Port of Los Angeles: Insurance, Marine Exposures and Labor Terms for Contractors

The Harbor Department's insurance page states that U.S. Longshore and Harbor Workers' compensation coverage is required only when activities are in or over the water, or on the docks, piers and wharves. Upland work such as a building, a yard or a roadway away from the waterfront may not trigger that wording, while wharf rehabilitation, pile work, fender systems and utility work on a pier typically will.

Separate from the port's contract wording, the federal Longshore Act can apply to work over or next to navigable water depending on the facts of the job and of the worker's duties. Whether a particular crew falls under the state workers' compensation system, the federal act or both is a fact question, so the payroll split and the endorsement on the workers' compensation policy should be settled before the bid rather than at the certificate stage.

Subcontract terms matter here too. A dredging, diving or marine construction subcontractor may carry very different coverage from an upland trade, and the prime typically needs each subcontractor's certificate to match the scope it performs on the water.

The most detailed marine insurance language we found is Attachment A, Insurance Requirement, issued by the Harbor Department's Office of the Purchasing Agent and revised August 2025. It is a vendor exhibit used with purchase orders, not a construction contract exhibit. Construction solicitations set their own insurance terms, so the list below shows the kind of marine asks the Harbor Department makes, not the limits a construction contract will carry.

In that vendor exhibit, maritime employers liability is required for divers performing underwater work and for workers covered by neither USL&H nor the Jones Act. Vessel operators are asked for protection and indemnity coverage that includes Jones Act liability, vessel pollution and ship repairers' legal liability. The exhibit also calls for additional insured status on standard ISO forms and, where work is within 50 feet of railroad track, deletion of the general liability railroad exclusion.

• Maritime employers liability: divers and workers outside both USL&H and the Jones Act
• Protection and indemnity: $1 million, including Jones Act liability
• Vessel pollution: a limit equal to the P&I limit
• Pollution liability: $2 million
• General liability and auto: $1 million each, with CG 2010 and CG 2048 additional insured forms
• Railroad: delete the general liability railroad exclusion for work within 50 feet of track

The same August 2025 exhibit routes certificates through KwikComply, the Harbor Department's online compliance system. It says a bidder that fails to submit KwikComply certificate approval numbers within 10 days of the notice of intent to award will be deemed non-responsive. That deadline appears in the vendor exhibit; a construction solicitation can carry the same rule or its own, so read the instructions in the bid packet.

A 10-day window is short if a carrier has to issue new endorsements. Additional insured forms, the railroad exclusion deletion and any USL&H endorsement are worth confirming with the carriers before the bid goes in, so the certificate can be approved on the first submission.

We did not find a published Harbor Department construction bond percentage, and the City of Los Angeles bond forms page we tried to read returned an error. For state rules on public works payment and performance bonds and retention in California, use the statewide page linked below, and take the port's own bond amounts and forms from the solicitation.

We also found no published owner-controlled or rolling wrap-up for Port of Los Angeles construction. If a solicitation does include one, it will spell out which lines the program provides, what the contractor still carries and how insurance costs are treated in the bid. Until then, a bidder should price its own general liability, workers' compensation, USL&H, auto, excess and any pollution coverage the contract requires.

Surety underwriting for marine work typically looks hard at backlog, equipment and the contractor's history with waterfront jobs, since weather, tides and permit windows can stretch schedules. Bonds are credit rather than insurance, and the surety expects to be repaid by the contractor for any loss it pays.

On September 7, 2017, the Port announced approval of a 10-year port-wide project labor agreement that initially covered 38 planned and proposed infrastructure projects valued at about $780 million. The agreement set targets for local residents to perform at least 30 percent of work hours, transitional workers at least 10 percent and apprentices at least 20 percent.

We could not verify whether the agreement has since been amended or how its project list has changed, so check the solicitation for the PLA documents and any letter of assent. The hiring targets affect crew planning and labor cost, and they shape how a nonunion firm staffs a port job.

The neighboring Port of Long Beach runs its own agreements. Its vendor portal describes a Port-Wide PLA for 2023 through 2033 with a 40 percent local-worker goal for Los Angeles and Orange County residents. Long Beach terms are separate from the Port of Los Angeles terms, so a firm working both ports should not assume one agreement's rules carry over.

The Transportation Security Administration says the Transportation Worker Identification Credential is required by the Maritime Transportation Security Act for workers who need access to secure areas of maritime facilities and vessels. The TSA lists a $127 fee for new applicants and a five-year term.

None of the Port of Los Angeles documents we read set a TWIC rule for construction crews. Terminal work inside MTSA secure areas typically needs TWIC holders or escorts, depending on the facility and the tenant, so ask the Harbor Department or the terminal operator how access will be handled before setting crew sizes and schedule.