I had an interesting situation arise this week and I was wondering if anyone has had to deal with this:
I won a interior/exterior WC’ing bid for a multi-million dollar home last week and scheduled for this past Tuesday. A nice boost for a slow winter.
The homeowner has a building company and, aside from being loaded, obviously deals with many contractors on a daily basis. They asked me for a copy of my insurance certificate, which I’ve had many customers do in the past; commercial and residential. They requested to be “co-insurers” for the job. My insurance agent told me that my insurance company would have to charge me $100 for that. I didn’t want to, nor could I, eat the cost. So I reluctantly called back the homeowner and told them that if that’s what they wanted, I would have to include that price in the estimate.
Of course the homeowner was irritated and said they would have to reconsider (the reason I was reluctant to call them back and tell them, knowing that $100 extra dollars was a significant chunk).
Does anyone else’s insurance company charge this fee?
Has anyone else ever had to have a home owner added as a “co-insurer”?
Is there an any advantage for the homeowner to do this?
I would have either not said anything if the job was large enough or be prepared to loose the job and mention it to the home owner. $100 is not that big of a deal if you need the job.
It’s pretty common for a commercial customer to request to be added as “additional insured”. I have had to do it many times, my insurance does not charge me for it.
It is a little unusual for a homeowner to request that but if he is a builder/contractor he is probably used to doing business that way.
I use Buiten Insurance, switch over and go do the job!
Check w/ your agent and see if there is a difference between co-insured and additionally insured as far as they are concerned. It might be that you can cover them for free one way and it cost extra the other.
Charge the homeowner for the additional cost for their insurance. If they want it, it is at their expense. If they decided to add gutter cleaning to the scope of work you would charge them additional for it.
I had a townhome developement that wanted to be additional insured, when I told them it would cost THEM an additional $100 they decided against it. I still did the job.
This time, although, I decided to eat the cost. They aggreed to 3 annual cleanings; 2 exterior only, one interior/exterior. And because they are also a building company, they always ask their contractors for this (not to mention I may also gain some post-construction window cleaning). He staight up said to me that none of his contractors charge him extra when he asks them to be added as “additional insured” or “co-insured”. Probably like some of the other guys who replied to this and said they either had a lower charge or no charge at all.
I’ll have to look into the cost/difference if any to “co-insured” and “additional insured” with my company.
I called them back and told them that I did not want to lose their business over $100 and would be willing to waive the fee. They insisted on paying half of it though, which I though was pretty cool so we are still on.
I found out that they are one of the biggest building companies in the area, so I’m glad that I didn’t lose their business. Like you said, $100 is peanuts.
Im new to this insurance thing. If i am insiured and so are them why do they have to be “co-insured”? Can anyone explain that? Im starting my own biz doing resi so i want to know what i need to know.
