LA · Contractor insurance
General liability, workers’ compensation, commercial auto and excess for Louisiana contractors, with the certificates issued in the form the board will accept the first time. On a residential or home-improvement licence the paperwork is what holds the licence up.
Louisiana is the one state in this program where, for part of the market, the insurance and the license are the same conversation. Residential, home-improvement and mold-remediation applicants must file proof of coverage before the license or registration is issued, and must keep that coverage continuous for as long as the license is active. Commercial licenses are treated differently.
Sources: LSLBC — Checklist for Initial and Maintained Licenses. Requirements change — confirm with the board before relying on a figure.
How each coverage actually works here, rather than in general.
This is the state where the insurance and the license are the same conversation. Residential and home-improvement applicants must file proof of at least $100,000 general liability before the license issues, mold remediation at least $50,000 plus its own proof of workers’ compensation, and the coverage must stay continuous for as long as the license is active. The commercial license application does not require proof of insurance at all — though owners and general contractors will still ask.
General liability across all five states →Required of every Louisiana employer with one or more employees, including part-time and seasonal, with no exceptions to that rule. On top of that, residential and home-improvement licensees must file proof of it before the license issues and keep it continuous for the life of the license — so in Louisiana a comp lapse is simultaneously an uninsured exposure and a licensing exposure.
Workers’ comp across all five states →Minimum $15,000 per person, $30,000 per accident and $25,000 property damage — the lowest bodily injury limits of the five by a wide margin, in a state whose litigation environment is anything but forgiving. The gap between what Louisiana requires and what a Louisiana claim costs is the widest in this program.
Commercial auto across all five states →The residential licensing floor is $100,000 general liability, so the excess tower carries essentially the whole meaningful limit on any project of size. Louisiana’s litigation environment makes the distance between the licensing floor and a defensible limit larger here than the raw numbers suggest.
Excess liability across all five states →The LSLBC requires general liability and workers’ compensation for residential and home-improvement licenses, and no professional liability for any license type. Design-build exposure here is governed purely by the contract.
Professional liability across all five states →Tell us the trade, the license classification and the payroll. We will tell you which markets fit before we submit anywhere.
