General Liability Insurance for Surveyors
As a land surveyor or building surveyor, professional liability insurance isn’t the only coverage useful in your line of work. General liability insurance is equally handy. In fact, insurance products for surveyors doesn’t only include professional liability insurance but general liability insurance too. So what does general liability insurance do? This insurance covers the following exposures:
Third-party personal injuries - A client or other third parties will slip and fall or experience other kinds of accidents within the premises of your office and sustain injuries. If a claim is filed against your business, general liability insurance will pay the injured party’s medical expenses
Third-party property damage - It’s possible for you to cause property damage while inspecting someone’s building or land. The terms of general liability insurance also covers this peril. In practice, general liability insurance will reimburse the losses of the property owner
Legal defense costs - Upon causing property damage or personal injuries, you might be sued by a third-party. General liability insurance sees to it that you don’t incur losses in such a situation by taking care of attorney fees, court payment orders, administrative costs, and other legal expenses
General liability insurance covers a wide range of risks. That said, it primarily takes care of personal injury claims and property damage claims. However, the protection it provides doesn’t end with this. The policy also has advertising injury, rented premises, and products and completed operations coverage:
Advertising injury coverage - A client might file a claim because the features of the surveyor services you’re providing don't match to what was advertised. Another surveyor might also accuse you of harming his or her reputation by copying a slogan, logo, or trademark. Advertising injury coverage in general liability insurance will take care of these as it covers legal costs if someone sues you for false advertising, copyright infringement, slander, libel, and other related causes
Products and completed operations coverage - A survey service you completed might have incurred property damage or personal injuries. This is why it’s possible for you to face a claim from a past client. Products and completed operations coverage in general liability insurance takes care of this by giving you money to pay for attorney fees, administrative costs, court payment orders, and other legal costs
Rented premises liability coverage - Do you rent or lease a commercial space and use it as an office? If so, you’ll find rented premises liability coverage useful. This inclusion in general liability insurance will reimburse the landlord if his or her commercial space is damaged by fire because of your fault
Commercial Auto Insurance for Surveyors
Your personal car insurance might be inadequate if you’re using a vehicle to meet clients and survey their properties. This is why it’s better if you decide to get commercial auto insurance for land surveyors and building surveyors. Commercial auto insurance provides comprehensive coverage for your liability for vehicular accidents, physical damage to the car you’re driving, and other exposures.
Auto liability coverage - Surveying buildings and property is a demanding and tiring job. You might cause a vehicular accident and injure third parties or destroy property by simply falling asleep or failing to pay enough attention to the road due to tiredness. Commercial auto insurance has auto liability coverage. This will cover the medical expenses of people you injured and reimburse the owners of the property you damaged in a vehicular accident
Physical damage coverage - Physical damage coverage will cover your vehicle’s parts repair or replacement. This has two types - collision and comprehensive. When your car collides with a vehicle or object on the road and incurred damage as you’re on the way to meet a client, collision physical damage coverage will take care of parts repair or replacement. On the other hand, comprehensive physical damage coverage will take care of parts repair or replacement if the vehicle you’re using for work-related purposes becomes damaged due to malicious mischief, fire, extreme weather, and other covered perils
Emergency roadside assistance - Emergency roadside assistance functions to cover what you spend on battery jump start, tire delivery, gas delivery, and other related services. This is useful because your car will experience issues while you’re on the way to a project site
Medical payments/personal injury protection - Suppose you and a client are using your vehicle to go to his building or land to be surveyed. However, an accident happened resulting in you and the client becoming injured. In such a situation, medical payments/personal injury protection becomes very useful. MePay/personal injury protection are inclusions in commercial auto insurance that will cover the driver’s and the passenger’s medical expenses when their vehicle causes an accident and gets involved in an accident
Commercial Fleet Insurance
If you’re running a land or building surveying business having two or more vehicles that employees use to meet clients, go to sites, and haul equipment, then purchasing commercial fleet insurance is better than purchasing commercial auto insurance.
