NAICO general liability for work that outlives the crew.
The claim usually does not arrive while you are still on the job. It arrives a year or three later, about work you finished and forgot. Cribb Insurance Group is appointed with NAICO and places general liability for Arkansas contractors, manufacturers, energy operations and service businesses.
The short version
General liability answers for harm your business causes to other people and their property: someone hurt on your premises, a customer's property damaged by your operations, and above all damage arising out of work you already completed.
It is also the policy your contracts care about most. Nearly every additional insured request, waiver and certificate demand you receive is pointed at this policy, which is why the contract language and the coverage need to be read together rather than separately.
Three coverages under one name.
General liability is not one promise. It is three, and they respond to genuinely different things.
Bodily injury and property damage
The main event. Injury to someone else, or damage to property belonging to someone else, arising out of your premises, your operations or your completed work. It pays what you become legally obligated to pay, and it provides the defense.
Personal and advertising injury
A defined list of offenses rather than physical injury. It reaches things like defamation, certain privacy offenses and certain use of another party's material in your advertising. It is narrower than the name suggests, and the list in the policy is the list.
Medical payments
Pays smaller medical bills for someone hurt on your premises or by your operations, without the question of fault having to be settled first. A goodwill mechanism that sometimes keeps a small incident from becoming a claim.
The defense obligation is worth a sentence of its own. Defending a suit is expensive whether or not it has merit, and on many accounts the defense is the part of the policy that does the most work over a decade.
One incident, one year, one project.
General liability limits are not a single number. They are a structure, and knowing which part of it a contract is asking about saves an argument later.
- The occurrence limitThe most the policy will pay arising out of any one incident. This is the number most people picture when they think of their limit.
- The general aggregateThe most the policy will pay in total during the policy period. Every payment erodes it, so a busy claim year can leave less standing than the declarations first suggested.
- The products and completed operations aggregateNormally a separate bucket for claims arising out of finished work and products, so those claims do not consume the general aggregate and the general aggregate does not consume them.
- Aggregate applying per projectSome contracts require the aggregate to apply separately to each project rather than across the whole book of work. That is an endorsement rather than a default, and it has to be requested.
When a contract states a required limit, read which of these it is naming. A requirement written against the occurrence limit and one written against a per-project aggregate are asking for very different things. Send us the clause and we will tell you which one you are looking at.
Completed operations is the long tail.
For a contractor, the part of general liability that matters most is the part covering work that is already done. The crew moved on years ago. The work is still standing there, and so is the exposure.
Completed operations responds to injury or damage arising out of your work after it is finished and out of your hands. It is the reason a general contractor asks to be named as an additional insured for completed operations rather than only for ongoing operations, and it is the reason those requests keep arriving long after final payment.
Arkansas puts an outer edge on it, and the years in between need coverage standing in them
Arkansas sets a hard deadline on construction defect claims measured from substantial completion of the improvement, not from when somebody notices the problem. Under Ark. Code § 16-56-112, contract actions for damages caused by a deficiency in the design, planning, supervision or construction of an improvement to real property must be brought within five years of substantial completion. Actions for personal injury or wrongful death caused by such a deficiency must be brought within four. The section also provides that the parties to a construction contract may not extend those periods by agreement or otherwise, so a clause promising an owner a longer window does not do what it appears to do.
Here is the part worth acting on. Your legal exposure on finished work runs for years measured from the day the job wrapped, but a general liability policy responds according to when the injury or damage happens, not according to when you did the work. Those two clocks are not the same clock. What that means practically is that the years after a job closes need coverage actually standing in them, and a gap in the middle of the repose window is a gap that no amount of good work at the time will fix.
So the things to watch are unglamorous: do not let coverage lapse between programs, treat any change in the form of your liability program as a moment to ask what happens to work you finished under the old one, and keep your completed operations in place rather than trimming it when a slow year makes it tempting. When your program changes, call us before it changes rather than after.
Ark. Code § 16-56-112. Summarized, with exceptions and provisions not covered here. General information, not legal advice.
Additional insured, and the three words that follow it.
Most insurance clauses in a construction or service contract are asking your general liability policy to do four specific things. Each one is a separate mechanism, and each has to actually be supported by the policy.
- Additional insured statusExtends the protection of your policy to the other party for exposure arising out of your work. Whether it reaches ongoing operations only, or completed operations as well, is a real distinction and contracts frequently want both.
- Primary and noncontributorySays your policy responds first and does not ask the other party's policy to contribute alongside it. Without this, two carriers can spend a while arguing about order.
