I received a surprising number (+20) of responses to this, many off-list. My unscientific summary is as follows:
* some people responded privately, indicating they do not have insurance and would rather I not publicize the issue lest their erstwhile employees suddenly take notice :-) * in the US, sole proprietorship is the way to go for simple one-person, garage-based shops * seems that a significant percentage of employers aren't going to ask and/or just don't care, and of those that do ask many will waive it if you explain you're too small to afford it -- this is certainly the case for small employers (big employers may just make it a hard requirement, knowing they will have enough bidders that someone will meet the criteria) * IEEE and possibly other such orgs offer professional liability insurance at "reasonable" rates, (for some definition of "reasonable") * if you're a (US?) govt contractor, seems like you'll almost certainly need to have insurance; if you're bidding for contracts, things get messy fast * and if you're doing contract work that seems to require it, just bake it in as a line item in the contract bid -- see if you can just pass the extra costs along * for longer contracts, some employers will offer the option of taking you on as a temporary employee (which means you're covered by the company's policy) * for some employers, having insurance might give you more "credibility" as a professional player -- but it also may be that as open source itself gains more street cred, this becomes less critical * and, finally, like all insurance, the odds are overwhelmingly against you ever needing to have to actually USE it... Here's a pretty typical response: > Do I carry insurance? No. > > Insurance adds significant administrative and financial overhead to a one man > shop. If you > want the one man shop price, you more often than not need to be willing to go > without them > having insurance. > > If you think about it, this isn't a bad arrangement anyway. You're not going > to give the one > man shop such an important thing that you're going to have to turn around and > sue them are you? > You're one man contract is for doing dirty things that you don't have time or > motivation to do, > not mission critical business work. If you *are* having your one man > contract do mission > critical work, you have bigger problems than whether or not they have > liability insurance > in my opinion. The happy news is that I was able to (oh so gently...) push back to our accounting and HR departments on the insurance requirement, using the above typical response and the "prevailing evidence" I gathered from this thread showing that most of you don't have insurance and yet, happily, the sun still rises every morning. Thanks to all who responded! -mpg > -----Original Message----- > From: Michael P. Gerlek > Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 10:03 AM > To: OSGeo Discussions > Subject: Insurance for contractors? > > In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work > (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these > people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and > reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. > > I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company > saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I > understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of > you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do > companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are > formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? > > [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm > interested in international responses too since I've hired some > foreigners as well over the years] > > -mpg _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