In essence, commercial fleet insurance is a variation of commercial auto insurance. It has the coverages discussed in the table above. But unlike commercial auto insurance, commercial fleet insurance can insure 2 - 15 vehicles under one insurance policy.
Commercial Property Insurance for Land Surveyors and Building Surveyors
Insurance companies protect the building you’re using as an office through commercial property insurance. Commercial property insurance is included in tailored surveyor insurance or sold as a stand-alone policy. It provides coverage against the following perils:
Building destruction - Commercial property insurance reimburses losses based on the actual cash value or replacement cost of your office that got damaged in a fire caused by an arsonist or faulty wiring. It will also help if winds and other related perils destroy your office space
Building damage - Fire, extreme weather, and other covered perils will also damage your office. Commercial property insurance helps with this by reimbursing your losses based on the actual cash value or replacement cost of damaged structures such as window panels, signages, roofing, and more
Commercial property insurance doesn’t only protect your office building. It has add-ons that will protect your survey equipment, office furniture, and important documents. Specifically, these are:
Stocks and contents coverage - Stocks and contents coverage will reimburse your financial losses if office furniture and important documents such as blueprints, client records, and others become lost or damaged to fire, theft, vandalism, extreme weather, and other covered perils
Business equipment and tools coverage - Inside your office is expensive survey equipment. When this becomes damaged or lost due to vandalism, fire, theft, and other covered perils, business and tools coverage in commercial property insurance will reimburse losses or provide replacement pieces
Workers Compensation Insurance for Surveyors
You’re required to get workers' compensation insurance as soon as one or more employees are working in your building or land surveying business. But note that depending on where you’re working, authorities might require you to get workers’ compensation insurance for yourself. The function of workers' compensation insurance is explained briefly below:
Medical treatment/procedure - When surveying a building, you or an employee might fall from a height. On the other hand, you or an employee might experience heat exhaustion when surveying land. If any of these happens and medical treatment/procedure is needed, workers' compensation insurance will cover all of the cost
Hospitalization - After getting rushed to the hospital, you or an employee might need to stay for days, weeks, or months for monitoring or undergoing other medical treatment/procedure. Workers' insurance will help in such a situation by taking care of hospital bills
Medication - Workers' compensation insurance also provides money if the attending physician requests you or an employee to buy specific medicines
Rehabilitation - After experiencing heat exhaustion, falling from a height, or any other work-related incidents, you or an employee might sustain injuries that cause impairment and need rehab. Workers' compensation insurance caters to this and will pay the fee for the rehab center, attending therapist, and other related expenses
Lost income compensation - Workers' compensation insurance covers lost income if you or an employee can’t come to work after sustaining injuries. Specifically, workers comp provides a weekly allowance equal to two-thirds or 67% of the average weekly wage. So if you or an employee earns $1,933 per week on average, weekly lost income compensation will be $1,295.11
Death benefits - If you or an employee dies because of a work-related accident, workers' compensation insurance will pay for funeral expenses and provide financial aid to dependents
Survey Equipment Insurance
Most surveyors consider inland marine insurance adequate for their survey equipment. However, survey equipment can be difficult to insure because of the risk of having high-value portable equipment. It's best to find an insurer that specializes in survey equipment insurance.
Most insurance will find the cost of insuring Total Stations, Multi Stations, Laser Scanners, Theodolites, and GPS under inland marine insurance counterproductive. Therefore, it's imperative to find an insurer that understands survey equipment and can insure them against risks like damage in and out of the office and theft.
Some insurance companies might also extend you a business personal property insurance that will cover equipment like laptops and mobiles to the site against damage or loss. However, you would have to enquire if this is something that your insurer offers.
Insurance for Asbestos Surveyors
Asbestos surveyors insurance offers professional liability insurance as primary coverage. It will help pay for claims resulting from breach of contract, oversights, missed deadlines, and other acts constituting errors and omissions. Other insurances you can include are general liability insurance and workers' compensation insurance.
PI Insurance for Quantity Surveyors
Professional indemnity insurance for quantity surveyors provides protection against claims filed due to failure in design, failure to provide authentic work, failure to provide accurate information, providing work or output that breaches guidelines and legal regulations.
