A connection, panel, splice, or circuit you installed can keep energizing long after final payment — and when a latent fault finally overheats and ignites, the fire can spread into a building that is not yours. That downstream, third-party fire damage is the covered event general liability’s completed-operations side is built to answer.
The short version: when your finished electrical work starts a fire that damages a third party’s property or injures someone, the general liability policy responds through what the form calls the products-completed operations hazard. The coverage form is typically the occurrence version known as CG 00 01, though a claims-made version, CG 00 02, exists and triggers differently. Editions and exact forms vary by carrier; confirm what is actually attached. The general liability page owns the coverage architecture — this post is about the completed-operations fire exposure electrical carries on the work it leaves behind, and the trigger that decides which policy year answers.
What the products-completed operations hazard covers for electrical work
The products-completed operations hazard is a real defined term in the standard coverage form, and it is the part of general liability that keeps working after your crew has gone. For a contractor it attaches to your work — the finished installation. In plain terms, it covers bodily injury or property damage that arises out of your completed electrical work, occurring away from premises you own or rent, once the job is done. A panel you set keeps carrying load after final payment; a termination you made heats and cools with every cycle; a circuit you ran works behind a finished wall long after the crew is gone. If one of those later faults and starts a fire that harms a third party or their property, that harm falls inside the completed-operations hazard. This is the exposure electrical carries more heavily than almost any trade, because the work you leave behind stays energized and the signature failure mode is a fire.
The occurrence-versus-claims-made trigger
Electrical fire claims surface late, so how the policy is triggered — by when the fire happened, or by when the claim is reported — decides whether a policy answers at all. Most contractors carry the occurrence form, CG 00 01. An occurrence policy responds based on when the bodily injury or property damage happens, regardless of when the claim is finally reported — so a fire that ignites seasons after the job can still reach back to the policy that was in force when the damage occurred. The claims-made version, CG 00 02, triggers differently: it responds based on when the claim is reported against you, subject to its retroactive date and any reporting conditions, not simply when the fire happened. For a trade whose signature loss shows up long after final payment, that distinction is not academic. A claims-made policy that lapses, or whose retroactive date is reset, can leave a gap exactly on the long tail electrical is known for. The honest instruction is the same as always: the right answer depends on the form your policy actually uses, so confirm which trigger is attached rather than assume.
Why the trigger matters on electrical’s fire tail
The reason the trigger carries so much weight comes straight from the nature of electrical work. A panel, connection, splice, or circuit you install or service keeps energizing after final payment: it carries load, heats and cools, and works behind a finished wall long after the crew is gone. A loose termination that overheats months after the job, an overloaded circuit that finally ignites, or a bad splice in a junction box that arcs and starts a fire in a building that is not yours is the classic completed-operations claim — and it usually shows up long after the crew has left the site. For an electrician who runs fire-alarm or life-safety wiring, the same tail includes a life-safety circuit that fails to do its job when a real fire finally tests it.
On an occurrence policy, that separation between the work and the loss is manageable, because the policy in force when the fire happened is the one that answers. If you switch carriers, the old carrier still stands behind the year it covered. On a claims-made policy, the same late claim can fall into a gap unless continuity is maintained and the retroactive date reaches back far enough to pick up the old job. This is the practical reason many contractors treat the trigger as a decision to make deliberately rather than inherit by accident. The right answer depends on the form your policy actually uses, so it is worth reading the completed-operations language on your own policy against the way electrical actually generates claims.
Real-World Scenario: An electrical sub wires a commercial tenant build-out, passes final inspection, energizes the system, and demobilizes. More than a year later a connection in the panel overheats behind a finished wall and starts a fire that damages the space and the tenant’s equipment; the property-damage claim names the electrician as the cause. Because the policy was written on an occurrence basis, the year the fire and damage happened is the year that answers, even though the job was long closed — and the completed-operations coverage inside the products-completed operations hazard responded to the third party’s fire loss. What the policy did not do, and was never meant to do, was pay to tear out and redo the failed connection itself; that faulty work was the electrician’s own.
The seam: what general liability won’t pay to redo
General liability answers the fire damage your finished work does to others — it does not pay to tear out and redo the defective installation itself. This is the seam electrical contractors most often misread. The completed-operations side pays for third-party bodily injury and property damage your finished work causes when it ignites. It does not pay to rip out and replace your defective workmanship — the panel, connection, or circuit you were paid to install. That cost sits behind the your-work exclusion, and it is a different conversation entirely. Keep the two halves straight: the fire damage to the third party’s building and contents is the covered loss; the labor and materials to correct the faulty connection or panel is the part general liability is not designed to fund.
There is a related mechanism that often rides alongside this exposure. When a general contractor wants your policy to protect it for that completed-operations fire exposure on a job you subbed, the additional-insured endorsements a GC demands are covered in the additional insured for electrical contractors post — a related but separate mechanism handled by CG 20 10 and CG 20 37, which that post teaches in full. This one stays on your own general liability and how its trigger responds.
What completed-operations coverage does not reach
Completed operations answers a specific thing — third-party fire damage or injury from your finished electrical work — and it is worth being clear about what sits outside it, because an electrical business runs on several policies at once. It does not reach your own crew: injuries to your workers — an electrocution, an arc-flash burn, or a fall, the signature electrical injuries — run through workers compensation, a separate line. It does not answer your vehicles and bucket trucks, which run through commercial auto, or your testers, meters, benders, and staged wire, which run through contractors equipment. Completed-operations general liability is specifically about the harm your finished work does to other people and their property — one important piece of the picture, not the whole of it.
It also does not erase the timing homework. Knowing you have completed-operations coverage is only half the answer; knowing which trigger you are on, and whether your retroactive date and continuity protect the jobs already behind you, is the other half. For a trade that can generate a fire claim seasons after the work, that homework is the part worth doing before a claim forces it.
Read your form before the fire surfaces
The takeaway is practical: a connection or panel you installed that later overheats and starts a fire in a third party’s building is the completed-operations claim general liability is built to answer — but only if the coverage is in force and triggered when you need it. Confirm the completed-operations hazard is covered, understand whether your form is occurrence or claims-made, and read the trigger against electrical’s long fire tail before a late fire tests it. The policy answers damage to someone else’s property; it does not pay to redo your own defective work, and the right answer depends on the form your policy actually uses, so it is worth reading rather than assuming. When you are ready, start a quote and tell us how far back your completed work runs, read the full general liability page to see how completed-operations coverage fits the rest of the policy, or browse the coverage overview to see where each line sits.