Ontario's Plain-English Guide to Custom Home Building📞 705-533-1633 | ☎️ 1-866-868-6606 | ✉️ info@icfhome.ca
Owner-Builder Insurance in Ontario: Getting Covered When There Is No General Contractor
Construction Insurance
Owner-Builder Insurance in Ontario: Getting Covered When There Is No General Contractor
Build your own house without a general contractor and you pick up three jobs a builder normally carries for you: the property insurance on the half-built house, the liability for everyone who walks onto the lot, and the WSIB question on every trade you hire. Brokers can write all of it. They ask more questions and charge more; this page is what they ask, and what it costs.
Why the Broker Goes Quiet When You Say Owner-Builder
Builder’s risk, also called course-of-construction insurance, is priced on how likely the house is to burn, blow over, get wet or get stolen before it is finished. A licensed builder with twenty houses behind him is a known quantity. An owner-builder on a first house is not, so some insurers refuse the risk, most add a loading, and all of them want a longer story on the application.
We have watched materials walk off sites and weather get into open framing on well-run jobs. No Ontario law requires builder’s risk; your lender and your own bank balance do. The construction insurance hub covers the three policies and who normally carries each; the owner-builder guide covers the permit, the HCRA exemption and the missing warranty.
What the Application Actually Asks
A residential new-build application from a Canadian underwriting agency is short, and these questions on it decide whether you get a quote and what it looks like.
| Question on the form | Why they ask | A good answer |
|---|---|---|
| Is the project managed by a professional general contractor? If no, who is, and what is their experience? | The owner-builder question. It sets the loading or the refusal. | Your trade background, jobs you have run, the trades signed. |
| Distance to the fire hall, volunteer or paid, hydrant yes or no | Fire protection grade. Within 8 km by road of a hall and about 300 m of a hydrant is protected. | Kilometres by road, not as the crow flies. |
| Monitored electronic security? | Theft and vandalism on an empty site. | Fence, lights, camera or alarm. Small credit; our assumption 5 percent. |
| Insurance ever refused or cancelled? Liens on the property? Percentage of budget spent? | Past trouble, and a house already half exposed. | The truth, and zero spent. A wrong answer can void a claim. |
| Rebuild cost, labour and materials; soft costs optional | The insured amount. | Hard cost excluding land, including everything you buy yourself. |
The one that catches people: the broker wants contractor information before you have hired anyone. Give the trades you have and list the ones still to come. An indicative quote on a budget and a sketch is normal; the binder waits for the detail, and so should the first delivery.
Liability: The Part Nobody Puts in the Budget
On a builder’s job, the builder’s liability policy stands between a hurt worker or a hurt neighbour and the homeowner. On your job nothing stands there unless you buy it. The Occupiers’ Liability Act puts a duty of care on the person in control of the premises, and that is you. Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, an owner who hires the trades directly can be the “constructor”, answerable for safety on the whole project.
Said plainly: a worker injured on a site with no WSIB coverage and no liability policy can sue the homeowner. So can the neighbour whose fence the excavator folded. Your current home policy was written for the house you live in; ask in writing whether its liability follows you to a building lot.
What to buy is a general liability policy for the project, stand-alone or as a premises liability line on the course-of-construction quote. Assume property only unless liability shows as a line with a limit, and ask for $2,000,000, the floor a licensed residential contractor carries. Friends and family are the same problem: builder’s risk covers the house, not the people, and paying anyone by the hour, family included, raises the question of whether WSIB sees you as an employer. Ask WSIB before the first cheque, not after the first ambulance.
Your WSIB Position, in Plain Words
WSIB coverage has been mandatory in Ontario construction since January 1, 2013, independent operators included. A clearance certificate proves a trade’s account is in good standing. Clearances are free, valid up to 90 days, and every one in the province expires on the 20th of February, May, August or November. They must be in place before any construction work begins and for the duration, and the maximum fine is $100,000.
There is one exemption people lean on too hard. A contractor hired and paid directly by a home’s resident for home repairs or renovations needs no clearance, and an independent operator doing only that work may be exempt from coverage; anyone with employees must still register. Read the two conditions again: resident, and repairs or renovations. A new house on a vacant lot has no resident, and a new build is not a renovation. So the trades on an owner-built new home should carry coverage, and you should collect clearances before they start and when the quarter rolls over. Confirm your own case with WSIB; the rules have fine print. The framer hiring page shows how to check one online.
- Clearance before the first day, from every trade. Not the first week.
- Diary the 20th. February, May, August, November. Pull fresh clearances the week before.
- A liability certificate from every trade, naming you, dated past your finish.
- Pay a business by invoice, not a person in cash.
