[RE-wrenches] Insurance for solar design and inspections

[pgiroux at mindspring.com]

Dave

 

  You have it, you won’t need it. You do not have it you will. In my previous life I had errors and omissions insurance. Shop it, you may be able to get better rates and coverages. I now just have a whopper of a GL policy and there have been a time or two where I get a call to fix another companies problems where I let the customer know the challenges and a time or two turned down the business due to the system being such a mess or I am not “certified “to service that gear  ( Generac )

 

Peter Giroux

ASAE  

 

From: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org> On Behalf Of Dave Tedeyan via RE-wrenches
Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2024 6:23 PM
To: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Cc: Dave Tedeyan <dave at sungineersolar.com>
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Insurance for solar design and inspections

 

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

 

-- 


 <https://www.sungineersolar.com/> 


Dave Tedeyan, P.E.
Owner | Sungineer Solar


p: he | him | his
a: 1653 Slaterville Rd. | Ithaca, NY 14850
w: <http://www.sungineersolar.com/>  www.sungineersolar.com
c: (607) 270-0370

	

 

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