my agent described it like this- car dealerships and the like usually require CCC, because the take a certain amount of ownership of a customer’s property (ie. they keep their car in the dealership shop for several days). a tradesman’s work isn’t looked at in the same light.
like i said, i’m doing the research so i know for sure what i need. i could be way off, but i’m going to get educated before i swallow the whole thing hook line and sinker.
So, if I was pressure washing, and my jrod came flying off into the window, would gl cover that? Or, if an employee scratched $30,000 in windows, would that be under CCC?
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^that’s what i want to know for sure. i’ve been assured by my guy that anything like that is already covered with my property damage coverage. if that’s the case what’s all the fuss about CCC?
[MENTION=32027]AmyVollmer[/MENTION]
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I’m interested in learning more also, but it seems to me that your agent has just as much interest in spinning things, or even being “disingenuous” as JDW does. I don’t think you should limit your research to only what your own agent tells you. He has his own bias also. Of course he’s going to tell you that you are completely covered. He doesn’t want to lose your business. But your agent won’t write you a check if your insurance company denies a claim that you thought (and he led you believe) was covered, either, if it turns out that he is under-informed.
What if you were to give your agent, in writing, a couple of different scenarios and have him confirm, in writing, that those would be covered? I’m sure the gang here could come up with some real-world situations to give him.
I am also interested in getting an answer to this as well. I did get a quote from JDW earlier this year. The cost was about 2x what I currently pay and it did include power washing which I do not currently do. The coverage was way better and it did cover everything with better limits. I have had a policy for ten years with no claims so it is hard to swallow a cost that is twice as much.
Mine was $800 less, coverage went from 1-2 million, and has CCC. I bet it had more to do with you adding pw’ing than JDW.
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all of that is true, which is why i plan on calling my inurance company directly. i’ll compare what they say to what he says after he contacts the loss department on my behalf. the difference is, i have a personal relationship with my guy. i’ve met him. shook his hand. he bought me starbucks. if i get screwed on a claim, he knows he’ll have to look me in the eye when i come down to his office and explain what the H is up.
and i did forward the little “what-if” CCC scenarios that JDM started this thread with. he said, without hesitation, that i have that kind of coverage. his point is, you can’t just pull a couple of anecdotes out of your butt and say “hey, these guys got screwed because they didn’t have CCC!” who knows what other factors were involved.
i could come up with a bunch of my own stories where a guy scratched the piss out of a ton of glass, filed a claim, and was fully covered under property damage. what’s that worth? nothing. so why should i care when an insurance company tries to use the inverse tactic on me?
the whole thing smacks of a scare tactic just a little bit. i guess that’s what i have beef with. but like i said before, i could be totally wrong on all of it. so i’ll defer judgement until i have more info.
Yes, anecdotal stories prove nothing. But my experience has been that insurance agents are not nearly as informed about insurance policies, even the ones that they sell, as they should be, or as I expect them to be. It’s very easy to buy a client a cup of coffee and say “Sure, you’re covered”, without knowing all that he should know. My agent hasn’t always been able to answer my questions as completely as I would like him to. Honestly, shame on me that he’s still my agent. But, as much as I understand it, if I scratched up a client’s glass, burned the tin-side of a Pella with acid, etc., I don’t believe my GL insurance would pay the claim.
Your guy might be brilliant, honest, and know exactly what coverage you have. If so, that’s good for you.
you are exactly right, that’s been my experience too. but when i asked, he was confident of his answer. but still he offered to call the insurer’s loss department and get confirmation from them.
the big question i have is: if 99% of all contractor’s insurance policies are essentially useless because they exclude CCC (as JDW claims in several of it’s marketing pieces and this thread) then why haven’t we seen massive public outrage against all the other insurance companies out there? why are there tens of thousands of contractors who are perfectly happy with their insurers, that are getting their claims paid for, that never have problems with coverage?
the only answer that makes sense to me right now is: CCC ain’t as big a deal as it’s being made out to be.
That does make sense, but they do not have an option for those who do not do power washing. I hate to pay for something I don’t need.
[MENTION=7230]c_wininger[/MENTION], search Wcr for “care custody control,” this issue has been discussed long before Joe Walters came on the scene.
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At this point I am strongly inclined to believe that CCC coverage is significant. I had an incident in 2007 where one of my guys called me up and said he had broken a large commercial window. What happened was he had to move a sofa that was on a tile floor to get to the window. Unfortunately there was a gap between the tile and the floor- to -ceiling glass and one leg of the sofa was sitting in this gap. It got stuck and the corner of the sofa pushed on the glass and destroyed it. My policy wouldn’t cover it. I went around and around with the claims agent and as he said since my guy was ‘intending’ to clean that glass it was not protected from his error. It didn’t matter that the tile was not installed properly. It cost me $700. I had one other incident where I had to pay for a tilt-in sash that broke under stress when I was working on it. It occurred to me that if my guy or I had lied about what we were doing we may have been covered. Not that I regretted being honest or wouldn’t be going forward, but I can vouch for this being an issue.
I have still been with the same ins. company and have some rider that my agent ‘thinks should cover anything like that’. I trust her sincerity, but have always been a bit worried about what REALLY would happen if I had another incident.