What an Owner-Builder Pays
| $500,000 hard cost, 9 to 12 months, protected area | Low / middle / high | Whose number |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed builder, 0.5 / 0.9 / 1.5 percent | $2,500 / $4,500 / $7,500 | our planning numbers inside the published range |
| Owner-builder, plus 25 percent | $3,125 / $5,625 / $9,375 | our assumption |
| Owner-builder, plus 50 percent | $3,750 / $6,750 / $11,250 | our assumption |
| Top of the published range, 4 percent | $20,000 | two Ontario brokerages and a Canadian comparison site; not our estimate |
| Unprotected fire grade | add 30 to 100 percent | brokers quoted in a BC newspaper |
November 2026. Wood-frame or ICF house, $2,500 deductible, land excluded. Premises liability is quoted per risk; ask for it as a line. Some insurers have a minimum premium. Expect a deductible of $1,000 to $5,000, often higher for water.
Why insurance prices are all over the map: the brokerages, insurers’ guides and lenders we checked did not agree on the same build. An Ontario and Quebec brokerage and a Canadian renovation marketplace said 0.5 to 1 percent of rebuild value; two Ontario brokerages and a Canadian comparison site said 1 percent up to 4. On a $500,000 house that is $2,500 at one end and $20,000 at the other. The reasons: percent of hard cost versus a flat minimum, term, deductible, construction type, fire protection grade, and soft costs and liability in or out. Budget about 1 percent, roughly $4,500 on $500,000, and get two or three quotes on the same written description of the build.
The cost calculator applies the owner-builder loading and the fire grade and writes a quote request sheet you send to a broker of your own choosing.
Materials You Bought Yourself, and Building Bare
Owner-supplied materials are covered on the insured site as part of the insured value, provided the rebuild cost you declared includes them. People declare the trades’ contract totals and forget the $60,000 of windows, cabinets and flooring they bought direct; if it is not in the number, it is not in the policy. In transit and stored off-site are endorsements with sublimits; ask for both.
Building with no coverage is a bet with your net worth as the stake. The lender will not advance a draw without proof of insurance naming the lender, so a financed build cannot start bare. A cash build can, and a fire at drywall stage leaves most of a $500,000 budget in a dumpster and a mortgage-free lot. Then the backstop that is not there: an owner-built home is not covered by Tarion. The owner-builder versus hiring a builder page puts that trade-off in one place.
Never let a delivery or a trade on site before the policy is bound in writing. Bound means the broker has confirmed, by email or binder, the effective date, the insured amount and every named party. A quote is a price; a binder is coverage.
We build houses as a licensed builder and carry builder’s risk, liability and WSIB on every one of them; we do not sell insurance, refer brokers or take a fee from anyone. The binding answer on any policy comes from a RIBO-licensed broker. And in plain words, this is general information from a builder, not insurance, legal or tax advice; policies differ; confirm the details with a RIBO-licensed broker and your lender before you count on any of it.
Questions people ask
Can I get builder’s risk insurance without hiring a general contractor?
Yes, from most but not all insurers. Expect the application to ask who is managing the build and what experience they have, and expect a higher premium than a licensed builder pays; our calculator assumes 25 to 50 percent more. Bind before anything is delivered.
Does an owner-builder need general liability insurance?
No law makes you buy it, and no law protects you without it. You control the site under the Occupiers’ Liability Act and may be the constructor under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. A $2,000,000 general liability policy is the sensible minimum.
Who is responsible if a worker is injured on my property?
If the trade carries WSIB coverage, the no-fault system handles the injury. If the trade has no coverage and there is no liability policy, the injured worker can sue the homeowner, and on an owner-built house that is you. Collect a clearance and a liability certificate from every trade before the first day.
Does an owner-builder need WSIB registration?
Hiring insured trades by contract does not by itself make you register, but paying workers by the hour may. The exemption is for a resident hiring repairs or renovations; a new house on a vacant lot has no resident, so your trades should carry coverage and you should hold their clearances. Confirm your own position with WSIB directly.
Can owner-builders qualify for construction mortgages?
Yes. Self-built homes are eligible for insured progress-draw mortgages when each sub-trade contract is under 50 percent of the construction cost. Insured or not, the lender wants course-of-construction insurance naming it before the first draw; see the construction mortgage insurance page.
Know the number before the first truck backs in
The calculator prices the policy from your hard cost, term, fire grade and the owner-builder loading, and writes the quote request sheet. The hub has the free “Am I Covered” booklet and the paid coverage review with a builder.
Sources and further reading
- WSIB clearance certificates FAQ: clearances before work starts and for the duration, the resident-homeowner renovation exemption, 90-day validity, the $100,000 maximum fine.
- WSIB: independent operators in construction: the coverage obligation, the exemption when paid directly by the resident, and how premiums are calculated on contract value.
- HCRA: do I need a licence?: builder and vendor licensing, the owner-builder exemption, and that an owner-built home has no statutory warranty.
