Insurance by Industry
Insurance built for machine shops and precision manufacturers
From CNC equipment in Meridian to fabrication shops near San Antonio, Bittick places coverage for the real risks your shop faces.
Machine shop insurance is a combination of commercial policies that protects your equipment, your finished products, your employees, and your liability to third parties when something goes wrong on the shop floor or after a part leaves your facility.
A machine shop carries more exposure than most small businesses. Your equipment is expensive and specialized, the materials you process or handle can create environmental and safety risks, and the parts you produce often go into other people's products or machinery. Bittick is an independent agency, so we shop your account across multiple carriers and build a program around your actual operations, not a generic small-business package. We're licensed in CA, CO, ID, NV, OR, TX, VA, and WA.
What this coverage includes
Commercial property and equipment coverage
Your building, raw materials, finished inventory, and the machines themselves all qualify as property. Commercial property insurance covers direct physical loss from fire, theft, vandalism, and most weather events. For the machines specifically, a systems breakdown endorsement extends that protection to mechanical and electrical failure that a standard property form excludes. That matters when a CNC lathe, a press brake, or a surface grinder goes down mid-job: the repair bill alone can be significant, and the lost production time compounds the loss.
Product liability and product recall
Product liability coverage applies when a part or component your shop produced causes bodily injury or property damage to someone downstream. Even a small dimensional error in a machined part can create real downstream consequences. Product recall insurance is a separate layer that covers the direct cost of retrieving, replacing, or disposing of a defective product before or after a claim is filed. Notification expenses, shipping, and disposal costs add up fast, and a standard general liability policy does not cover them.
Environmental liability
Metalworking fluids, solvents, cutting oils, and surface treatment chemicals are routine in a machine shop environment. If any of those substances migrate off your property through a floor drain, a stormwater connection, or soil absorption, you may face a third-party cleanup claim or regulatory action. Environmental impairment liability covers cleanup costs, attorney fees, and damages awarded when a pollution or contamination event is traced back to your facility. Standard commercial general liability policies typically exclude pollution entirely, so this is a gap worth filling deliberately.
Business interruption coverage
If a fire, a burst pipe, or a covered equipment loss forces you to shut down, you still owe rent, payroll, and loan payments even while revenue is zero. Business interruption insurance replaces lost income and covers ongoing fixed expenses during the period your shop is being repaired or rebuilt. Riders are available to address supply chain disruptions: if a key material supplier is knocked out and you cannot source the stock you need to operate, a contingent business interruption extension can cover that gap too.
General liability and employment practices
Commercial general liability covers third-party bodily injury and property damage claims that arise from your premises or operations, separate from a product defect. A vendor rep who trips on a hose on your shop floor, or a customer whose vehicle is scratched in your parking lot, would be general liability claims. Employment practices liability (EPLI) is a distinct policy that responds to allegations of discrimination, harassment, or wrongful termination brought by current or former employees. As your shop grows and your headcount increases, EPLI becomes harder to justify skipping.
Pairs well with
Commercial Auto Insurance
If your shop owns trucks or vans for delivery, pickup, or field service, those vehicles need a commercial auto policy. Personal auto policies exclude business use, and the gap shows up at the worst possible time.
Learn more ›Hired and Non-Owned Auto Insurance
When an employee drives their personal vehicle to pick up materials or deliver a finished order, your business can share liability for an accident. Hired and non-owned auto coverage fills the gap a commercial auto policy leaves.
Cyber Liability Insurance
Machine shops increasingly rely on CAD files, CNC programming data, and digital contracts. A ransomware attack or data breach can expose proprietary designs and customer information. Cyber liability covers notification costs, recovery expenses, and third-party claims.
Learn more ›Workers Compensation Insurance
Idaho requires most employers to carry workers compensation. On a shop floor with heavy machinery, cutting tools, and metal debris, the frequency of hand, eye, and musculoskeletal injuries is real. Workers comp covers medical treatment and lost wages for injured employees.
Learn more ›Commercial Umbrella Insurance
A serious product liability claim or environmental cleanup demand can exceed the limits of your underlying policies. A commercial umbrella policy sits above your general liability, product liability, and auto limits and pays once those limits are exhausted.
Learn more ›What this coverage protects against
Common risks and how this coverage addresses them. Tap any scenario to expand.
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A surface grinder fails and takes your largest machine offline for three weeks.
The risk
A bearing failure in your surface grinder shuts down the machine entirely. The part has to be sourced from out of state, and the repair takes 22 days. During that time you cannot fulfill two standing orders.
How this coverage helps
A systems breakdown endorsement covers the repair bill. Business interruption coverage replaces the revenue you lost during the downtime and covers the payroll you still owed your operators while the machine sat idle.
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A batch of custom shafts you machined causes a customer's equipment to fail.
The risk
A manufacturer incorporated a run of turned shafts from your shop into their assembly line equipment. A dimensional tolerance was off, and several shafts failed under load, damaging the customer's machinery and injuring a maintenance worker.
How this coverage helps
Product liability coverage responds to the bodily injury claim from the injured worker and the property damage claim from the manufacturer. Your policy covers attorney fees, any settlement, and court costs up to your policy limit.
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Machining fluid reaches a neighbor's property through a shared drainage channel.
The risk
A slow leak from a coolant reservoir finds its way through a floor crack and into a drainage easement that runs to an adjacent property. The neighbor reports discolored ground near their building. A state environmental agency opens an inquiry.
How this coverage helps
Environmental impairment liability covers the cost of soil testing, remediation, regulatory response, and the neighbor's third-party claim. Standard general liability would have excluded the event as a pollution loss.
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A fire in the grinding room closes the shop for two months.
The risk
A grinding spark ignites accumulated dust near a storage shelf. The fire suppression system activates, but the water damage compounds the fire damage. Your shop cannot operate while the floor, wiring, and ventilation system are restored.
How this coverage helps
Commercial property insurance covers the building repairs and the replacement of damaged equipment. Business interruption insurance covers your fixed operating costs and replaces lost income during the entire shutdown period.
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A defective batch of components has already shipped to four customers.
The risk
You discover that a tooling error during a production run produced parts that do not meet the spec sheet. Parts have already shipped to four different customers across three states, and they are installed in products in the field.
How this coverage helps
Product recall insurance covers the notification costs, the logistics of retrieving the parts, any testing required, and disposal or rework. Without it, those costs come entirely out of your operating budget.
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A former employee files a discrimination complaint six months after leaving.
The risk
A former machinist files an EEOC complaint alleging they were passed over for a shift lead position because of their age. The complaint names both the shop owner and the floor supervisor individually.
How this coverage helps
Employment practices liability insurance covers the legal defense, any settlement or judgment, and associated administrative costs. A general liability policy does not respond to employment claims.
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Your shop's customer database is accessed in a ransomware attack.
The risk
An employee opens a malicious email attachment and ransomware encrypts your local files, including your customer contact records, open order details, and proprietary CAD specifications shared under NDA.
How this coverage helps
Cyber liability insurance covers the forensic investigation, data recovery costs, customer notification, and any regulatory fines. It also covers third-party claims from customers whose NDA-protected specifications were exposed.