Hey guys,
I’m in my second year of doing home inspections in Texas. The company I work for provides E&O liability insurance that exceeds the state minimums. My question, is: Should I consider purchasing my own E&O on top of the company provided insurance? Can my company simply refuse to file a claim and pass the liability on to me in the event of a suit? Any insight is appreciated!
Mark
What does your employment agreement say? In general, if you’re working on behalf of the company you should be covered under their insurance but it all depends what/if any agreements say.
You inspect a home in 2022, leave the company to work on your own in 2023, and are sued for the 2022 inspection in 2025.
If you have your own insurance with no breaks in coverage, your E&O provider would still cover you; however, I recommend you explore your present coverage to see if the 2022 policy under your employer would still cover you three years after leaving the company in a subsequent suit.
First both good points by Matt and James.
You are working for a company that is based out of Florida that has an office in Austin, TX. If you have not already done so, and you should have, you best get a copy of the company’s E&O policy, not just the declarations page, and read it very thoroughly! E&O providers do write different policies for different States and may have wording that can cause you harm here in Texas even if the policy extends to Texas.
If the policy was written for the Austin area office and is separate from the Florida policy the providers have made large changes this past year. I just went through the renewal process and changed providers as a result. I was amazed at the differences and Texas Inspectors had best closely review their policies to ensure they are covered for what they do. TREC does not review policy coverage’s to ensure they meet the Texas laws and that is your responsibility!
Are you an employee or are you a subcontractor? That makes a big difference in terms of insurance needs and your exposure.
Edit; Question is meant for Mark, the OP. My bad with my reply.
I own my company and my inspectors are W-2 employees. I hadn’t thought about the 1099 thing, likely since that’s rare with inspectors (or should be since it’s very rarely the correct way to do things). We had a suit once where the dirtbag claimant’s lawyer tried to go after my inspector personally (along with me, my company, my dog and my mailman) and the judge quickly threw that out.