A radon mitigation contractor’s policy is a package: general liability for damage the installation can cause, professional liability for the promise that the system will perform, and workers compensation, commercial auto, and equipment coverage for the crew and tools. The line most often misunderstood is professional liability, because a system that does not lower the reading breaks nothing and still produces a claim.
This post is general education about insurance for radon mitigation work. Credentials and rules vary by state, so confirm yours with your state radon program.
A radon policy is a package, and one line is the odd one out
Most of the lines in a mitigation contractor’s program look like any other contractor’s program. General liability, workers compensation, commercial auto, and equipment coverage answer what a crew with trucks and tools does in someone else’s building. The odd one out is the line that answers the product itself.
A radon mitigation contractor sells a result. The customer wants a lower reading, and the contractor installs a system to produce it. Success is measured later by a test, and the claim that worries the trade is not that the crew broke something. It is that the result did not arrive, or that someone relied on it. We cover the program overall on the radon mitigation contractor insurance page. This post goes line by line through what each part of the policy answers.
General liability: what the installation can break
General liability is the line for physical damage and injury. A mitigation installation involves drilling through a slab, running pipe through walls, penetrating a roof or rim joist, mounting a fan, and wiring it. Each is a chance to hit something that was not supposed to be hit: a buried line, a pipe, heating beneath the floor, a wire in a wall. A roof penetration that leaks, or a fan mounted so that it vibrates a finished wall, belongs in the same family.
This is the claim general liability was built for, and it is the one most radon contractors expect. It is also not the claim that distinguishes the trade.
Professional liability: the promise the system will work
Professional liability is the line for errors in judgment, design, or advice, and for the performance promise that radon work carries. The exposure is not what the crew touched. It is that someone acted on the result. A system that does not bring the reading down, a post-installation test that is wrong, a design that was not suited to the foundation: none of these necessarily damages anything, and each can produce a claim.
We describe the measurement side of this exposure in Professional Liability for Radon: The Number Someone Acts On. For installers, the question is the same one with a different anchor: not the reading you took but the system you promised.
Check two features of your own paperwork. First, read your contracts for guarantee language. A promise to lower a reading to a stated outcome is a performance promise, and a form that excludes contractual guarantees will not answer it. Second, ask whether your professional form covers installation work and not only testing, since some are written for one and not the other.
Guarantees: read what you promised
Many radon contractors stand behind the work with a guarantee, and a guarantee is a contract term with an insurance consequence. A promise to bring a reading down to a stated outcome, to retest at no charge, or to fix the system if it does not perform is an obligation you assumed by agreement. Liability policies commonly limit coverage for obligations assumed in a contract beyond what the law would impose anyway, so a guarantee can create a duty your policy was never written to fund.
That is not an argument against guarantees. It is an argument for knowing which one you made. Read the language on your own estimates and warranties, decide whether it promises a result or an effort, and ask the person placing your coverage how the forms treat it. If the guarantee is part of how you win work, the program should be built with it in mind.
Documentation helps on both sides. A file for each installation, with the readings taken before and after, photographs of the penetrations and the finished system, and a record of what the customer was told about operation and maintenance, is the best answer to a later allegation. It also tells an underwriter you run the trade as a process.
Does radon fall under the pollution exclusion?
Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas, as EPA describes it on its radon page, and a contractor naturally asks whether it falls within the pollution exclusion on general liability. The answer depends on how the form defines pollutants, and it is a question to put to the person placing your coverage rather than to assume either way.
Two practical points. Many mitigation contractors also work around other conditions in the same jobs, such as moisture, crawlspace contaminants, or mold, which are covered by pollution liability rather than by the radon program. And restoration companies that add radon, or radon companies that add restoration, are running two programs under one roof, which we explain in Two Programs, One Roof: Where Restoration and Radon Split.
Completed operations: a system that keeps running
A mitigation system is installed once and runs for years. The fan runs, the pipe stays in the wall, the penetration stays in the roof. A claim from any of them can arrive long after the invoice is paid, and the part of general liability that answers it is completed operations.
Ask how the form defines your work, whether exclusions narrow it for installed systems, and how long the coverage remains responsive. A system that is working is invisible. A system that has failed, or been blamed for a problem it did not cause, is the subject of a claim, and the installation file you kept at the time is the first thing anyone will ask for. Keep it for as long as the system could plausibly be the subject of a complaint, not only for the length of a warranty.
The crew: crawlspaces, attics, and the road
Mitigation work is physical and often cramped. Crawlspaces, attics, and basements are the places systems are installed, and workers compensation answers injury to the people who go there. Confirm that classification matches the work. The fleet is covered by commercial auto, and tools and diagnostic equipment, including testing devices, by contractors equipment written for property away from your premises.
Credentials and standards underwriters ask about
An underwriter pricing a radon contractor asks who is doing the work and to what standard. EPA publishes a page of standards of practice for radon professionals, and the two national certification bodies, the National Radon Proficiency Program and the National Radon Safety Board, certify radon professionals. NRPP states that its certified individuals must conduct business in accordance with the applicable ANSI/AARST standards.
State rules sit on top. In some states radon work requires a license, in others only a national certification, and in some none from the state at all; we cover the spectrum in The Radon Credential, From Strong License to None. Keep your credentials current and ready to produce, since they bear on how an underwriter reads the likelihood of a poor installation.
Real-World Scenario: A radon contractor installs a system in a finished home and the follow-up test shows the reading has not come down enough to satisfy the buyer. The crew broke nothing and the installation passed inspection. The buyer’s attorney writes that the work did not perform as promised and asks for the cost of a second system and the delayed closing. The contractor’s general liability form does not respond to an allegation that nothing was damaged. Only a professional form written for installation performance would have been aimed at it.
Questions to ask about your radon policy
Does the professional form cover installation work and not only testing? Does it exclude contractual guarantees, and does my contract make one? How does my general liability form treat radon, and does my program need a pollution line for what else I touch on these jobs? How long does completed-operations coverage stay responsive on an installed system?
If you want those answered against your own forms, the radon mitigation contractor insurance page describes the program we build, and you can ask for a quote review.
Sources
- EPA, Radon — EPA’s description of radon as a naturally occurring radioactive gas and its overview of radon resources. It does not address insurance. epa.gov/radon
- EPA, Standards of Practice (Radon) — EPA’s page of standards of practice for radon professionals. It does not address insurance. epa.gov/radon/standards-practice
- National Radon Proficiency Program (NRPP) — a certification program for radon professionals; its published statement that certified individuals conduct business in accordance with applicable ANSI/AARST standards. nrpp.info
- National Radon Safety Board (NRSB) — a certification body for radon professionals. nrsb.org