Additional Insured, Ongoing vs. Completed Operations, and the 'Your Work' Exclusion

Posture of the endorsement is the whole question. CG 20 33 (blanket additional insured - ongoing operations) extends insured status only for liability arising out of the named insured's ongoing operations for the additional insured. Summit's operations ended in 2019. A 2024 leak from a completed roof is a products-completed operations exposure, which the endorsement does not reach.

So the carrier is right on this endorsement - but for a reason that has nothing to do with fault. To obtain completed-operations status Ridgeline needed a form such as CG 20 37 or CG 20 26, which is why well-drafted subcontracts specify the endorsement form number and edition date, not just 'additional insured status.'

Practical consequences:

• Ridgeline's own CGL is now the responsive policy; its defense and indemnity obligations run to the homeowners, and it must look to Summit through the subcontract's indemnity/hold-harmless clause and its own tender.
• Ridgeline should immediately re-audit its subcontract templates, because the same gap exists on every job written with CG 20 33 only.
• The denial is not an adjudication that Summit's work was non-negligent; it is a coverage-scope denial that preserves nothing for Ridgeline.

Roof replacement - no coverage. Property damage to 'your work' included in the products-completed operations hazard is excluded. The negligent underlayment is Summit's work, and the cost of tearing out and redoing it is the classic business risk the exclusion targets: contractors do not get to insure the quality of their own product. The subcontractor exception does not help Summit because Summit's own crews performed the work.

Interior damage - likely covered. The damage to drywall, insulation and flooring is to other property, not to the roof itself. The reach of the exclusion is limited to the particular part of the property on which the named insured is operating. Because a subcontractor was not involved, the 'impaired property' exclusion must also be checked - but that exclusion targets loss of use of property that can be restored by repairing or replacing the insured's own work; here the units suffered actual physical damage, which falls outside it.

Occurrence requirement. Negligent installation is an accident from the standpoint of the insured, so the occurrence trigger is satisfied, despite the argument that long-term moisture intrusion was foreseeable. Aggregate effect: the carrier owes the $180,000 interior claim but not the $95,000 roof.

Wrong aggregate. This loss belongs to the products-completed operations hazard, which is subject to its own separate aggregate (here $2M), not the general aggregate. Completed-operations claims do not erode the general aggregate, so an argument that the general aggregate is exhausted is misplaced.

Number of occurrences. One cause - a single crew, a single roof system, one installation methodology - generally makes this a single occurrence regardless of how many units leak, because the number of occurrences is measured by the cause of loss rather than the number of claimants or damaged units. If, however, the investigation showed three separate crews using three different defective techniques over several months, the carrier could argue three occurrences.

Why the count matters: with a $1M per-occurrence limit and $180,000 of covered damage, the limit question is academic - but add a serious bodily injury claim (a ceiling collapse injuring a resident) and the difference between one occurrence capped at $1M and multiple occurrences becomes the whole case. The defense obligation itself sits outside the limits on an occurrence CGL form, and Summit's carrier owes defense costs even as it disputes indemnity.