Limiting exposure of project 1

[FixIt76]

I have seen lots of posts about insurance and lots of opinions as to whether it is good to have or not. Regardless of the insurance, have any of you (especially structurals) included a limit to the liability in your contract. Have you spoken to a lawyer as to if it would hold up? Does including a clause such as this help the cost of your insurance premiums? Thanks for insight!

 

[kylesito]

My current company and my last company both included a clause limiting us to 50K or an amount equal to our fee for the project. I do not know how this affected our premiums but this was our liability limit. To my knowledge, these were both consulted on by a lawyer (we wouldn't have written them ourselves).

I believe though that in both cases we could still be pursued for greater amounts in a civil action but this was our guard against damage.

PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Call a GOOD construction lawyer - we are engineers!

 

[Ron]

I have a limitation of liability clause in my standard general conditions. It is similar to that mentioned by kylesito.

In some states, limitation of liability clauses are not allowed.....others allow them. As Mike noted, check with a lawyer.

If allowed in your state, by all means included it. It is a contractual provision that, absent fraud in the execution of the contract, will likely hold. I've seen it save companies a lot of money!