verify your roofer's insurance

http://hudsonvalleyrooferandmore.blogspot.com/2012/04/verify-your-roofers-insurance.html

natty, I'm impressed with the level of thought I'm seeing in your posts. I find myself mostly agreeing with them and mostly agreeing entirely. An exception in this one but maybe semantics is at play here. "Insurance has nothing to do with responsibility."

I'm pretty, how do they say nowadays, anal, about the work I do because I don't want problems, because I know that problems do occur through all kinds of little lapses, fatigue, etc., and because when I went into this business as a young man I realized that most people had a fairly low opinion of people in this trade and the quality of the work they do and I wanted to roll that back on them. Can't do that if you're not paying attention and in this business that means all the time. I couldn't afford insurance when I started, at least not for the first couple of years.

In the succeeding forty years I have been insured, though I could go on for hours about the relative quality of the insurance as what you call the financiers play around with it and us and each other. The reason why I tie it to responsibility is that no matter what I do or how carefully I do it, or how carefully I screen my clients, I now know that I will be sued approximately once approximately every two decades. It's cheaper for me to buy insurance than provide my customers and myself with the entire defense. Blame the legal profession for that if you like. The system is too expensive, too complicated, too technical, and too time-consuming for me to handle it entirely on my own counsel and out of my own pocket.

I will grant that having insurance increases the odds of being sued, but all things being equal, having no assets and no insurance is the only way I know of to avoid a suit nearly altogether. Residential, steep-slope, careful to a fault, probably nothing that can't be dealt with. But I believe that a catastrophic loss would reveal me to be irresponsible if I couldn't handle it with insurance or from my own pocket.

That doesn't mean it should be mandatory. It shouldn't. We should all be able to choose the level of risk we are comfortable with.

On the other hand, if a third party is legally or morally obliged to pick up the tab for damages arising from a transaction they did not enter into explicitly, it would be utterly understandable if that third party defended itself by requiring the first two parties to provide their own insurance just to hold them harmless. That would be the case with workers comp. A slightly different subject, but closely related.

We're all bound up right now with almost everyone afraid of his own shadow, and the little guy trying to come up with enough for just the basics gets led around by his nose most of the time. I try to keep my eye on the pendulum. I'm a little guy myself.

Old School Said: Insurance spreads that responsibility back onto those of us that are engaged in the trade, and it is a good thing.

And that is the pity. Hardly anyone works for themselves anymore. We have all fallen for the corporate crap that bigger is better and labor is just another commodity with a cost. Govt is there to further enrich the managers and throw labor a bone.

Insurance has nothing to do with responsibility. Insurance is supposed to spread the risk. Today it just pads the profits of the financiers.

As an individual I am responsible for my own health and life. Maybe insurance is a part of the puzzle in the event of a loss. But to force me into the same risk pool as everyone else and as if everyone operates the same way is just wrong.

lanny Said: ---In my state licensing is a way of protecting the consumer and you.

Lanny

If that were true, every state would require it just on pure logic.

If the only requirement of licensing is to have insurance, then we have fallen into the trap of corporatism where no one is accountable for anything and the only object is profit.

Webmaster Steve Said: natty

If a roofer opts out of workerscomp and gets hurt on the job who pay for his recovery and medical bills?

Under the common law, the employee assumes the risk.

Worker's comp is a racket devised by financiers and in some states, mandated by numbnut social engineers. Legally, it protects the employer from suits brought by employees. Socially, it regenerates the slave-master relationship.

In a free society, people contract for goods and services. If they are smart, they charge enough to cover risks.

I have nothing against people purchasing insurance from the financiers who are betting they can collect more in premiums than they pay out for claims. I have everything against a society that forces its purchase.

We now have mandated Obamacare. What sense is there to buy insurance that only covers on the job claims? All Obamacare did was guarantee profits for the financiers.

Nice posts, lanny.

Just for the record, as a matter of disclosure, I carry WC and CGL with an "admitted" carrier, have a license and a license bond, bus. auto insurance with high limits, and a motor carrier of property permit. Just for the record. But I'm in a pretty tough state where a lot hangs on having this stuff. You can't operate inside the law without most of it.

Nevertheless I also have forty years experience watching all types of people game this stuff and have seen people from all quarters twisting things in ways they were never meant to be twisted. That's why I have a LOT of sympathy for what natty is saying.

When you get insurance companies and attorneys and "expert witnesses" and insouciant judges and weird juries and property owners with highly-questionable motives all involved together you no longer have a simple system. What you end up with is very abstract coverage debates and rackets which milk the last drop out of what should be a pretty straight-forward upstanding industry.

lanny Said: ---Required in my state to become a licensed contractor i.e. a legitimate contractor. Lanny

Yet my state does not require roofers to be licensed much less carry insurance. And no business/contractor is required to carry workman's comp. In fact, an employee can opt out if his employer voluntarily carries workman's comp thus reserving his rights at common law.

I am interested in the reasoning behind this because in every legislative session some numbnut social engineer introduces a bill trying to license roofers. It has never passed- yet. What is funny is that several years ago they required drywallers to get licensed and the only requirement was they carry insurance.

Now I understand why insurance may be considered wise to carry, but I fail to see any reason why the state should mandate its purchase. (Just because some may violate a state's mandate does not mean that the requirement is not indeed mandatory.)

Any roofer that doesn't have liability insurance and has anyone working for them is a crook. If your guy falls you'll need that liability insurance or workers compensation insurance. If the sky opens up on you and get dumped on you will want that insurance. I am a gambling man however when it comes to the business, my home, my livelyhood I control that through Insurance. That is what lowers my risks. To each their own but if you come up against me in the bidding process I will always show the homeowner how they should protect themselves and only hire a company Large or Small that carries Workers Compensation and Liability insurance.

Honestly I dont care about mandatory Liability Insurance.....there is no such thing anyway.

twill59 Said:

Who would hire a self Insured jackleg?

Anyone who knows the self insured jackleg is a real roofer doing the job and not a salesman rounding up a bunch of day laboring third world refugees slapping on a roof covering.

tico Said:Great ass-sumption.

Didn't ass-ume a thing. Just applied facts to the law and common sense.

I am still searching for a valid argument in support of mandatory insurance. All I have ever gotten is "because the legislature said so...". We are still unregulated here in Texas but the pressure is always on. In search of intellectual honesty.