I will be insured with JDW starting 1/28/14 and will be saving $1000/yr. The one difference is I’m not going to be covered for anything above 3 stories including wfp work. But I’m okay with that.
[MENTION=153]danwagner[/MENTION]
that’s good info dan. sorry that happened to you. that’s the kind of stuff i’m wondering about. if you had CCC would that have been covered? and if it’s so critcal, why doesn’t anyone know about it until it’s time to make a claim, agents included? it sucks that there are mixed signals being floated around by different insurers, agents aren’t on the same page with the insurers they are selling for, insurers are looking for any way to avoid paying claims and we get stuck in the middle.
[MENTION=3135]diamondridge[/MENTION]
here’s a direct quote from kurt kempton from another thread:
[B]"I BEGGED my insurance agent to write me up for a CC&C rider and he said that since I don’t take anything off of the property (like a dry cleaner would take something into his care, custody & control) he was sure that it wouldn’t apply to me. I explained that I had heard horror stories like this, and he said, ok-- I’ll check with the companies (he is a broker of course) and he came back and told me that “There is absolutely no reason for you to have a CC&C rider” I said, would you mind writing that down for me and signing it? He said sure!
So strange. The Hartford & Colorado Casualty BOTH said the same thing.
My heart breaks for you to be in this situation, because I know that’s a big (unexpected) expense which can be painful! I wonder how to reconcile your situation and what I’ve been told?"[/B]
this is the same thing i’m being told. what frustrates me is that basically it comes down to the whim of the insurance adjuster. all he has to do is rubber stamp “denied” on your claim, for whatever reason, and you are up crap creek. you only have three options, as i see it: a)accept it and eat it. b) try to dispute it like on your own like dan did, and most likely fail, or c) lawyer up and sue the insurance company.
[QUOTE=c_wininger;282378]you are exactly right, that’s been my experience too. but when i asked, he was confident of his answer.
My insurance guy was sure CCC didn’t apply to me either… but they denied my claim for 10k! Its the only claim I’ve ever had
[quote="“logan,post:35,topic:27427”]
Man that sucks, Logan, sorry to hear that dude
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Me too 
I getting ready to write a $10k check…that’s going to be a bad day.
a little update on this:
from what i’ve read in the last few hours, it looks like CCC exclusions should not apply to damage on glass or via pressure washer etc. (the kind of stuff we would be concerned about), and if you challenge your insurer in court over it, you will probably win. insurers are trying to use it as a backdoor to deny coverage, and leaning on the somewhat vague leagalese of the exclusion to support their case (as [MENTION=5310]Lsmain[/MENTION] said in an earler post).
[URL=“Care, Custody, or Control Exclusion | PropertyCasualty360”]Here’s a citation to support this conlusion.
so, if you get caught up in this dispute with your insurer, it really comes down to how much you want to fight it. [MENTION=4979]logan[/MENTION], have you spoken with a lawyer? i’m not sure it’s worth it for you, but 10 G’s is a lot of money.
i also spoke directly with underwriting at my insurer’s headquarters. he told me my agent has already called twice this morning to follow up on it. he also said that basically, a CCC exclusion wouldn’t apply to the kind of damage we are talking about, but he was going to talk to the loss department and confirm that, as well as look into additional riders that may provide coverage if there are any holes.
i then took him to task for allowing such gaping hole to potentially exist for guys like us, when all along we’ve thought we were being protected. I strongly suggested that they do a better job of educating their agents on this. I reminded him that i’ve been in business for almost 15 years, that i’ve had several agents, and that i’ve never had this CCC exclusion mentioned, not even once, the whole time. if i’ve been flying without a net for that whole time, i’m ticked. and it’s their fault. he stammered on about how the way states are handling the legal end of it has changed blah blah blah, and how they are trying to reach out to agents to better educate them on what coverages actually exist in a typical general liability policy.
so i’m waiting for a final word on this from my agent. my guess is that they are going to recommend additional coverage (ie. ccc coverage, as JDW recommends).
Ladies and gentlemen. Before you all get to hot and bothered I do have a little first hand experience with ccc and I’m going to share my experience.:). One day while cleaning glass in an antique car showroom (cars everywhere) I had to request that some of the antique items and cars be moved to I could get to the glass inside. So they moved out the cars and I continued cleaning. Got to a point where there was an old antique gas pump (for looks) in my way. So I picked it up bear hug style and moved it a foot or two out of my way. It happens that at the top of this old gas pump there was a glass globe with the Mobil horse on it. Whoever last cleaned this pump had forgot to tighten the screws that hold the glass globe on and as I was moving the pump the glass globe tipped off and exploded on the ground. Long story short- my General liability DID NOT cover the claim because the property was in my CARE and CONTROL. And APPARENTLY that was not on my policy. Some of you may say that it was stupid for me to move that gas pump but I’ll bet if something was in your way most of you would have done the same thing. Needless to say with proper coverage that would have been taken care of. I had Farm bureau insurance at the time. I have since switched to frankenmuth and have added a comprehensive policy to cover were anything like that ever to happen again. When I found out an insurance company would pull that loophole crap I was pissed. Hope that helps guys.
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^ haha, frankenmuth is who i just switched to. the more i look into it, i don’t think i have the coverage i would need for something like that. which is alarming.
