Junk Removal Insurance in Canada

A junk removal job crosses three exposures in an hour. Your crew works inside someone else's home or building, carrying heavy and awkward items through narrow halls and stairwells. The load then rides in your truck or trailer on public roads. Finally it is sorted, donated, recycled or dumped, and anything that ends up in the wrong place can come back to you.

Each step needs a different policy. Damage and injury at the client's property go on commercial general liability (CGL). The truck goes on commercial auto. Spills and improper disposal raise pollution questions that a standard CGL mostly excludes. Junk removal sits inside the wider construction and contractors sector because so much of the work is clean-outs and strip-outs, but its claim pattern looks just as much like a moving company's.

A typical program has five or six parts. Liability and auto carry most of the premium. The others close gaps that those two leave open.

Bin rental operators add another layer: bins left on driveways and streets cause property damage and trip claims, and municipalities may require a permit or proof of insurance to place them on a road allowance. Check your municipality's rules.

The scenarios below are hypothetical. They reflect the patterns underwriters ask about on junk removal and hauling applications.

Before-and-after photos settle more junk removal claims than any policy wording. Photograph floors, doorframes and walls along the route out before the first item moves.

The truck is the most expensive part of most junk removal programs. In Ontario, section 251 of the Insurance Act sets $200,000 as the minimum third-party liability for any one accident. That is a legal floor. A crash involving a loaded truck can exceed it many times over, and commercial clients usually ask for much more.

Weight brings a second rule. Ontario's Ministry of Transportation requires a Commercial Vehicle Operator's Registration (CVOR) certificate for trucks with a registered gross weight or actual weight over 4,500 kg. A trailer and its load count toward gross weight if the trailer weighs more than 2,800 kg, which is how a pickup towing a loaded dump trailer can cross the line. Trucks plated in other provinces need a safety certificate from their home jurisdiction instead.

Heavier units and fleets follow the rules on our commercial truck page. Our post on trucking insurance and your CVOR explains how the file shapes your rate.

Junk removal is waste management, whether or not you think of it that way. Ontario's Environmental Protection Act defines a waste management system to include facilities, equipment and operations for the collection, handling, transportation, storage, processing or disposal of waste. Section 27 says no person may use or operate a waste management system or waste disposal site except under an environmental compliance approval, unless the activity is prescribed for registration or another exemption applies. Whether your business needs an approval or a registration depends on what you haul and where it goes. Check with the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks before you expand into new waste streams. Other provinces have their own rules, and requirements vary.

The insurance consequence is clear. Standard CGL forms largely exclude pollution. A leaking drum, a crushed propane tank or illegal dumping by a subcontractor can produce clean-up costs that no part of a basic package will pay.

Ontario's carriage of goods regulation, O. Reg. 643/05, requires carriers of goods for compensation to carry cargo insurance for loss or damage to the goods carried. Section 3(2) says that requirement does not apply to miscellaneous waste or scrap. The regulation also does not apply to goods carried solely within a local municipality.

So pure junk usually needs no cargo cover. But junk removal businesses rarely carry only junk. Estate clean-outs include items bound for an auction house, a family member or a consignment store. Delivery and small-move side services carry goods the customer wants back in one piece. If you offer those services, motor truck cargo belongs on the policy. See our cargo insurance guide, and our movers insurance page if moving is part of your business.

Most junk removal liability claims are property damage inside or around the client's building: floors, walls, doorframes, elevators, railings, lawns and driveways cracked by a heavy truck. All of these are third-party property claims on CGL.

Two wording issues matter. First, CGL usually excludes property in your care, custody or control. An item you have loaded and are hauling is in your control, so damage to a piece the client wanted kept may fall outside the policy. Second, your own yard and resale space create premises liability. Under Ontario's Occupiers' Liability Act, an occupier must take reasonable care to see that people entering the premises are reasonably safe. Customers browsing a resale lot are owed that duty.

Estate and hoarding clean-outs are steady work, often booked by executors, family members, real estate agents and property managers. They also bring a claim that general liability does not handle well: the allegation that a crew member took something. Jewellery, cash, documents and collectibles turn up in drawers and boxes, and a family that later finds an heirloom missing may point at the last people in the house.

Lifting injuries are the everyday risk in this business. Every province runs a workers' compensation system, and the industry classification your board assigns decides your rates and whether owners must be covered. Construction work brings stricter rules in Ontario, so if your crews do interior strip-outs or demolition, ask how that work is classified. In Ontario, owners outside construction are not covered unless they buy optional WSIB insurance.

Commercial clients, property managers and real estate offices usually ask for a certificate of insurance, often naming them as an additional insured. Condominium corporations may also require elevator bookings and proof of coverage before a crew enters the building. Our post WSIB is not enough explains why liability still sits on top of workers' compensation.

Liability is usually rated on revenue or payroll, with subcontracted hauling rated separately. Auto is rated per vehicle. The underwriter then adjusts for the details of your operation.

Bundling liability, auto and equipment with one insurer can improve terms, but auto underwriting often decides who will write the account at all. We compare the insurers on our panel that write hauling risks and show the pollution and care, custody or control wording side by side.