The owner, the general contractor or construction manager, and every subcontractor enrolled in the program, usually down through all tiers. Most wordings also pick up parent, subsidiary and affiliated companies of the named insured, and joint ventures formed for the project. Consultants and design professionals are sometimes included and sometimes not. Suppliers, vendors, haulers and security firms are commonly outside it. The enrolment list, not the certificate, is what decides who is actually an insured.

Projects large enough and long enough to justify the administration: hospitals and institutional builds, schools, public infrastructure, multi-residential and mixed-use towers, industrial plants and major civil work. Limits of $25,000,000 are readily written in Canada for projects valued up to roughly $250,000,000, with excess layers above that. Short, small jobs are usually better served by each trade’s own CGL, because the enrolment overhead outweighs the saving.

One wording instead of thirty. On individual policies each trade brings its own limit, deductible, exclusions and renewal date, and the general contractor spends the project auditing certificates. A wrap-up gives every enrolled party the same terms and the same limit, with cross-liability and severability of interests so insureds can claim against one another. The trade-off is that the limit is shared: one large loss erodes it for everybody at once.

Either the owner, under an Owner-Controlled Insurance Program (OCIP), or the general contractor, under a Contractor-Controlled Insurance Program (CCIP). The sponsor pays the premium and recovers it by requiring bidders to price their work net of liability insurance. Whoever sponsors the program also controls the deductible, the claims handling and the enrolment decisions, which is why the choice matters more than it looks on paper.

Third-party bodily injury and property damage arising from construction operations at the designated project site, products and completed operations for a stated period after the work ends, contractual liability assumed under the construction contract, and personal and advertising injury. Non-owned automobile liability, sudden and accidental pollution and broad form property damage are usually available by endorsement. It does not pay to repair the project itself — that is course of construction insurance.

Yes, and the ones that matter are structural rather than exotic. Off-site work is excluded because the policy attaches to a designated site. Professional and design liability is excluded on most wordings. Automobile liability, your own tools and contractors’ equipment, and damage to the project itself all sit elsewhere. Workers’ compensation is statutory and never part of it. Some programs also exclude specific hazardous trades outright, so read the enrolment criteria as carefully as the exclusions.

The policy runs for the construction period, and the products and completed operations extension typically adds 12 to 24 months after completion. That is often shorter than your legal exposure. CCDC 2 asks for the completed operations hazard to be maintained for six years after Ready-for-Takeover, and Nova Scotia’s Limitation of Actions Act allows a claim within two years of discovery, subject to an ultimate limitation of fifteen years. If the schedule slips, the policy has to be extended — cover does not stretch on its own.

Yes. A wrap-up only covers enrolled parties, on that site, for that project. Your own CGL still has to answer for every other job, all off-site operations, your ongoing operations, and anything arising after the completed operations extension expires. You also still need automobile liability, contractors’ equipment, professional liability if you carry design responsibility, and your workers’ compensation registration. Where you are enrolled, your insurer will usually attach a wrap-up exclusion so the two policies do not overlap.

The sponsor pays the insurer and recovers the cost through the bid process. Contractors are asked to price their work excluding liability insurance, and the sponsor deducts an agreed amount, often expressed as a percentage of the subcontract value. Wrap-up programs are commonly quoted in the range of one to three percent of construction value overall. Deductibles are a separate question entirely: confirm in writing whether the sponsor absorbs each occurrence or charges it back to the trade at fault.

One insurer, one adjuster and one defence for the whole project, which is the main practical benefit. Report through the sponsor’s protocol rather than to your own broker. Because the policy is severable, the insurer can defend more than one insured on the same claim, with separate counsel appointed where interests genuinely conflict. Canadian courts have read these wordings generously on the duty to defend — see Progressive Homes Ltd. v. Lombard General Insurance Co. of Canada (2010 SCC 33) — but none of that reasoning helps a trade that was never enrolled.

No. CCDC 41 (2020) sets a general liability standard: not less than $10,000,000 per occurrence, a $10,000,000 aggregate in any policy year for completed operations, a deductible no higher than $10,000, and coverage no less than IBC Forms 2100 and 2320. It never uses the words wrap-up, OCIP or CCIP. A wrap-up is simply one way to satisfy that standard on a single project. If you are obliged to buy one, that obligation comes from the supplementary conditions or the owner’s own requirements, not from CCDC 41.

No, and you generally need both. Wrap-up liability is third-party cover: it responds when the project injures someone or damages property belonging to someone else. Builders risk, or course of construction insurance, is first-party property cover that pays to repair or rebuild the project itself after sudden and accidental physical loss. The two are written on separate forms with separate limits, and the dates should be aligned so a schedule extension does not leave one in force and the other expired.

It is an endorsement your own insurer attaches to your CGL, removing coverage for work on a project that is insured by a wrap-up so the two policies do not overlap and you are not paying twice. It is standard practice and normally sensible. The risk is that it bites when the wrap-up does not respond — because you were never properly enrolled, because the work was performed off site, or because the completed operations extension has already expired. Ask for wording that falls away if the wrap-up does not apply.