liability insurance

By rodburner1961 Date 05-20-2010 19:50

I would like the help of those on this forum that are or have worked as an independent contractor as a C.W.I.; who would you recommend as a national insurance provider in order to obtain liability insurance? Does tha A.W.S. recommend one company over another? I realize that the general rule of thumb is to carry as much as you can afford, but given the fact that I have never done this before, I figured this forum could lead me to a better conclusion on providers.

I'm going to be inspecting underground mining equipment in the very near future, and any information you can pass along my way would be greatly appreciated.

By 803056

Date 05-24-2010 03:57

As a CWI you may find it very difficult to get liability coverage at a reasonable rate if you don't have a P.E. license. If you do find it, it will be expensive because they will no doubt insist on omissions and errors coverage as part of the liability coverage.

Best regards - Al

By thirdeye (***)

Date 05-24-2010 18:34

A big obstacle is insuring (pardon the pun) that the underwriter understands exactly what you do. They really don't spend much time at all working up a quote for coverages, but welding inspection is not a standard category like Painter, Electrician, Sign Painter etc., which appear on a standard list of occupations. On top of that when they see the word "welding" some of them associate it with a fire or explosion hazard. So, what they have to do is plug you into another category.

So let's say you were a sign painter.... there is a risk already factored for that profession, the underwriter will take your estimated payroll and number of employees. Then they go from there. A quote may take 15 minutes or less if you were a sign painter with one employee and one vehicle.

I got a chuckle the other day, one of my colleagues was bragging about a fantastic deal on liability insurance with a new carrier. I stopped my his office to see what category they plugged him into and when I read his policy they had him listed as "Inspection of goods for appraisal purposes" or something along those lines. This guy owns a radiography company.

~thirdeye~