General Contracting · Virginia
Virginia licenses contractors by contract value, so the DPOR class you hold caps the size of job you can bid — and your insurance requirements tend to scale with the same jobs. Coastal, suburban, and mountain work all underwrite differently.
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At audit time, the auditor compares the payroll you estimated to the payroll you actually paid. Any sub who can’t produce a certificate for the work they did can end up on your bill instead of theirs. Answer a handful of questions about your crews, your subs, and your payroll, and see where you stand before the audit does. Built for general contractors who run 1099 crews.
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What Matters Here
Virginia contractors are generally licensed through DPOR as Class A, B, or C depending on individual project and annual contract value, with general contracting available as a licensed classification. Moving up a class to bid larger work usually means revisiting your limits at the same time.
Virginia generally requires workers' compensation once a business regularly employs three or more people, and subcontractors often count toward that total. For a general contractor that threshold is reached faster than owners expect.
Coastal storms and hurricanes in Hampton Roads, hail across the Piedmont, and heavy freeze-thaw in the Valley and southwest.
Licensing and coverage requirements change and vary by jurisdiction and contract. Treat this as a starting point and confirm the specifics with a licensed agent before you rely on it.
Areas We Cover
Exposure changes across the state. Pick the region you work in for the specifics — or use the form below if you cover more than one.
Coverage Types
A complete program is usually six policies working together, not one general liability certificate.
Third-party bodily injury and property damage across every trade on your site, including the completed operations coverage that responds to defect claims after the job closes.
Medical bills and lost wages for your own crew — and the policy that absorbs uninsured subcontractor payroll at audit. Certificate discipline is the cheapest premium control a GC has.
Covers the structure under construction, plus materials on site and in transit, against fire, wind, theft, and vandalism. Neither your GL nor the owner's property policy reliably covers work in progress.
Trucks, trailers, and equipment hauling between sites, plus hired and non-owned auto for supers and PMs running jobs in personal vehicles.
If you deliver design-build or take on any means-and-methods responsibility, professional liability covers the design decisions that general liability specifically excludes.
Sits above GL and auto. Owners, lenders, and public work routinely require $5M or more in total limits before you can break ground.
Why It's Different
At audit, payments to any sub who can't produce a valid certificate for the period they worked are typically treated as your own payroll. Because GCs subcontract most of the job, this is the single largest source of surprise premium in the trade.
Statutory employer rules pull you toward responsibility for the employees of subs — and sometimes subs of subs — when coverage below you fails. You can be exposed to crews you never hired and never met.
Construction defect claims arrive years after the certificate of occupancy, often after the sub who did the work has dissolved. Whether your policy still responds depends on completed operations coverage and how your contracts were written at the time.
Owners and lenders demand additional insured status, waivers, and primary & non-contributory wording from you, and you need the same flowing up from every sub. A single missing endorsement moves a claim onto your policy.
A roofer has one class code. A GC touches carpentry, concrete, mechanical, and finish work, and an uninsured sub gets rated at the code for the work performed — not the cheapest one on your policy.
The low-rated project manager and construction executive classification carries hard qualifying tests around levels of supervision. Fail them and that payroll can be reassigned to the highest-rated construction code on the policy.
Common Questions
It depends on the value of individual projects and your annual volume: Class C covers the smallest work, Class B mid-size, and Class A the largest, each with its own financial and experience requirements. Because owners scale their insurance demands with job size too, it's worth reviewing licensure and limits together.
They frequently do. Virginia's rules count certain subcontractors toward your employee total, which means a general contractor with a small in-house staff and a large subcontracted crew can be required to carry coverage. Have an agent look at how you actually staff jobs rather than at your payroll list alone.
At audit, what you paid that sub is generally treated as your own payroll and you pay premium on it. How much depends on your records: labor-only work is typically included at a high percentage, labor and materials at a lower one when your invoices separate the two, and the full contract price when they don't. Collect certificates before the crew starts and keep them until the audit closes.
Related:Chargeback Risk Score →
Often yes. Statutory employer rules in many states look up the chain of contractors until they find coverage, which can land on you even though you never signed a contract with that crew. Requiring your subs to carry coverage and to flow the same requirement down to their subs is the practical defense.
Partly, and it is one of the most litigated questions in construction insurance. Damage caused by defective work is treated very differently from the cost of fixing the defective work itself, and completed operations coverage determines whether the policy responds after the job closes. This is worth reviewing line by line with a licensed agent.
Related:Coverage Gap Assessment →
Usually yes, and the contract normally says who buys it. A building under construction isn't a finished building, and neither your general liability nor a standard owner's property policy reliably covers materials on site, in transit, or work in progress. Confirm which party is responsible before work starts.
Payroll is assigned by the work being performed rather than by your company's title, so a GC often carries several class codes at once. Supervisory classifications for project managers and construction executives carry strict qualifying tests, and uninsured subcontractor payroll is rated at the code that would have applied if your own employees had done that work.
Because their own risk transfer depends on it. Additional insured status, waiver of subrogation, and primary & non-contributory wording push a claim toward your policy first. Expect all three on nearly every commercial contract, and expect to require them from your subs in turn.
Tell us about your business and an independent agent licensed in Virginia will reach out within one business day.
Other Trades
Run more than one kind of work? Here's the same Virginia rundown for the other trades we cover.
Other States