According to my agent, general liability does not cover design problems, whether we wrench it or not. That is what an Errors and Omissions policy would cover, and what a previous agent mentioned to me in passing after selling me general liability for 10 years! They could offer me an E&O policy for several thousands of dollars, so I shopped it around and found coverage for a fraction of that cost, from a reputable company. I have not considered an inspection insurance policy, mostly because my agent inferred that that type of work would be covered under an E & O policy as well, but I've never asked that question directly. So, something to add to my list for Monday... Howie Sun Catcher
On Sun, Mar 10, 2024, 6:23 PM Dave Tedeyan via RE-wrenches < re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote: > Hi All, > > I have an insurance question and am very curious about how others deal > with this, or don't. People will sometimes ask us to either do some design > work for a system that we will not be installing, or to inspect a system > and give my professional opinion about it. These are two separate work > situations. > > Recently, our insurance agent brought it to our attention that we should > have insurance specifically for these kinds of work, and it is not > something that is covered under our general liability (contractors) > insurance. > > Their recommendation for design work is to get "professional liability" > (errors and omissions) insurance. Even though I may do one or two designs a > year, we are looking at a roughly $12,000 policy. This would be meant to > cover us if I make a mistake in the design that leads to some sort of > failure or fire. > > Their recommendation for the inspection type work is to get essentially a > home inspector insurance policy for about $2400 per year. Again, this is > something that we do a handful of times per year. This insurance is meant > to cover us if I inspect a system and miss something that then ends up > being a problem or a hazard. > > With a brief conversation with a lawyer acquaintance, he thought that I > may be fine with out these insurances. It sounded like I should have > something in my service contracts that would essentially say something like > "we will do this work to the best of our ability", and then if something > does go wrong and the homeowner takes us to court, it is upon them to prove > that we missed something that a reasonable person would have caught. My > business manager does not like this because we could still have lots of > lawyer fees and have to show up in court if we were to get sued, even if > the problem was not caused by a lack of diligence on our part. > > So my question to all of you is, do you have these insurances? Or do you > just not do designs and inspections unless you are actually turning some > wrenches on the site so that your general liability insurance covers your > work? Or, is this a case of our insurance agent putting ungrounded fears in > our head? > > Thanks for your thoughts. > Cheers, > Dave > > -- > [image: Logo] <https://www.sungineersolar.com/> > Dave Tedeyan, P.E. > Owner | Sungineer Solar > p: he | him | his > a: 1653 Slaterville Rd. | Ithaca, NY 14850 > w: www.sungineersolar.com <http://www.sungineersolar.com/> > c: (607) 270-0370 > _______________________________________________ > List sponsored by Redwood Alliance > > Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org > > List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org > > Change listserver email address & settings: > http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org > > There are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the > other: > https://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/ > http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org > > List rules & etiquette: > http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm > > Check out or update participant bios: > http://www.members.re-wrenches.org > >
_______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org There are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other: https://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/ http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: http://www.members.re-wrenches.org
