Thinking About Expanding Your Personal or Professional Property?

Before you begin with the excavation to lay a new foundation, consider not only the contractors and material suppliers, but the various known and unknown liability risks inherent in these initiatives.

When building, remodeling or adding an addition to your property, involve your insurance agent to discuss important exposures such as: builders risk, general liability, workers compensation, hold harmless agreements, certificates of insurance, additional insured status, waiver of subrogation and more.

Building projects can be both exciting and challenging. You can initiate simple, preventative, risk mitigation steps to avoid unnecessary and costly mistakes. Many of the steps you can take to reduce your risk exposures don’t cost you anything but your time and diligence to make certain the right processes and procedures are followed. As an example,

“Request every contractor that comes onto your premises to provide you in advance a current dated certificate of insurance evidencing, general liability and workers compensation. This certificate should name legal owner of the property as an additional insured on the contractor’s general liability policy with waiver of subrogation on the workers compensation. This helps limit the contractor and their insurer from litigating against your for what they consider ‘contributory negligence’.

Overall there’s a lot to consider, let us help you understand the steps you can take to reduce the various unknown/ unknowns that can adversely impact your financial resources. Contact us today and let one of our Risk Advisors help you navigate the construction contractual and insurance related challenges.