The most your insurance will pay out in total across all claims in a single year.
The general aggregate is the maximum total amount an insurance company will pay for all covered claims under a commercial general liability policy during the policy period, typically one year. Once the aggregate limit is exhausted, no further claims will be paid under that policy for the remainder of the term. Contractors managing multiple simultaneous projects must monitor aggregate consumption carefully to avoid gaps in coverage.
On bid day, owners and GCs verify that a contractor's general aggregate limit meets the project's insurance requirements, and a low or partially exhausted aggregate can make an otherwise low bidder nonresponsive. For contractors running many jobs at once, aggregate consumption is a live risk because claims on one project can erode the limit available to all the others.
Before awarding, the owner's risk manager requests a certificate showing the contractor's $2 million general aggregate is intact and not eroded by prior-year claims on other projects.
Get AI-powered bid alerts, automated form filling, and proposal drafting.
Start Free Trial