The Importance of Hiring a Contractor With Liability Insurance
Hiring general contractors/laborers to do a job around your house is a very easy way to get things done that you normally would not want to do yourself. Installing a swimming pool in your backyard, putting vinyl siding on your house, constructing an enclosed patio on the back of your house are all jobs that easily could be handled by general contractors. However, before you hire a contractor, it is important that you have verified that have general contractor liability insurance covering their faults. General contractor liability insurance will cover any injuries to a third party or any property damage that the contractor might cause in the process of doing his job.
It becomes extremely important that your contractor is fully insured due to the nature of the work being done. Contractors are usually brought in to construct items for a home or work on some specific portion of the home. With being fully insured, you, as the property owner, have the assurance that any damage or injury they cause is something that they will fully cover. You can usually expect a contractor to be insured up to approximately $1 million. This $1 million should be sufficient enough to cover any significant destruction resulting from their malfeasance.
The best example of where hiring a contractor who carries an insurance policy being in your best interest would be if said contractor was building a swimming pool in your backyard. As he is working with a cement mixer to pour cement where grass use to be, there is a good deal of driving that is done with massive trucks. Accidentally, the contractor drives the truck through your chain link fence, destroying it in the process. Now, it could be very costly for you, as the property owner, to replace that fence, which is what you would have to do if the contractor was not carrying liability insurance.
Another area where liability insurance for contractors has become an issue recently is if work is subcontracted out to an additional company. The homeowner needs to be covered against anybody’s negligence and not just certain people in particular. A general contractor’s insurance policy must explicitly state that subcontractors are covered under the insurance policy. If they are not, any negligence related to your property as a result of their work is going to be paid by you, the homeowner.
Hiring out work to a contracting firm is a widely used practice that many people all over the U.S. take part in. However, it is important to realize that there needs to be standards set for what contractors are liable for and what they are not. By hiring a contractor with a liability insurance policy already taken out on his business, you are circumventing the possibility that one small disaster could turn very costly. Unfortunately, his disaster is money out of your bank account if he does not carry liability insurance.
Related posts: