Liability Coverage:
Insurance Questions & Answers You Should Know About

As our customers are aware, providing a quality finished product with exceptional service at a competitive rate is important to us and our clients.

Balancing quality, service and competitive pricing is a challenge and an art, especially when quality and service are highly important to us and our clients.

Businesses in Southern California are greatly challenged with increased costs related to supply and wage increases, fuel, insurance, and regulation.

Why is insurance important? Why do you as a customer want your contractor to have proper and adequate insurance? These are very important questions every homeowner, contractor and GC needs to know. What occurs when a contractor does not have proper or adequate coverage? Who then becomes responsible for a loss…

Insurance is a basic need every business needs to operate, and one that should not be scrimped on by not having enough coverage to protect the owners, employees and their customers.

Hot mopping is a specialty contractor service. We specialize with one application method and one alone. Hot mopping narrows the availability of the companies willing to provide needed insurance, so that it covers what the hot mopping company does. This is where DKShowerPans has done its due diligence.

Being the largest provider of Hot Mopped ShowerPans in both California and Nevada, we can meet the needs of clients big and small. Doing that comes with a price tag to match, few companies will carry the policy limits needed to work on multifamily tract housing, high-rise construction, commercial buildings, apartment complexes, high end custom homes, hotels, without leaving behind single family home builders and the residential contractors doing new builds and remodels, a mainstay in the all busy building booms that come and go in SoCal and the Las Vegas area for decades!

Licensed and unlicensed hot mop contractors are numerous. There are many small single truck start-ups and more than a few small to medium size outfits.

To keep the overhead low, many choose only to have minimal insurance, or insurance that excludes certain portions of their operations, or none at all. Others may obtain coverage with reduced limits. Not all policies are created equal and knowing the difference is a must have for those using and in the construction industry

State Contractor laws allow unlicensed individuals to perform work up to a certain monetary limit per job, and that limit has returned to $500. The total amount includes all costs, both labor and material. There are many of these one and two truck outfits which serve many contractors and homeowners, but this is where the phrase “buyer beware” should reign for several reasons:

• If the person you hire is not a licensed contractor, you will likely be considered the employer and therefore the responsible party for injury to the person you hired and anyone they may hire.
• You will likely also be responsible for any bodily injury or property damage to other people (third parties) that may occur
• You also may have no recourse against the installer since no regulatory body applies since they are not licensed

What about licensed contractors? Should “buyer beware” also apply? Definitely!

• License Contractors are not required to have general liability insurance!
• Many small licensed contractors report they have no employees to the CSLB yet have employees and do not even have workers’ compensation
• Many licensed hot mopping companies have inadequate coverage and/or exclusions for what they perform
• This will cause you as the buyer to be “holding the bag” on any claims, and are not covered

Lawsuits against those who are not properly insured are costly and may prove hard to collect even with a judgment in your favor, especially when the contractor’s policy has an exclusion for what they do for you.

Outfits with a few trucks find the high premiums needed for doing large jobs and multiple projects prohibitive, they are often under insured for larger jobs and high volume. Or do a work around and will pay their “workers” on a “piece work” basis which makes the “worker” a “sub-contractor” which means they can avoid having workman’s compensation on the person performing the job on your project. Although it is illegal for a contractor to do this, it is more common than most know

A contractor without proper workers’ compensation coverage may cause you to be liable if an employee is hurt while working on your property. Is that a risk you want to take?

General liability policies are not required in California with limits starting low as $100,000. That does not go very far when attorneys get involved!

What about auto insurance? Commercial auto insurance is costly, rates have increased due to increased claims and claim costs.

Some only carry the minimum they need to register a vehicle. In California, a minimum policy of $15,000 for injury/death to one person. $30,000 for injury/death to more than one person. $5,000 for damage to property is all that is required! This falls short of covering the needs of today’s legal and medical costs in almost any type of accident.

Construction is dangerous, with men and women using the tools and materials needed to build a new project or upgrade a structure. Injuries and accidents can and do occur.

The Hot Mop industry is no different. Travel to and from jobs using specialty trucks with proper materials on site for application, onsite prep, working with and around other trades, maintaining the proper equipment and most of all the skilled and properly insured labor force to do a top quality hot mopped shower pan.

No one wants an accident on the jobsite but when one does occur, having proper coverage is essential.

If an accident occurs, knowing your Hot Mop Shower Pan Company that was hired to do your Hot Mop has the proper coverage with the limits and needed inclusionary language for work performed to cover an unfortunate event on your project at the time of installation and beyond. Having that reassurance is keeping in line with what you should expect from all contractors on your project and doing your due diligence for your protection.

DKShowerPans performs services throughout SoCal and Southern Nevada daily growing to be the largest Hot Mop Provider in our service areas. This has given us the opportunity to provide the hot mopping needs to serve the home building and remodeling industry as a whole.

DKShowerPans carries high liability limits needed to perform tract work, multi-family units, high-rise, high end custom homes, and still be priced competitively with all the smaller outfits. Many smaller companies can provide a certificate of insurance of what may seem adequate limits but may not have the proper endorsements or have exclusions in their policy that does not cover the types of work they do; this is more common that you might realize.

Hot mopping costs are a very low percentage of the overall costs of any given project. It is often overlooked the importance it plays. A faulty Hot Mop can cause major damage. Which may not appear until your shower is completed or has been in use for a period of time. It always pays to have a top notch experienced licensed Hot Mop contractor, with the proper insurance qualifications such as DKShowerPans, to do your job the right way in every aspect!