Product Design and Insurance

[KSor]

I am wondering about what kind of insurance is required for doing product design work? If you were doing product design consulting, would you require E&O insurance?

On the other hand, what would be required if you owned a company that designed and manufactured a product? Would you require E&O insurance for that, or just general liability?

 

[msquared48]

First of all, I would not require the E&O insurance, but would probably want to purchase it.

For Hospitals, schools, and government work, to name a few majorones, it is usually required of the structural engineer to have this.

If I was designing a product for sale, a manufactured item, I would also purchase specific liability insurance covering any accidents, injuries, ect. due to that product.

Mike McCann
McCann Engineering

 

[MikeAnd]

There are a lot of people out there selling insurance. My advice would be to sit down with a few of them and see what they recommend.

Just make sure to tell them that you are a very small company with not a lot of money to spend, so that need to tell you exactly what you need and not recommend stuff that you don't need. That should help to keep them from trying to sell you on policies that you don't need.

Mike

http://www.partnerup.com

 

[pierdesign]

Your discipline's governing body generally has insurance advice as well as actually offering that insurance direct or via recommended agencies.

Manufacturing companies, or properly OEM product companies, and product liability insurance is a complex area. Many have no product liability insurance as potential and historical settlements are always many, many times higher than covered by policy values.

There is minimal to no difference in E&O insurance for consulting (civil, other) engineers and those conducting product design.

All my company does is product design and we deal with this issue in our proposal's terms and conditions, although there is some E&O insurance via governing body.