Program design

Covered locations

A wrap-up is a site policy. It covers work at a described place, and the description is usually a legal parcel. Construction, unhelpfully, does not stay inside legal parcels.

What happens off site

One of four program design decisions.

The short version

The policy covers a place

Coverage attaches to operations at the designated project site. A trade that is enrolled in the wrap is covered for what it does there, and not for what it does anywhere else.

That leaves a real gap. Fabrication in a shop, staging in a leased yard, deliveries on public roads and off-site utility tie-ins are all part of building the project and none of them happen on the parcel.

The fix is partly drafting, by describing the location broadly enough to catch the work, and partly insurance the trades keep for themselves. Enrolled subcontractors are still required to carry their own practice policy for off-site exposure.

On this page

How the location gets described
Work that happens somewhere else
Closing the gap, in two places
Sites that change shape
Common questions

What we place, and where

Programs: Owner-controlled (OCIP) and contractor-controlled (CCIP) wrap-ups, rolling wrap-ups, builders risk, and project-specific or practice liability where a wrap is not the right structure.
Project types: Multifamily and mixed-use, condominium and for-sale residential, podium and wood-frame, commercial, tenant improvement, and industrial.
Where: Licensed in all 50 states. Deepest bench in California, where the wrap-up statutes are covered in detail on this site.
Project size: No minimum to ask. A wrap typically starts to pay for itself around $25 million in hard construction value. Smaller projects are placed on conventional structures instead.
Who we work with: Owners, developers, general contractors, and subcontractors buying practice coverage for the off-site gap.
Who you deal with: Cary W. White, producer. ISU Insurance Services of San Francisco, CA Lic. #0778092. Cary W. White, CA Lic. #0B77854. We place coverage; we are not the carrier.

The wording

How the location gets described

A wrap-up attaches to a place. The policy names a designated project site and covers operations there, and the description of that site is usually taken from the development documents: a street address, a legal parcel description, or an assessor's parcel number.

That is precise, which is useful, and narrow, which is not. The question an underwriter asks is where coverage is provided, and the options are broader than most proposals use. Coverage can be limited to the project site, or it can extend to temporary storage, transit, off-site locations, staging areas and other places. Each of those extensions is available. None of them appears by default.

So the first thing to do with a draft is read the location description and compare it against how the project is actually going to be built.

The gap

Work that happens somewhere else

Construction does not stay inside the parcel. A realistic list of the work that happens off the described site on a normal project:

Off-site activity and where the exposure usually sits
Activity	Where it happens	Usually covered by
Fabrication and prefabrication	The trade's own shop	The trade's own general liability, products and completed operations
Panel and module assembly	A separate yard, sometimes leased for the project	Depends entirely on the location wording
Material staging and laydown	An adjacent lot or a nearby yard	Can be brought in by extending the described location
Transit and delivery	Public roads	Automobile liability, which is almost never inside a wrap
Utility tie-ins and street work	Public right of way beyond the parcel line	Often needs the location described to include the adjacent right of way
Soil export and import	Haul routes and disposal sites	Trucking and disposal contractors' own policies, usually excluded parties
Crane and equipment movement	Street closures and adjacent property	Depends on wording, and on the agreements with the neighbors

Two of these are the ones that cause arguments. Off-site fabrication, because a panel built badly in a shop causes damage on site, and it is genuinely debatable whether that is work at the site or a product delivered to it. And off-site staging, because a leased yard three blocks away feels like part of the project to everyone on the job and is not part of it in the policy.

What to do

Closing the gap, in two places

Part of the fix is in the policy and part of it is in the subcontracts. Both are needed.

In the policy. Describe the location broadly enough to catch the work. That can mean naming the parcel plus the adjacent right of way, naming a specific staging or laydown area by address, or adding a general extension for temporary off-site storage and locations incidental to the project. The underwriter will want to know what is being added, which means the project team has to know where work will actually happen before binding. On a project where that is not yet settled, a broader general extension is worth more than a precise list that turns out to be wrong.

In the subcontracts. Enrolled subcontractors must be required to keep their own practice general liability in force, with adequate limits and no exclusion that would defeat it, for everything they do off the covered location. This is not optional and it is not a formality. A trade that cancels its own policy on enrolling in the wrap, believing the wrap covers it, has no coverage for its shop work, its deliveries or any of its other jobs.

