A Question Almost Nobody Asks
When people pick a contractor, they're usually looking at the price, the timeline, the design. Almost nobody asks, mid-conversation: "If something goes wrong on site, who actually pays for it?"
It's an awkward thing to bring up — it can feel like you're accusing someone of being careless. But it's the question that decides how much of the risk ends up on you if something does go wrong.
Most renovations finish without incident, which is probably why this question rarely comes up. But "most of the time" isn't the same as "every time," and a renovation that runs for weeks or months, with multiple trades moving through a space, is exactly the kind of project where something unplanned can happen. The insurance question only matters on the day something goes sideways — but that's also the one day you can't go back and ask it.
A Site Accident Doesn't Stay the Contractor's Problem
Construction carries risk by nature. A crew tearing out a wall can crack the one next door by accident. A plumbing change that doesn't go right can flood the shop downstairs overnight. Someone passing by the site can get hurt.
When any of that happens and the contractor's coverage falls short, the owner often can't just walk away from it — claims and lawsuits have a way of pulling you in even when none of it was your fault. How much insurance your contractor carries is really a question of how much of that risk lands on you. It's not something to find out about after the fact.
What Y&Y Construction Carries: $10 Million in General Liability
Y&Y Construction currently carries a General Liability policy with coverage of up to $10,000,000 CAD, and every project we take on falls under it.
We didn't pick that number to check a box. We carry this policy so that working with us comes with a real layer of protection — if our work damages a third party's property or injures someone, whether that's a neighbouring unit, a common area, or a passerby, this policy is what pays for it. The owner isn't left holding that risk.
What the Coverage Limit Actually Changes
Almost every contractor will tell you they're "insured." The limits, though, can be miles apart. Some policies top out at one or two million — fine for a minor mishap, but in a serious incident (water damage running through a whole building, a fire, a significant injury) the claim can blow past that ceiling fast. Whatever's left over doesn't just disappear — someone still has to pay it.
A $10 million limit gives a lot more room to work with. Even in a bad scenario, it's far less likely the owner ends up covering a gap the insurance couldn't.
It's also worth being specific about what this number is and isn't. General liability doesn't cover a contractor's own tools or equipment, and it isn't the same thing as the workers' compensation coverage that protects a crew member injured on the job — that's a separate system entirely. What it does cover is damage or injury to people and property outside the company itself: the people and spaces a renovation touches without being part of it.
What This Kind of Coverage Actually Looks Like in Practice
It helps to think through what general liability coverage is actually there for, rather than just the dollar figure attached to it.
Take a restaurant build-out where a crew is cutting into an existing concrete floor to trace and reroute plumbing. If a line that wasn't on the original drawings gets nicked during that work and water ends up running into the unit below, the tenant downstairs has a real claim — lost stock, damaged flooring, several days of lost business. That's a property damage claim against the contractor, and it's exactly the kind of loss general liability is meant to cover.
Or take an exterior renovation on a storefront in a strip mall, where scaffolding and material staging sit close to a public sidewalk. If a passerby is struck by falling debris, or trips over equipment that wasn't properly flagged off, that's a bodily injury claim — again, something the policy responds to, rather than leaving the contractor, or the owner who hired them, to cover out of pocket.
A residential example works the same way. In a multi-unit building, a bathroom renovation often means shutting off and reconnecting shared plumbing lines. If a connection doesn't seal properly and it isn't caught before the water's turned back on, the unit below can end up with a soaked ceiling, damaged drywall, and a homeowner or tenant who now has a legitimate claim against whoever did the work.
Neither of these scenarios involves anyone doing anything egregiously wrong. They're the ordinary kind of thing that can happen on an active job site — hidden conditions, a connection that fails under pressure, a public space that sits a little too close to the work. That's exactly why this coverage exists in the first place: not as a response to bad work, but as a basic part of how a construction business is supposed to be run, on an ordinary project as much as a difficult one.
Want to See Our Coverage, or Talk Through Your Project?
If you've got a commercial or residential renovation coming up in Metro Vancouver and want to make sure your contractor's coverage actually protects you, reach out to Y&Y Construction. We can send over a certificate of insurance showing the coverage described here, and from there, talk through the design and construction plan and the scope of work for your specific project.
