This is a very hard question to answer. I have had insurance in california, utah and illinois. Each state is different and you want to be very careful. For instance in california you have to find a company willing to cover california and on top of that you get broker fees. If you have to add an umbrella policy they will charge another broker fee. Everytime you talk to someone adding on a certificate they charge more as well.
Here is my recommendation... Learn real hard about the insurance requirements and call
anyone and everyone in the insurance business. Ive had farmers for my truck, ive had progressive, Ive had auto owners, harford for general liability. The important thing is to get classified as close to what you are and for you to understand what insurance you are actually getting with whom. I recommend finding an independent agent and have them search their insurance database with multiple companies. This doesn't mean your general, auto, workers comp all have to be with farmers for example. If you get an independent agent you could have your auto with progressive, general liability with auto owners and workers comp farmers?
The nice thing about having the same agent is if you need a certificate they can produce you 1 certificate with all the policies on one sheet. as some companies require certificates or additional insurer. this really comes down to who your doing work for and how many different companies your going to work with. I have had malls required me to get additional insurered and since I always talked to my agent they would send it over to me fairly quickly durring normal business hours. If you are just doing residential for a company like directv one certificate and your good to go.