That requirement is also the single most common misunderstanding subcontractors have about wrap-ups, which makes it worth stating plainly in the enrollment materials rather than only in the subcontract.

Edge cases

Sites that change shape

Three situations make the location question harder than a single parcel.

Phased sites. Where a large parcel is developed in phases over several years, part of the site may be complete and occupied while construction continues next to it. The policy has to be clear about which parts are still under construction, which have moved into completed operations, and what happens to a claim arising from the boundary between them.

Occupied renovation. A building that is partly operating while being worked on creates the same problem indoors. The operational exposure belongs to the owner's own property and liability program, the construction exposure belongs to the wrap, and a slip on a floor shared by both is a question nobody wants to answer after the fact.

Linear and scattered sites. Roadway, utility and infrastructure-adjacent work does not have a parcel at all. The location gets described as a corridor, a set of stations or a scope, and the precision of that description is the whole protection.

Where several distinct sites are involved, the question stops being how to describe one location and becomes whether they belong in one program at all. The multiple projects page takes that up.

Questions

Common questions

Does a wrap-up cover subcontractors away from the project site?

Normally not. Coverage attaches to operations at the designated project site. Work in a trade's own shop, deliveries on public roads and work on its other jobs sit outside the program and have to be covered by the trade's own policy.

Can a staging yard or laydown area be brought into the program?

Usually yes, by describing it in the policy or by adding an extension for temporary off-site storage and locations incidental to the project. It has to be asked for. The underwriter will want to know what is being added, so the project team needs to know where work will actually happen before the program is bound.

What about off-site fabrication?

It is one of the two activities that cause the most argument, because a component fabricated badly in a shop causes damage at the site and it is genuinely debatable whether that is work at the site or a product delivered to it. The reliable answer is to settle it in the wording rather than leave it to be decided after a loss, and to keep the fabricator's own products and completed operations coverage in force regardless.

Is automobile liability included?

Almost never. Deliveries, haulage and vehicle movement on public roads are covered by automobile policies, which sit outside the wrap and remain the responsibility of whoever owns the vehicles.

Should enrolled subcontractors keep their own general liability?

Yes, always, and the subcontract should require it with adequate limits. A trade that cancels its own policy on enrolling has no coverage for its shop, its deliveries or any of its other projects. This is the most common misunderstanding subcontractors have about wrap-ups, so it belongs in the enrollment materials and not only in the contract.

How is the site described on a project with no single parcel?

As a corridor, a set of described locations, or by reference to a defined scope of work. On linear and scattered sites the precision of that description is effectively the whole protection, so it deserves as much attention as the limit does.

Who you would be working with

Cary W. White

Managing Director · ISU Insurance Services of San Francisco

Cary handles the wrap-up placements here. He has spent 38 years in construction insurance. The first ten were on the carrier side, underwriting builders’ risk and complex property exposures. The 28 since have been in retail brokerage, advising residential developers, general contractors and other construction clients on project-specific and annual programs.

He is also one of the original authors of the project liability application that much of the industry still uses to submit wrap-ups to carriers. In practice that means he knows what each question is actually asking for, and where a thin answer will cost you at quote.

cwhite@isusf.com · 415-613-5589

Pricing

Price your project

Tell us about the project and we will give you a straight answer on whether a wrap makes sense for it. If it does not, we will say so, and then we will price the structure that does. That answer is worth more to you than a placement that costs more than it saves. There is no project minimum to ask. This goes straight to Cary White, who handles wrap-up placements for our construction clients.

The project

Project name or description

State

City

Project type

Hard construction value

Estimated start date

Duration (months)

Structure and exposure

Who would sponsor the program

One project or rolling

Coverages sought (optional)

Limits sought (optional)

Estimated number of trades (optional)

Estimated total payroll (optional)

Loss history, last five years (a summary is fine, loss runs can follow)

Current or incumbent program (optional)

You

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Title

Company

Your role on the project

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Anything else we should know (optional)

We will come back with a price range and what else underwriters will need. No obligation, and we will tell you if a wrap is the wrong answer.