A roofing company can often start a job and sort the paperwork afterward. An energy service company generally cannot. The operator or the prime contractor sets insurance requirements up front, the certificate has to match them, and a crew that shows up without acceptable evidence of insurance does not get through the gate.
That changes the order of operations. The program has to be built to satisfy documents that already exist, which means somebody has to read them carefully and honestly report back what the current program does and does not do.
Where the Pressure Sits
What Makes Energy Service Work Different
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Master service agreements
Limits, additional insured status, waiver of subrogation, primary and noncontributory wording and specific coverage lines are named in the agreement. The insurance side of that document has to be compared against the policies in force, line by line, before signature. We do not interpret the contract or advise on its legal effect. We do tell you whether the insurance program matches what the exhibit requires.
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Fleet, and a lot of it
Service rigs, vacuum trucks, water haulers, pickups running between locations and equipment on trailers, often on lease roads, at night, in weather. Commercial auto is usually the largest and most volatile line in the program, and driver selection affects it more than anything an agent can do.
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Hired and non-owned auto
Rented trucks, owner-operators and employees driving personal vehicles between locations. Common in a busy season, routinely missed in the program.
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Workers’ compensation
Field crews, long shifts and multi-state work. Class codes, state coverage and which entity employs the crew all matter, and the answer for a company operating across state lines is rarely as simple as one policy.
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Heavy equipment and inland marine
Owned, rented and leased equipment moving between locations, plus the question of who carries coverage while it is rented and what happens if it is damaged on somebody else’s site.
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Pollution and environmental exposure
Spills, releases and cleanup obligations are often excluded or narrowly covered on a general liability policy. Where the exposure is real, it is addressed deliberately rather than assumed.
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Umbrella and excess liability
Contract minimums in this sector are frequently higher than in construction, and the umbrella has to sit correctly over each underlying policy the agreement names.
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Certificates, constantly
Multiple operators, multiple locations, multiple entities, each with their own wording. Certificate handling is an operational function in energy service work, not an occasional request.
The Workforce Side
Energy service companies compete for the same experienced hands as everybody else in the basin, and benefits are part of that competition. Group health, group life and voluntary products come up in the same conversation as the commercial program, usually because a crew lead left for a company that offered them.
Benefits for a field workforce have their own practical problems: eligibility for seasonal or rotational schedules, enrollment for people who are not near a computer during business hours, and payroll deduction that has to work with how the company actually runs payroll.
What We Ask For First
The master service agreements currently in place, the schedule of vehicles and equipment, payroll by class and state, the current policies and declarations, the loss history, and a plain description of what the crews actually do on a location. From there the gaps are usually visible quickly.
Start a Conversation
Working Under a Master Service Agreement?
Send the insurance exhibit and the current declarations pages. Comparing the two is the fastest way to find out whether the program does what the agreement says it does.
Direct line: 806-274-0382. Email: wendy@luxestoneinsadvisors.com.