What It Covers

An Installation Floater covers materials, equipment, and components that your business is responsible for from the time they leave your shop or supplier until they are permanently installed and accepted at a project site. This includes coverage for physical loss or damage during transit to the site, while staged at the site awaiting installation, and during the installation process itself — up to the point of owner acceptance. The coverage bridges the gap between your commercial property policy (which ends when materials leave your shop) and the project owner's property policy (which typically doesn't begin until acceptance).

Why It Matters for Welding Businesses

Materials and components in transit or staged at a jobsite occupy a coverage gap that can leave a welding contractor significantly exposed. Your property policy doesn't follow the materials off-site. The owner's builder's risk policy may not cover contractor-furnished materials until they become part of the permanent structure. A fire, theft, vandalism, or weather event during this critical window — when your materials are in transit or on-site but not yet installed — can result in a complete loss of materials with no insurance response. An Installation Floater closes that gap.

Who Needs It

Structural steel and bridge welding contractors fabricating and delivering components to project sites, pipe welding contractors supplying and installing pipe sections, fabrication shops with contracts that include installation of their fabricated components, welding contractors whose scope includes furnishing and installing materials, and any welding operation that manufactures components off-site and installs them at client locations on large construction or industrial projects.

Common Triggers

Fabricated components being transported to and installed at a project site; contract requirements for coverage of materials in transit or during installation; large material value being staged at a remote or unsecured construction site.

Welding Industry Examples

• A set of custom fabricated structural steel girders is damaged in a traffic accident during transport to a major bridge construction site before installation.

• Fabricated pipe sections staged at a construction site are severely damaged by an unexpected storm the night before scheduled installation.

• Custom architectural metalwork fabricated off-site is stolen from a commercial building construction site before it can be installed.

• A welding contractor's prefabricated mechanical modules are damaged during crane lift and placement at an industrial facility.

• Raw materials and partially fabricated components staged at a remote project site are destroyed in a construction site fire set by vandals.