[RE-wrenches] Insurance for solar design and inspections

[Howie Michaelson]

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 at 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
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