Your Work Exclusion

The your-work exclusion is exclusion (l) in the standard commercial general liability policy, which bars coverage for property damage to your work arising out of it or any part of it, once that work is in the products-completed operations hazard. The underlying rationale is a business-risk principle: liability insurance is not a performance guarantee. A contractor controls the quality of its own work, so the cost of redoing defective work is a business expense, not a fortuitous insured loss. The exclusion keeps the CGL focused on third-party damage rather than warranty repairs.

For contractors, this exclusion defines the line between what your policy pays and what comes out of your own pocket. If your faulty installation damages a customer's other property, that is typically covered; if the only damage is to the work you performed, the your-work exclusion generally applies. Misunderstanding this is a common and costly surprise — buyers sometimes assume general liability will fund callbacks and rework, then discover it will not. This is why subcontractor default insurance, surety, and careful contract drafting, rather than the CGL alone, address workmanship risk.

The crucial nuance is the subcontractor exception: the your-work exclusion does not apply if the damaged work, or the work causing the damage, was performed by a subcontractor on your behalf. This carve-back — related to broad form property damage — is why general contractors who hire trade subs often have meaningful coverage for defect-related damage that a self-performing contractor would not. Because insurers sometimes attach endorsements that delete this exception or expand the exclusion, buyers should confirm the subcontractor exception survives in their form and understand how it interacts with products-completed operations coverage.