News & Views

There’s an old saying that insurance doesn’t matter…until it does.  General liability, GL for short, is fundamental to the business world.  Most everyone knows that GL protects you from suits and claims brought against you by people injured on your jobsite, or home owners who allege damage caused by defects in the way a house was built.  Beyond this things get a little fuzzy, which leads to some creative myth making.  Here are the top…

Basically, a warranty covers workmanship issues while general liability covers damage to property and/or injury to people caused by such workmanship issues. A warranty and a general liability policy actually cancel one another out. This can lead to trouble. For instance: When your general liability insurer and your warranty company aren’t affiliated, you can find yourself in a litigious situation with both parties pointing their finger at each other. A good example is a home…

It’s been said that General Liability (GL) covers your liability for just about anything that the policy doesn’t exclude.*  When a statement like that is made there’s usually some wise guy who’ll ask something like, “Oh yeah?  How about racing lawn mowers?”  Kidding aside, few questions have caused more head scratching than when are things like bulldozers and other crawler tread vehicles, powerlifts, ATVs and yes, lawn mowers covered under a GL policy?  These examples…

Ever wonder why you buy insurance?  I mean have you ever REALLY wondered?  Most states require you to carry General Liability to maintain your contractor’s license.  Everyone you work for requires proof of insurance before you begin any project.  The list of those who need proof of “third party liability” insurance is long.   If you think about it all those premium dollars spent just to satisfy the demands of others can start to get you…

So I was trying to come up with an idea for this month’s blog and I did what any 21st century man does; I surfed the Internet.  I entered “trip & fall claims” and got over 80 million hits!  There were ads on how to know if you have a valid claim, tutorials on what you must prove to win a slip and fall injury claim, “How to..” blogs on filing your claim, whether most claims…

All across the nation, things are starting to open up.  For better or worse, the economy is being restarted, but there’s a catch…follow CDC guidance, maintain social distancing.  With rules and regulations varying from state to state and even city to city, what does that mean in terms of your liability?  How does your RWC Insurance Advantage Commercial General Liability policy respond to all this?  This blog has devoted considerable space to what is covered in…

If you’re a member builder of RWC and you have general liability insurance provided through the RWC Insurance Advantage, you have the peace of mind that comes from knowing your major structural warranty claims and your third party liability claims are insured by one company.  Separate warranty and liability companies will sometimes fight each other over who has the claim.  Our January 2018 blog “IS IT A LIABILITY LOSS, OR IS IT A WARRANTY CLAIM?”…

We at the RWC Insurance Advantage, like everyone, are most concerned about the pandemic known officially as COVID-19.  We think we have a responsibility to make our insureds aware of steps they can take to minimize exposure for themselves, their employees and subcontractors and their customers.  While everything in this blog has been said, we think it bears repeating.  Therefore, this month’s blog is devoted to steps you can take to prevent the spread of…

I don’t want to insult anyone’s intelligence, but there’s a misunderstanding that  has come up more than once and we need to make things clear:  Builders Risk does not insure your liability to members of the public.  Clear as mud, right?  Well, don’t shoot the messenger.  Whoever came up with the name “Builders Risk” must not have thought about how anyone other than an insurance person would think.  It sounds simple.  If you’re a builder…

Some true stories sound like an Aesop fable, but this actually happened.  The names and some facts have been omitted or altered to protect the innocent: Once upon a time there was a builder who journeyed to a distant state where there was a trade show.  At the show he saw the design plans to a beautiful home.  He could have purchased the plans from the builder who owned them for a pittance, but he…