Starting a Design Office?

 

Architects and engineers planning to start their own firms will ask us about insurance for the new venture. Typically, small firms start with one or more of these three types of policies:

 

1) Professional Liability Policy

This type of policy pays for legal fees and damage awards connected to an A/E’s design work. This coverage is important because an architect or engineer is personally liable for his or her professional services. There is no way to organize or incorporate to shield yourself ...

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Do you use drones? Here’s what you need to know:

 

Unmanned aircrafts (aka drones) are soon to be an integral part of the design and construction industry, and the insurance industry has been actively preparing coverage for drone use. The issue is not one of professional liability insurance coverage, but is more concerned with general liability exposure.

If a firm uses a drone to gather photos of the 15th story apartment planned for construction, and the view was improperly selected and the tenant sues the developer for false advertising who sues ...

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Meeting with Aon Affinity

 

 

This week, our team of account managers met with Jeff Grigsby, Vice President of A&E Advantage. Since 2015, Axis Insurance has been the national program underwriter for A&E Advantage, Aon Affinity’s professional liability insurance program for architects, engineers, and surveyors. The A&E Advantage program offers pre-claim assistance, online educational training, and many more risk management services to a variety of ...

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Site Safety

By Michael J. Maloney

 

There are two sure-fire ways to get tagged with liability for site safety:

  1. Assume site safety responsibility in your contract with the owner, or
  2. Assume site safety responsibility by your behavior on the jobsite.

Option 1 is pretty clear cut, and is easy enough to avoid.  But you and your employees should be on your guard against Option 2.  If your contract specifically excludes site safety responsibility (as it should), ...

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Schinnerer’s 60th

In 1957, architects and engineers of the era needed an insurance solution that could truly protect them; good thing Vic Schinnerer was in the right place at the right time. Schinnerer was the industry’s first-ever insurance policy created and underwritten for architects and engineers, and is the largest program for A/E Professional Liability in the USA. It is commended by both the ...

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What’s the Best Way to Deal with an E&O Claim?

The best way for an architect or engineer to deal with an Errors & Omissions claim is to avoid it all together.

This is why using a specialty broker like Maloney & Company is so important. Our staff knows the A&E industry making us very aware of the risks that you face and enabling us to give top-notch guidance. Also, we frequently send out risk management materials to keep you updated with the latest trends in the industry. Here are a ...

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Winners and Losers in the Self-Certification Process

By: Michael J. Maloney

I get a little worried whenever I see a shift in the relationship between architect, owner and contractor because often, when the dust settles, the architect has come out of the process having given up some ground to the others. Change yields both winners and losers.

WINNERS:

1) THE PROJECT OWNER–If you self-certify a project the owner will spend no extra money and get the project completed sooner. If it is a commercial space, the owner will begin making ...

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Consequential Damage Claims

 

consequential-damages

 

Consequential damages arise out of special circumstances that are usually unpredictable, and are typically more expensive than direct damages. Most professional liability programs cover such damages as long as they result from negligence in providing professional services.

In order to reduce liability, you may try to negotiate a waiver of consequential damages with your client. Victor O. Schinnerer suggests the ...

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Joining Forces with Attorney Kevin Godbout

This week, Maloney & Company, LLC caught up with Attorney Kevin Godbout!

Attorney Godbout has been recognized by Super Lawyers and has been named to the 2016 Connecticut Super Lawyers in the practice area of Professional Liability: Defense. He has also been rated AV-Preeminent by his peers through Martindale-Hubbell. The account managers at Maloney & Company, LLC frequently meet with Attorney Godbout to discuss trends in the A&E industry and new risk management techniques. This week, the statute of limitation and ...

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When Clients Ask to Be Added to Your Policy:

First Question: What Status Do They Want?

Additional Named Insured: this status is never given to a client, nor would a client ever want this status if he or she realized the implications. A Named Insured under the policy receives the full scope of protection under the policy, so it is appropriate only for the design firm and any related companies. If a client is a Named Insured, they could be held responsible for premiums, they could cancel the policy, and you ...

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