Garage Door Contractor Insurance in Washington State

Garage door contractors handle one of the most mechanically dangerous components in residential and commercial construction. A standard residential garage door weighs between 130 and 400 pounds, and the torsion springs that counterbalance that weight store enormous kinetic energy. A torsion spring failure during installation or adjustment can launch metal components with lethal force, and spring-related injuries are among the most severe in the home services industry. Every service call where your technician winds or adjusts a torsion spring is a moment of acute bodily injury exposure — to your worker and to anyone in the garage.

Beyond the spring hazard, garage door contractors face significant property damage liability. Improperly installed doors can fall from tracks, crushing vehicles, equipment, or people below. Automatic opener installations that malfunction can cause doors to close on vehicles or — far worse — on children or pets. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has documented hundreds of entrapment incidents involving garage doors, and claims involving child injuries generate some of the largest settlements in the home services sector. Your liability policy must include robust products-completed operations coverage because these failures typically occur after you leave the jobsite.

The commercial side of garage door work amplifies every risk. Industrial overhead doors, rolling steel doors, and high-speed dock doors in warehouses and loading facilities can weigh thousands of pounds. The cable, track, and spring systems on commercial doors operate under extreme tension, and a failed cable during installation can whip across a bay with devastating force. Commercial door installations often involve electrical connections for motorized openers, adding electrocution and fire risk to the mechanical hazards. If a dock door fails and damages inventory or delays shipping operations, the resulting business interruption claim from the property owner can dwarf the physical damage costs.

Washington requires garage door contractors to register with L&I as specialty contractors and carry a $15,000 surety bond. Most property management companies and general contractors require $1M/$2M general liability coverage before allowing garage door work on their properties. The combination of extreme mechanical force, heavy moving components, and the potential for catastrophic entrapment injuries means operating without adequate insurance in this trade exposes you to claims that can easily exceed six figures from a single incident.