Labor Force Insurance

Fort Worth Contractor General Liability Insurance: Well we are having what is hopefully the last blast of wintery weather here in our beautiful city of Dallas/Fort Worth, but I won’t hold my breath. Even when the weather is bad, our favorite client to help, small contractors, must continue to work and that’s what we love about being a servant to such a hard working group of businessmen. So, when everyone else is snuggled up by the fire having hot chocolate, the small contractor is trudging through the snow to get that job done, or no money will be made to buy groceries for the family this weekend. No rest for the self-employed, and that is the mantra regardless of the conditions outside. That’s the life of a contractor here in Texas. Now today we want to discuss a subject that sometimes is very misunderstood, subcontractors. And this subject can have a very serious affect upon your business especially regarding your 

YOUR STATEMENT

It may go something like this, I don’t have any employees and therefore no responsibility for workers on my job site. Well, think again, because if you are the company that hired a subcontractor to do a certain job and even though they may carry their own liability insurance, you could become ultimately responsible if there is negligence from something going wrong. To put this in plain English, there may be an attorney involved and their law firm has named you in a lawsuit regarding potential litigation on this loss. The lineage of this process could ultimately lead directly to you, even though you may not have been directly involved in the incident that has brought this to this point and you could end up paying whether you like it or not. Your involvement began back when you hired this subcontractor to do some work and because of the loss this person has caused to happen, someone is going to have to pay for the repairs or damages.

NOW’S NOT THE TIME

Now is not the time to try to “figure it out”, much like if you are driving your vehicle and have an accident, it’s too late now to go purchase insurance, just doesn’t work that way unfortunately. Now let me be clear, there certainly are precautions you can take to that will afford you and your company some protection from this scenario such as:

• They will need to have had insurance.
• You will need proof of this insurance coverage.
• Did you verify their certificate of insurance?
• Were you named additional insured?
• Is there a Waiver of Subrogation?

Now there are a lot of different things you can do to help protect your company, and these were just a few examples to consider when trying to protect your valuable assets from possible harm. Of these, one of the most important is to confirm that any subcontractor you hire, make sure to verify that they have a valid certificate of insurance in place. Again, this is just a precaution and of course you aren’t required to do it, however, it is the prudent thing to do based upon the value to protecting you and your company. Also another important point from this list is making sure you are name as additional insured and also confirming that there is a Waiver of Subrogation in place. Now of course these are just a few of the layers of protection you will want to be aware of and it is this kind of planning that will make the threat of a loss less painful should it unfortunately occur during the course of completing the job that you have been responsible for bringing others (subcontractors) to.

NOTHING IS BULLETPROOF

Now let’s be perfectly clear, there is no perfect situation, especially when there is the human element at play. However, you can see from this small amount of information, how important this is to the fiscal health of your company in the unfortunate case of loss or claim of negligence on your part, even indirectly via a subcontractor, but again, one you hired and are ultimately responsible for. Well this part of the discussion has come to a conclusion, however, future blogs and articles will address the certificate of insurance and it’s vital role in protecting you and allowing you to fulfill the contract you signed with the homeowner or general contractor.

TALK TO AN AGENT

Now this reminds us of reminding you of how important a good agent is to this whole process. And because of the speed of the Internet, things can happen so quickly, that you need an advocate, or agent, who is taking care of your needs as best possible in this world of “what if’s”. So, this is our encouragement to be reminded that your insurance agent is an integral part of your team and you want that person to be as skilled as any craftsmen you bring on your job to provide a quality product for your clients contracting needs. Again, just please confirm that the policy you choose definitely covers all the bases and if we can ever be of service, please call or email us, or plan to drop by our new offices in Benbrook (west Fort Worth) and we would love to meet you in person and be of service as best we possibly can. Thank you again for dropping in and hope to see you again very soon.

DISCLAIMER

I will continue to make you aware this blog was written by me personally and is strictly my opinion and is for your information and entertainment purposes only. I do not nor ever will guarantee or warrantee anything in these articles and if you have a question about this disclaimer, please click here now. Thank you once more and have safe day and week ahead.  If you do have a question concerning Dallas Contractors General Liability Insurance.