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Posted by dpb on June 5, 2007, 8:22 am
Jackson wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> > Hello. I am going to be looking for a painter to paint the trim of my
> >> > house. What should I look for regarding insurance? My neighbor had
> >> > someone fix her roof and he fell off his ladder and broke his arm. The
> >> > company he worked for denied his work comp claim stating he is an
> >> > independent contractor, so he sued my neighbor for medical and lost
> >> > time.
> >> > She went through hell before he stopped pursuing the claim and I want
> >> > to
> >> > be protected from this. Thanks
> >>
> >> Depending on what part of the world you are in there is a very good
> >> possibility that you can purchase a temporary or short term rider for
> >> your
> >> homeowners policy to actually cover for such things like contractors
> >> working
> >> on your home. While I would still recommend an inquiry re: insurance
> >> coverage (both for liability for damage to your property and work comp)
> >> and
> >> demand they provide proof of same, as you see you could end up in a
> >> battle
> >> between you and their insurance carrier still. Purchasing the rider
> >> automatically puts the battle between the insurance companies.
> >
> > Homeowners' policies already include liability...it would be most
> > unusual to have to add a separate rider to cover the homeowners'
> > ordinary liability for routine and usual types of home maintainance.
> > Assuming the homeowner has insurance already, the battle is already
> > between the insurance carriers--all the policy holder has to do is let
> > them know there's a problem (if and when one arises, even, which is
> > while not rare, less common than not)...
> >
> > The problem here isn't the homeowner's problem -- it's the
> > contractor's and it's the prudent homeowner who ensures any potential
> > repair/maintenance work is done by licensed, bonded, insured
> > contractors...
> >
>
> In an ideal world you would be correct but - many homeowners have been sued,
> some successfully, based on a contractor claiming that the homeowner was
> negligent in maintain their property or some other such nonsense. In some
> case your homeowner's liability may not cover such claims or may not be high
> enough coverage.
The point is not that some doofus can't/won't sue...anybody can sue
anybody for anything and all the insurance riders in the world can't/
won't prevent them from filing the suit.
The point is that it is the insurance carrier who will be the one
defending the suit/paying any judgement as long as the homeowner
followed the terms of the policy -- which mainly means they didn't do
something _really_ egregious in which case the rider won't help anyway
because it's going to have the same kind of caveats in it as does the
main policy.
If the homeowner is simply under-insured, that's a different question/
issue. I certainly agree all homeowners ought to be aware of and have
ample coverage for foreseeable events, but that needs to be an "all
the time" thing, not just something special.
The rider would be very unlikely to be anything in addition as far as
coverage than a standard homeowners' policy unless the condition to be
covered is _very_ unique -- and at the moment, for the types of things
under discussion in this thread of ordinary routine maintenance, I
can't come up with a scenario that would seem to warrant an additional
rider other than the coverage limit issue, perhaps.
Again, imo the best insurance against having a problem is to ensure
the contractor is reputable and is bonded, etc. Your insurance is
then the fallback position...
--
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