[RE-wrenches] Insurance for solar design and inspections

[Dave Tedeyan]

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 at 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
>
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> --
>        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>
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-- 
[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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