[RE-wrenches] Insurance for solar design and inspections

[Christopher Warfel]

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
>
> -- 
> 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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-- 
Christopher Warfel
           ENTECH Engineering Inc.
    PO Box 871, Block Island, RI 02807
                   401-477-5773
EE Logo <https://entech-engineering.com/Home/default.php>
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