Ok, If you hire someone to work on your house…

You have saved up to have all this work done, a new kitchen, new floors, etc… A comon misconception when picking a contractor is, well he is licensed and insured so he must be good. Now having a license and insurance are good things, it shows he is following the rules of being in business. But there is a misconception about the “insurance.” I have been a contractor for twenty-five years and have a license and I am insured without ever having a claim.

Here is what happend to me:

I had one of those guys who come to your work place to wash my new Ford Excursion. When he washed it he did something wrong and when he got done he left really deep scratches in the nice shiny new black paint. I showed it to him and he said, “Oh God, I know what happened I bought new towels to dry with and I should have washed them first.”

Being the nice person I am I said, “I am not angry. We all make mistakes but somehow we will have to correct this.”

A couple of days later I took the Dodge truck to work and the car wash guy came by the coffee shop and says, “Hi, I am here to take care of the Excursion.” So he gets the keys, takes it around back, pulls out a car buffer he bought and some polishing compound and begins to grind on my car.

I get back from the job site to find horrible buffer scratches, a few slips, and a bigger mess!

I called him up, he came to look at it and said, “OMG! I thought I was doing great. My suppliar told me how to do this.”

I told him, “Well, we will have to have this looked at by a proffesional.”

Before I had a chance to get it looked at I thought I would find out if he was insured. He said that, yes he did have insurance. I said, “Great!”

He said, “Would you give me one more chance with a different buffer?” I said that we should leave this to a body shop who does this for a living!

So an insurance claim was made. I received a call from his insurance company saying they denied the claim and I was like WTF?!?

The insurance company said they don’t cover CRAPPY work he just did a lousy job. Now if he dropped the buffer and broke the winsheild or he over sprayed some chemicals and ruined the paint on my car that would be covered. Only the liability of him having an accident that caused damage would be covered.

I was in disbelief! I called my insurance company and to my suprise, this is true!

Contactor liability does not cover bad work, so if someone does bad work, it’s scratched, or is leaning in a way it shouldn’t or is falling apart even right after it is completed it’s not covered. If a contractor builds and hangs a cabinet in your kitchen and it falls of the wall what ever it damages will be covered but not the crappy cabinet that you just payed top dollar for. You have to go after the contractor, or the car washer in my case, not the insurance company.

-Wolfbernz
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