USL&H Insurance: The Federal Requirement for Work Over Water

If you are hiring someone to build or repair a structure over the water, there is one question worth asking before price, schedule or materials come up at all: do you carry USL&H?

Most owners have never heard of it. It is the reason an injury on your dock can become your problem.

What USL&H is

USL&H — United States Longshore and Harbor — is insurance written under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, a federal statute at 33 U.S.C. §901 and following, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs.

It is a federally mandated requirement for employers whose workers engage in maritime-adjacent employment that falls outside traditional state workers’ compensation. That sentence is doing a lot of work, so it is worth taking apart.

The gap it exists to fill

Ordinary workers’ compensation is a creature of state law. Every state runs its own scheme, and those schemes were written with land-based employment in mind.

Maritime work does not sit neatly inside that. A worker driving piles from a barge, repairing a wall from the water side, or building a dock out over a river is doing something state schemes were not designed around — and federal law has long treated navigable waters as its own jurisdiction. So Congress built a separate federal scheme for those workers.

The result is two systems with a boundary running roughly along the water’s edge. A worker is meant to fall under one or the other. The danger is a contractor who has only arranged for one of them while doing work that crosses the line.

Who the Act covers

Coverage under the Longshore Act turns on two tests, and both have to be satisfied.

Status — what the work is. The employee must be engaged in maritime employment. The Act names longshore workers, ship repairers, shipbuilders and shipbreakers, and it reaches harbour construction workers.

Situs — where the work happens. The injury must occur on the navigable waters of the United States, which for this purpose includes adjoining piers, wharves, dry docks, terminals, building ways, marine railways and other adjoining areas customarily used in loading, unloading, repairing, dismantling or building a vessel.

Both tests, not either. A worker can be doing unmistakably maritime work in a place the Act does not reach, or be standing somewhere it does while doing something it does not cover.

Who it does not cover

The Act specifically excludes masters and members of the crew of a vessel — seamen, who fall under the Jones Act instead. Several other categories are excluded as well, though in general those exclusions only apply where the worker is covered by a state workers’ compensation law — which is the drafting that keeps the gap closed.

What it provides

Where the Act applies, an injured worker is entitled to medical treatment for the injury, disability compensation calculated as a proportion of their average weekly wage and subject to statutory maximums and minimums that adjust annually, vocational rehabilitation where appropriate, and death benefits for survivors.

Employers must secure that liability either through a carrier authorised by the Department of Labor or by being authorised to self-insure. This is not optional. An employer who fails to secure coverage commits a criminal offence, corporate officers may be held personally liable, and an employee injured while the employer was uninsured can bring suit at law — in which the employer loses the common-law defences that workers’ compensation would ordinarily have given it.

Why this matters when you are hiring

Here is the practical shape of the problem.

A marine contractor whose crew works over water needs both state workers’ compensation and USL&H, because the crew crosses that boundary during a normal working day — loading on the bank, working from a barge, finishing at the wall. Carrying only state coverage leaves a hole over exactly the part of the job that is most exposed.

If a worker is injured in that hole, there is no insurance scheme standing behind the claim. What happens next depends on the facts, but an uninsured injury looks for a solvent party, and the owner of the property where the work was happening is a visible one.

USL&H costs money. That is the honest reason some marine bidders do not carry it, and the reason a quote from a contractor who does can look higher than one from a contractor who does not. You are not comparing like with like.

What to ask for

1. A certificate of insurance showing USL&H named separately from workers’ compensation. They are two lines, not one.
2. Sent by the broker, not forwarded by the contractor.
3. Current dates. A certificate that expired in the middle of your project is a certificate for somebody else’s project.
4. If the work is commercial, municipal or military, confirm what the contract documents require — public and institutional owners routinely require USL&H by name, and for good reason.

No legitimate marine contractor will be put out by any of this. It is a normal part of qualifying a bidder, and the ones who carry the coverage are generally pleased to be asked.

Where Barefoot stands

Barefoot Marine Construction carries Workers’ Compensation and USL&H, and is a Florida Certified General Contractor, #1533461. We will send a current certificate on request, for a residential dock repair as readily as for a commercial contract.

If you are collecting estimates for waterfront work, see also our notes on what drives the cost of a bulkhead, what to ask about permits and the difference between a bulkhead and a seawall.

This page is general information about a federal insurance requirement, written for property owners hiring marine contractors. It is not legal or insurance advice, and it does not attempt to describe how the Act applies to any particular worker or job. The Act, its administration and the benefit figures under it change over time. Confirm current requirements with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation, and take advice from your own counsel or insurance broker on anything that turns on your own circumstances.