on a private lot for the first time almost two years later, long after anyone remembered the morning. Now the notice arrives while the log is still fresh. Provided there's a log.

Why do service logs and photos matter?

A claim about a fall on February 3 gets decided on what you can show about February 3: when the crew arrived, how much snow was down, what was salted and when. Time-stamped logs, GPS records and photos are the evidence an adjuster works from, and they'll carry more weight than anyone's memory.

“Were you on site that morning?”

“We always are after a storm.”

“Do you have the log?”

That third question is the one these claims turn on.

What should I check in a commercial snow removal contract?

Four clauses tend to carry most of the risk: hold-harmless or indemnity wording, where you agree to cover the owner's losses tied to your work, additional insured requirements, required liability limits, and the service standard. An indemnity clause can make you responsible for part of the owner's own share of a claim, and your CGL doesn't always answer everything a contract asks for.

The part of a CGL that responds to liability you take on in a contract is called contractual liability coverage, and its wording sets the limit on what it'll answer.

Additional insured status means the property owner is added to your policy for claims arising from your work, and the certificate of insurance is how they check it. Zero tolerance wording, a promise of a bare surface at all times, is a much harder promise to keep than a five-centimetre trigger, the snowfall that starts service. We read these clauses against the policy. Wording that goes beyond what the policy answers is something a lawyer looks at before signing, not after a claim.

Is my plow truck covered by commercial auto or by my liability policy?

A plated truck on public roads is typically insured on a commercial auto policy, and the plow working on that truck is part of the auto conversation. Ontario's Compulsory Automobile Insurance Act requires auto insurance on any motor vehicle driven on a highway, so a loader that travels between sites on public roads belongs in that conversation too. Equipment that stays on site usually sits under equipment coverage, with liability from its use under the CGL.

When a plow clips a curb, tears up a lawn edge or hits a garage door, the claim usually lands on the liability side: auto liability if the truck caused it, CGL if it came from equipment or the work itself. The policy wording, the deductible (the amount you pay before the insurer does) and any exclusions decide how a specific claim is handled. And if you don't know today which policy your loader sits on, that's okay. That's exactly what the pre-season call is for.

Do my snow removal subcontractors need their own insurance?

Subcontractors are one of the first things an insurer asks about on a snow file. A sub who works under your contract without their own liability coverage leaves the claim from their work on your policy, and some insurers restrict or exclude it.

Many contractors collect a current certificate of insurance from each sub, naming the contractor as additional insured, and a WSIB clearance certificate showing the sub's account is in good standing, which puts the evidence on file before the season starts. What to ask of each sub is worth reviewing against your own contracts.

For the property side of the same problem, our post on preventing slip-and-fall accidents looks at what owners can do on their own sites.

What goes on a pre-season checklist for snow removal contractors?

A pre-season review commonly covers six items: declaring the snow work and the site list to your broker, rereading each contract for indemnity, limits and service standards, confirming how each truck and machine is insured, checking your limits against what the contracts ask for, collecting certificates and WSIB clearances from subcontractors, and setting up a logging routine your crew will actually keep at 4 a.m. Larger operations often carry a longer list.

Of the six, the log is the one that gets tested hardest. When a notice arrives in March, a log kept every visit, all winter, is the version of that morning that matches the file.

Call our team at 519-822-0160 for a quote, or request one online anytime.

The information here is general, not advice for your situation; a licensed broker can review your operation and recommend the right coverage and limits.