Commercial snow insurance for property managers.

At minimum for any commercial property in Canada: $5M commercial general liability with snow-and-ice management explicitly endorsed (snow ops are sometimes excluded by default — read the endorsement, do not assume), $5M slip-and-fall coverage either as a separate policy or as an endorsement on the CGL, additional-insured naming your management entity at the policy level, commercial auto coverage on every truck and trailer used on your property, and inland marine on owned equipment (plows, salters, skid-steers). Class A office buildings and healthcare facilities additionally require waiver of subrogation and $10M aggregate limits. Hospitals frequently require $25M umbrella coverage above the CGL stack. Federal-government leased properties add Indigenous Services Canada compliance clauses. Always verify the policy is currently in force with a 30-day cancellation notice clause on the Certificate of Insurance — a contractor whose policy lapses mid-season leaves you exposed retroactively.

An additional-insured endorsement is a clause added to your contractor's commercial general liability policy that names YOU — the property owner or management entity — as a covered party on the policy. If a third party (a visitor, customer, or tenant) sues both you and the contractor for a slip-and-fall or property-damage incident, the contractor's insurer must defend both of you under the single policy. Without the endorsement, your own insurer would be on the hook to defend you, and may decline to do so on grounds that the loss arose from work performed by a separate party. The endorsement is typically free or low-cost to add, and the contractor's broker can issue an updated Certificate of Insurance showing the endorsement within 24–48 hours. Standard endorsement forms in Canada: IBC 2403 (Additional Insured — Designated Person or Organization), CG 20 10 (broader form often required by US-headquartered property managers), and the bespoke forms issued by major Canadian commercial underwriters. Verify the endorsement is on the Certificate, not just the verbal promise of the contractor.

Insurance costs add roughly $0.02–0.05 per square foot per visit to commercial snow-removal pricing. A 50,000 sq ft retail plaza pays $1,000–2,500 extra per visit for fully-insured service compared to an uninsured or under-insured operator — well below the cost of a single slip-and-fall claim (median $340,000 in Ontario). For a 200,000 sq ft Class A office tower the insurance load is $4,000–10,000 per visit on top of the snow work itself. The math heavily favours full insurance: one defended claim in a season pays for the entire insurance premium delta over five seasons. snow.ca pricing at $0.025–0.055 per sq ft per visit includes the full insurance stack as a default — no separate insurance line item on the invoice, no surge billing if an underwriter forces a premium increase mid-season. Operators quoting under $0.02 per sq ft on commercial work are typically running under-insured, which is the customer's problem when a claim hits.

Yes. snow.ca operates Class A office routes in Toronto (downtown financial core + midtown), Montréal (centre-ville + Quartier des Spectacles), Vancouver (downtown + Yaletown + Coal Harbour), Calgary (downtown + Beltline), Ottawa (downtown core + Tunney's Pasture), Edmonton (downtown + Strathcona), Winnipeg (Exchange District + downtown), Halifax (downtown + Spring Garden), and Québec City (Vieux-Québec + Sainte-Foy). The $10M coverage upgrade is automatic for buildings above 200,000 sq ft, with bespoke umbrella policies arranged for buildings above 500,000 sq ft. Class A buildings also receive: dedicated 2-hour SLA response, open-by 7 AM completion guarantee on retail-adjacent floors, ADA-compliant urea blend on stair ramps and bus stops (no sodium chloride which damages concrete and aluminum thresholds), continuous on-call monitoring during active storms, and bilingual property-management interface where the building manages tenants in both English and French. Reference Class A snow.ca clients include downtown office towers operated by Cadillac Fairview, Oxford Properties, Allied Properties, Brookfield, and several Ivanhoé Cambridge sites in Québec.