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    Lauren617
    Welcome to the E&O Insurance Discussion
    Topic posted February 14, 2008 by Lauren617Elite Contributor, last edited April 18, 2012
    1001 Views, 7 Comments
    Title:
    Welcome to the E&O Insurance Discussion
    Content:
    Sometimes mistakes happen; so do lawsuits. Making sure your consulting firm is properly insured can mitigate the potentially catastrophic impacts of litigations. Here is a place where you can talk about E&O insurance and what it means for your business. You can either reply to this post or start your own thread.

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    • seand
      posted May 8, 2008 by seandSuper Contributor
      E & O insurance is essential to all of us. My advise is to get a broker who understands your risk so they can help underwrite it. There are brokers out there that just do A/E firm insurance or specialize in it, and they are invaluable. No only can they be a resource to you for training your staff, but they can help you price and procure environmental insurance for your clients (users) and help you in deciding to offer risk-sharing programs of your own to your clients
    • JeffreyHubbard
      posted July 21, 2008 by JeffreyHubbardMember

      Excellent guidance.� I am one of those brokers that specialize in environmental and the quality of coverage can vary widely depending on the carrier.� Unfortunately, no two carriers use the same policy form so you really have to look at each line of the policy or you could be buying a policy that is worthless.� Professional Liablility for an environmental consultant is an essential coverage can be priced very competitively.� For the environmental professional, no professional liability coverage can mean losing jobs or worse yet, having an uncovered loss that sinks the business.� As an environmental professional, you also want to look for a broker that is willing and able to review and comment on topics like common service contracts because contracts are the root of 90% of the liability disputes that effect a consultant or contractor.�

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      MrChris
      posted October 13, 2010 by MrChrisMember

      The SBA and many other lenders require consultants to carry liability insurance of $1MM, yet I have noticed many consultants' contracts have verbage that seeks to limit liability to much less, say $50K.  Any thoughts on this?

      • MaxEng
        posted September 27, 2011 by MaxEngElite Contributor

        Sure.  There's no reason a consultant should expose his entire coverage to a single client unless that client insists upon it - which accordingly warrants additional fee consideration.  As a consultant, why should it be standard practice to provide huge liability coverage for a project (like a Phase I) with very small fee?

    • John Merriam
      posted December 31, 2010 by John MerriamMember

      Through the Canadian EP desigination I have joined a group that increases coverage, but also decreaseses costs by about 30%.

      Hope you can do the same.

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      FStephenMasek
      posted September 26, 2011 by FStephenMasekContributor

      Good insurance is inexpensive.  We shop it every year.  The fact that we've done good work for 20 years and never had any claims, arbitrations, etc. certainly helps. 

      • MurphySafety
        posted April 18, 2012 by MurphySafetyMember
        Would anyone care to suggest a typical cost for E&O insurance for a one-person shop doing Phase I ESAs as well as safety and environmental consulting? I just received a $2500 quote from one underwriter. This doesn't sound "inexpensive" to me, but I have never bought this kind of insurance before and don't really know.