Liability Coverage
The Cost of Doing Business
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 that every homeowner, contractor, and general contractor 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 it 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 in one application method alone. Hot mopping narrows the availability of companies willing to provide the needed insurance so that it covers what the hot mopping company does. This is where Dk Shower Pans has done its due diligence.
Being the largest provider of hot-mopped shower pans 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, and 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-sized 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 in and around 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 that serve many contractors and homeowners, but this is where the phrase “buyer beware” should reign for several reasons:
What about licensed contractors? Should “buyer beware” also apply? Definitely!
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 underinsured for larger jobs and high volumes. Or do a workaround and pay their “workers” on a “piece work” basis, which makes the “worker” a “subcontractor,” 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 as 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, there is a minimum policy of $15,000 for injury or death to one person. $30,000 for injury or 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 job site, 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.
Dk Shower Pans 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.
Dk Shower Pans carries the high liability limits needed to perform tract work, multifamily units, and 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 with what may seem adequate limits, but may not have the proper endorsements or have exclusions in their policy that do not cover the types of work they do; this is more common than you might realize.
Hot mopping costs are a very small percentage of the overall costs of any given project. It is often overlooked how important it is. A faulty 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-of-the-line, experienced, licensed hot mop contractor with the proper insurance qualifications, such as Dk Shower Pans, do your job the right way in every aspect!
Questions You Should Ask Your Contractor Before You Hire Them to Install a Shower Pan
Construction insurance, particularly policies that include worker’s compensation and general liability insurance, can protect the contractor and their employees from high costs related to medical expenses, legal fees, and property damage repair and replacement.
When doing business with someone else, it is crucial to know whether that person is insured or not. Asking this question is very important. If a service worker such as a gardener, arborist, or contractor does not have insurance and causes damage to a homeowner’s property, the homeowner may be on the hook to pay for it. The same is true if an uninsured worker is injured. Hired workers who do not carry insurance tend to be less responsible than those who do, so asking about coverage is also a good way to determine whether someone will be a reliable worker. It is always best to pay a little more for someone who is insured than to take the risk of hiring an uninsured worker.