- Waiver of subrogationGives up your carrier's right to pursue that party after paying a claim. Carriers generally want to know in advance rather than discover it in the file.
- Contractual liabilityThe indemnity you agreed to in the contract has to be the kind of obligation the policy can respond to. An indemnity written broadly enough can reach past what any liability policy was built to cover.
The pattern we see most often is a business signing the contract and then asking for a certificate matching it. Reverse the order. Send us the insurance requirements section before you sign, and we will tell you what your policy already does, what needs an endorsement, and what the contract is asking for that no policy is going to provide.
What general liability is not.
A good deal of confusion comes from expecting this policy to cover things that belong to a different one. These are the neighbors, not the gaps.
Not injuries to your own employees
Employee injury belongs to workers compensation and its employers liability half, not to general liability.
Not vehicles
Accidents involving owned, hired or non-owned vehicles belong to the commercial auto policy.
Not your own property
Damage to your building, contents, tools or equipment belongs to property and inland marine coverage.
Not professional advice
Exposure arising out of design, engineering or professional services is a different coverage line with its own form.
Not a warranty on your work
Liability coverage is not a guarantee that work will perform. The cost of redoing something is a different question from damage that the work caused.
Not a substitute for reading the form
Every liability policy carries exclusions and conditions, and they vary. Ask us what yours actually says rather than assuming it matches the last one.
Because the lines sit against each other so closely, they are worth building together. That usually means general liability alongside workers compensation and commercial auto rather than one at a time from three directions.
The part that lasts twelve months.
General liability generates more paperwork traffic than any other line on a contractor account, and nearly all of it is time-sensitive.
Certificates and endorsements
A certificate is evidence a policy existed on the day it was issued. It does not amend the policy and it does not by itself make anyone an additional insured. The endorsements do that. Send us the requirement, not just the request for a certificate.
Operations that change
New kind of work, new state, a service line you did not run last year. Tell us when the work changes rather than at renewal, because the description of operations is part of how the policy was underwritten.
Reporting a claim
Report promptly, including anything that looks like it might become a claim. Call the office and we will walk you through it and coordinate with the carrier, or report direct if that is faster in the moment.
For the wider picture rather than this carrier specifically, start with the business insurance section.
Other NAICO lines.
NAICO overview
The carrier profile: what NAICO writes, how the appointment works, and where financial strength sits.
NAICO workers compensation
Class codes, experience modification, audit mechanics and the Arkansas coverage thresholds.
In the build queueNAICO commercial auto
Liability, physical damage, hired and non-owned auto, and what Arkansas requires on a registered vehicle.
In the build queueNAICO property and inland marine
Building and contents values, contractors equipment, and coverage for tools in transit.
In the build queueNAICO surety and excess
Bond requirements, contract thresholds and how excess layers sit over the primary program.
In the build queueGeneral liability questions we get.
What does general liability actually cover?
What is products and completed operations?
How long can I be sued over finished construction work in Arkansas?
What is the difference between the occurrence limit and the aggregate?
My contract wants additional insured status, primary and noncontributory, and a waiver of subrogation. What does that mean?
Does a certificate of insurance prove I have the coverage a contract requires?
Cribb Insurance Group publishes carrier explainers, Arkansas coverage guidance and commercial insurance education. Add Cribb Insurance as a preferred source on Google.
Send us the contract too.
Description of operations, prior loss runs, the states you work in, and the insurance requirements section of whatever you are about to sign. We will run it through NAICO and the rest of our commercial markets and tell you what your policy has to be able to do.
Bentonville, AR 72713
NAICO and National American Insurance Company are marks of National American Insurance Company and are used here nominatively to identify a carrier Cribb Insurance Group is appointed with. Cribb Insurance Group Inc is an independent agency and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting on behalf of National American Insurance Company.
Coverage descriptions on this page are general and simplified. Coverage, availability, eligibility, endorsements and terms vary by policy, class of business and state, and the actual policy language controls in every case. Nothing here amends any policy or creates coverage.
Financial strength ratings are assigned by AM Best, are opinions about a company's ability to meet its insurance obligations rather than about claims handling or service, and can change at any time.
No premium figures, rate estimates, savings figures or suggested limits are published on this page. General liability pricing and limit structure are developed from the operations, contracts and loss history of the individual account.
Arkansas statutory references are general information and not legal advice. Statutes are summarized, carry exceptions this page does not cover, and may be amended. How any of this applies to a particular contract, project or claim depends on facts this page cannot know. Consult a licensed Arkansas attorney before signing or relying on contract language.
Last reviewed August 2026.