General Laibility Insurance anyone?

[vincent eggleton]

I am a one man shop in Oregon. I had to put insurance on our building when the landlords switched hands. hartford is who I went with but there was a cheaper company out of cali that I was also looking into but I will have to look at my records to find them.

All flammable containers are 1 gal or less also rags go in a metal cabinet and tossed into steel bins with steel lids.

The issue I have was when the insurance guy said "steel burns". I have a chart showing color and temps of steels yielding points on the wall and I walked over to it to try to convince the insurance guy that the whole building would be gone before any of my steel spontaneously combusted and damaged the building. raising rates because of that excuse is lame. I think the insurance guys will charge you with anything they think they can get away with or make up.

To adama or anyone saying you need to step up to be in this business I would like to ask you do you own your own shop that does work for boeing or aerospace or do you just work in one? And if you do own it where the regulations and insurance this bad when you first started or did you just so happen to know or bribe a guy? A lot has changed in 20 years.

 

[William Payne]

I can imagine that insurance for aviation work is extreme. It may look crazy for the poor small business that needs it but is nothing compared to the cost of a lawsuit if the plane falls out of the sky and they narrow it down to something your part is on. Air crash lawsuits go after everybody.

 

[john.k]

When you get your policy,do read the fine print....all 1000 pages of it......you may be paying for a policy on which you can get no payout due to exclusions.

 

[e30ryan]

Wow, I feel lucky reading this thread..... I don't insure vehicles, but it includes a modest amount in machinery and structure. That plus $2m general liability costs me ~$80/month.... Job shop work. I go through a broker a ensured that I am only doing "job shop" work and not designing or installing any product. Only build to print, and no welding

 

[john.k]

I had a inspection by a risk assessor sent by the underwriters........mainly he wanted to see a set number of the correct type of extinguishers,correct signage,no flammable liquids within 20 m of the building,no flammable processes carried out inside the building,no accumulations of rubbish ......and he (and the underwriters) were happy........But of course ,this country is not a lawyers paradise like the US.........and if some asshole sues me for something stupid ,he is going to have to demonstrate actual loss,there will be no punitive damages (the concept does not occurr in law here ,except for the most outrageous negligence ),and if the litigant loses,he has to carry both his costs ,and mine.

 

[dkmc]

The issue I have was when the insurance guy said "steel burns". I have a chart showing color and temps of steels yielding points on the wall and I walked over to it to try to convince the insurance guy that the whole building would be gone before any of my steel spontaneously combusted and damaged the building. raising rates because of that excuse is lame. I think the insurance guys will charge you with anything they think they can get away with or make up.

When I was shopping 10+ years ago I got to speak on the phone with all manner of clueless weirdos at various insurance companies. One woman asked if I worked with plastics. When I said yes, sometimes....DISQUALIFIED! NO insurance for you! Another (probably fresh out of collage) guy was asking me various questions, some actually somewhat related to machine shop. He says "do you keep steel and aluminum metal chips together"? And I say, yes, sometimes both can end up in a machine chip tray. He says "You can't do that! They can explode"! And I'm like......what?? After awhile I gathered that somehow along the way, there may have been an association between iron powder and aluminum powder which is used in Thermite. I tried to reason with him, and explained that steel and iron touch aluminum in auto engines all the time, and nothing ever explodes. He wasn't hearing it, and I finally hung up on him.

 

[john.k]

Actually,aluminium and wood sawdust often ignite.....generally in a bandsaw covered in swarf and sawdust........oily rags also spontaneously ignite in a bin ,especially if the rags have been used on paint spills............I had an insurance risk assessor,and he asked something,and I pointed to the UL logo on an item......this shiny arse office jockey had never heard of Under writers Laboratories ......this is the kind of millenial dickheads in insurance now.