A Sub Damaged Something on Your Customer's Property (Decision Tree)

Why this matters

The customer hired your company, so a sub's mistake on their property is your problem to make right, fast, whoever caused it. The first hour decides everything: whether this becomes a repaired incident the customer barely remembers or a lost account plus a coverage fight. This tree is the field response and the relationship handling in the moment. The mechanics of whose insurance policy pays are covered in the related insurance decision tree; here the focus is what you do on site and how you protect the customer relationship.

Start here: make it safe

Before any photos, blame, or phone calls, screen for a hazard. If the damage created a live danger, that comes first:

1. Water still running, near anything electrical: kill power to the area at the panel, then shut the water at the nearest valve.
2. Exposed or damaged wiring: de-energize the circuit and keep people back until it is verified dead.
3. A gas line struck: get everyone out, touch nothing electrical, and call the gas utility from a safe distance.
4. Structural, glass, or a fall hazard: clear people away and barrier it off.

Stabilize the hazard the same way you would on any emergency, then come back to this tree. Nobody documents a photo standing in a hazard.

Preserve the scene before anyone cleans up

Once it is safe, do not let anyone start repairs, cleanup, or corrective work until it is recorded. A cleanup started before documentation erases the record that everyone's coverage and every account of what happened depends on.

• Photograph wide, then close. The whole area for context, the specific damage in detail, and anything that shows how it happened.
• Write down what happened while it is fresh: what the sub was doing, what went wrong, the time, and who was present.
• Get accounts in writing separately if more than one party was involved, before the stories drift together.

Tell the customer yourself, now

Do not let the customer discover damage after the crew has left. That single failure turns a repairable incident into a trust problem you may not recover from.

• Notify them promptly and honestly, in person or by call, not a text they find later.
• Own it as the company. Do not deflect blame onto the sub in front of the customer; it reads as a company that cannot control its own people.
• State that you will handle making it right, and mean it.

Make the property whole first, settle who pays second

Run these as two separate tracks and never let the second delay the first.

• Track one, the customer: get the damage repaired to your standard, quickly, by you or a qualified party. The customer should not wait while you and the sub argue over a policy.
• Track two, the money: who ultimately pays is a matter between you, the sub, and the insurers, handled out of the customer's sight.

Keeping these separate in your head and in your words to the customer is the whole discipline. A customer made whole fast forgives the incident. A customer stuck in the middle of a coverage fight does not.

Then hold the sub accountable

With the customer handled, pursue recovery.

• Notify the sub in writing that they caused damage and a claim or backcharge is coming. Attach your documentation.
• Route it to their coverage and indemnity. Whether the sub's policy or yours responds depends on the certificate of insurance and agreement you set up before the job. The related insurance tree walks that determination; the who-is-liable reference explains the chain.
• Backcharge for your correction cost only if the agreement allows it and the fault is clearly theirs.
• Decide the relationship. An accident a standup sub owns and helps fix is recoverable. A sub who denies clear fault or has a pattern is done.

Recap

1. Make it safe: stabilize any hazard first.
2. Preserve the scene: photograph and write it down before cleanup.
3. Tell the customer yourself, own it, do not blame the sub to their face.
4. Make the property whole fast; settle who pays on a separate track.
5. Then hold the sub accountable in writing.

References

• Insurance Information Institute: subcontractor liability and certificate verification
• Trade-standard practice for jobsite incident response and documentation
• See related: A Subcontractor Causes Damage on Your Job (Decision Tree); Who Is Liable When a Subcontractor Causes Damage