Contractor Insurance in Indianapolis,
Built Around Chapter 875

Yes — Indianapolis requires general contractors to register under Municipal Code Chapter 875, even though Indiana has no statewide general contractor license. The city’s Department of Business and Neighborhood Services (DBNS) administers this registration, and it applies specifically within Indianapolis/Marion County (not the self-governing excluded cities of Lawrence, Beech Grove, Speedway, or Southport). Trade Safe can help you get the certificate of insurance and bond your DBNS application requires.

Indianapolis requires a $10,000 surety bond as part of its Chapter 875 general contractor registration, naming the Consolidated City of Indianapolis as Obligee. The bond runs on the same two-year cycle as your license, expiring December 31 of even-numbered years. Trade Safe can arrange this bond alongside your insurance package so both are ready for your DBNS application at once.

Indianapolis requires either split limits of $500,000 per occurrence for bodily injury/death and $100,000 per occurrence for property damage, or a combined single limit of $500,000 per occurrence, whichever your policy provides. Your certificate of insurance must name the Consolidated City of Indianapolis and Marion County (or DBNS) as both Certificate Holder and Additional Insured, with 15 days’ notice of cancellation. Trade Safe structures your GL policy to meet this exactly, so your DBNS paperwork isn’t held up.

It depends on your business structure. Sole proprietors, partnerships, and LLCs with no employees can sign a waiver on their DBNS application instead of carrying workers’ comp. Corporations, including Sub-S corporations, must either carry workers’ comp even with zero employees or obtain a Workman’s Compensation Exemption Certificate Clearance Waiver from the Indiana Worker’s Compensation Board. Trade Safe can tell you which path applies to your entity type before you apply.

An Indianapolis GC registration runs on a two-year cycle, expiring December 31 of even-numbered years, so you’ll renew alongside every other Indianapolis contractor rather than on your own anniversary date. New licensees, including anyone changing business entity type, must also attend a city orientation class within 60 days of getting licensed. Trade Safe tracks your renewal date so your bond and GL certificate stay current without a coverage gap.

Applications go through the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services (DBNS), based in the City-County Building at 200 E. Washington St., Suite 107. Permits themselves are pulled through the city’s Accela Citizen Access (ACA) online portal once your license is active. Trade Safe can issue your certificate of insurance in a format DBNS and Accela will accept without a back-and-forth.

No — they’re two separate systems. Plumbing is licensed statewide by the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency (Indiana Plumbing Commission), and that state license then has to be separately registered with the city before you can pull Indianapolis plumbing permits. General contracting, by contrast, has no state license at all — Indianapolis’s Chapter 875 registration is the only license that applies. Trade Safe can help sort out which registration(s) actually apply to your trade.

$500,000 per occurrence is the city’s registration floor, not necessarily what your projects will require. Commercial general contractors, larger residential builders, and anyone working under a GC’s contract often need $1 million per occurrence to bid the work at all — the city minimum and your contract’s minimum are two different numbers. Trade Safe reviews your actual project mix and recommends a limit that satisfies both DBNS and the contracts you’re chasing.

A meaningful amount, concentrated in a few real corridors: the 16 Tech Innovation District near IUPUI has a 2.2 million square foot development pipeline with eight shovel-ready parcels open now; Broad Ripple is mid-redevelopment under a new master plan, including a 2026 RFP to redevelop the historic Fire Station 32 site; and Fountain Square is in the middle of a multimillion-dollar Department of Public Works drainage project disrupting Shelby and Prospect Streets into late 2026. Trade Safe’s underwriters place contractors working in exactly these kinds of active, higher-volume markets.

It’s a real factor for builders risk coverage specifically. The National Weather Service’s Marion County tornado record shows 47 tornadoes since 1950, including a 2002 Southport F2 that caused $40 million in damage and a 1972 F4 — the county’s most severe tornado on record. If you’re carrying materials or an unfinished structure on-site, builders risk coverage protects against storm damage that a completed-operations GL policy won’t. Trade Safe can size a builders risk policy to your typical project value and timeline.