Thanks for the recommendations to shop around. Seems like maybe this does not need to be such a huge investment.
And Howie, I was also under the impression that the E&O would cover inspections. We were just looking into an inspection policy instead of an E&O because our agent said that it would be far less expensive and this all came up around an inspection that I was planning on doing. Cheers, Dave On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 8:21 AM Christopher Warfel via RE-wrenches < re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote: > I have carried E&O for much less. I think the recommendation to shop > around is a good one. NABECP I THINK, has some leads on firms for this. > > > Chris > On 3/10/2024 6:23 PM, Dave Tedeyan via RE-wrenches 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 > > -- > Christopher Warfel > ENTECH Engineering Inc. > PO Box 871, Block Island, RI 02807 > 401-477-5773 > [image: EE Logo] <https://entech-engineering.com/Home/default.php> > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > -- [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