Protection from claims of damage you may not even know you're causing with pollution insurance.

In some cases, general liability insurance offers pollution coverage as an optional coverage, however in recent years, many general liability policies have been excluding it. If this is the case for you, you would need to buy it as a separate policy.

There are several situations that may warrant a need for pollution insurance.

For one, if you are in an industry where you directly deal with hazardous waste, such as a waste disposal company, an oil company, a construction company, an HVAC company, or a landscaping company, then yes, you definitely need pollution insurance.

If you are an independent contractor who deals with waste, you may actually be required to have pollution insurance and may need to show proof of coverage before obtaining jobs.

Even if your company doesn’t overtly deal with waste as part of daily operations, you could benefit from a pollution insurance policy because every company is capable of causing damage or injury with contaminants. Whether you choose to get one depends on how much risk you want to take.

If you’re a small business who doesn’t work with pollutants often, will you get sued for causing damage with hazardous materials? Probably not. But could you? Absolutely.

Unfortunately, we can’t give you a very clear answer here.

That’s because the cost varies significantly depending on factors such as company size, risk, the amount of coverage needed, deductibles, and discount eligibility.

However, we usually see annual premiums fall somewhere between $1,000 and $100,000.

Usually, insurance carriers require you pay the entire premium for pollution policies before coverage is initiated.