Your auto policy covers the van. It does not cover what is inside it.

Standard property coverage is tied to a described premises. Contractor equipment is defined by not being there: it is at a job site, in a truck, or sitting in a trailer overnight. That mismatch is the entire reason inland marine exists, and it is why gear left off this line is usually uninsured rather than partly insured.

Why the other policies do not cover it

Three policies sit near your tools and none of them pays for them. Commercial auto covers the vehicle and liability from its use, not the contents. General liability covers damage you cause to other people's property, not damage to your own. Commercial property is written around a fixed address, and your equipment's defining feature is that it is somewhere else.

That leaves a clean gap that only an equipment or inland marine form fills. It is also why a van break-in is one of the most common uninsured losses in contracting: the contractor had insurance, just not the one that pays for this.

Scheduled, blanket, and how to structure it

Most contractors need both approaches. Scheduled coverage lists specific high-value items with stated values, which suits a chipper, a mini excavator, or a pipe camera you could not casually replace. Blanket coverage insures the general pool of smaller tools up to a limit without itemising every drill.

Setting the blanket limit is where judgement is needed, because it should reflect what is genuinely in the vans and trailers at once, not a comfortable-sounding round number. Schedule the expensive units by name, blanket the rest realistically, and the structure holds on a real loss.

Rented equipment, which people forget they are responsible for

Rental agreements typically make you responsible for damage to the machine while it is in your possession. That obligation exists whether or not you insured for it. Rented equipment coverage responds to it, and on some forms it has to be specifically added rather than assumed.

The limit matters here too: if you occasionally rent a machine worth more than your entire owned schedule, the coverage needs to reflect the peak rental exposure rather than the routine one.

Replacement cost versus actual cash value

This single term changes the outcome more than the premium difference suggests. Actual cash value pays depreciated value, so a five-year-old machine may settle for a fraction of what a replacement actually costs. Replacement cost pays to replace with new.

On equipment that depreciates fast and gets used hard, ACV settlements are how contractors end up funding half a replacement themselves after a covered loss. Knowing which basis you are on before the loss is the entire point of reading this line.

What it costs, and the mistake that recurs

Pricing follows the total insured value of your gear, scheduled and blanket, plus loss history. It is a modest line next to the liability coverages because it is driven by replacement value rather than injury exposure.

The recurring failure is not price, it is drift. Contractors add tools continuously and revisit the schedule almost never, so the limit set three years ago quietly stops matching the inventory. That gap is invisible until a total loss, and then it is the whole story. An annual look at the schedule against what you actually own is the cheapest fix available on this line.

Questions worth asking before you sign

Ask whether coverage is replacement cost or actual cash value. Ask what the blanket limit is and whether it matches what is in the vehicles right now. Ask whether high-value units are scheduled by name. Ask whether rented equipment is covered and at what limit. Ask whether theft from an unattended vehicle is covered or restricted, because some forms limit it.