Everything you need to know about home inspector insurance
If you’re a home inspector, you face lots of risk in your work. To keep yourself covered, you need home inspector insurance. Let’s dive into what that is and why you need it.
As an inspector, you check out all kinds of different characteristics in assignments. No matter how good you are at your job, you’re almost guaranteed to miss something or make an inaccurate assessment at some point in your career. It happens! Unfortunately, any mistake can lead to a lawsuit. Plus, you can be sued by a client who’s just unhappy with their purchase and have to defend yourself in court even though you haven’t done wrong.
You might also accidentally damage a client’s property. Something in your toolbelt catches the edge of a TV as you’re attempting to check the outlet behind it and it crashes to the floor. The client will understandably expect you to pay thousands of dollars to replace their TV.
To protect yourself from these and other risks, you’ve got to have solid home inspector insurance policy as part of your small business insurance portfolio. The term home inspector liability insurance refers to multiple insurance policies that every home inspector needs, like home inspector E&O insurance (short for home inspector errors and omissions insurance) and general liability insurance. If your business doesn’t have the right coverage for the various risks you face, you can be left with a huge out-of-pocket expense if something unexpected happens.
You probably know that many small businesses—including home inspectors—go out of business every year because of the huge financial burden from lawsuits and other expenses they didn’t account for. This article provides important information about home inspector insurance and how biBerk business insurance protects you.
Is home inspector insurance required?
Not all states have home inspector insurance requirements. You should check with yours for details. But with all the risks you face, operating without home inspector liability insurance or home inspector errors and omissions insurance isn’t a good business strategy.
That’s especially true since insurance coverage is so affordable. Plus, being able to say you’re insured can help you attract new clients.
What are the important home inspection insurance policies?
What insurance do you need to protect your business? Home inspectors should consider some essential policies. There are seven types of home inspector liability insurance designed to protect home inspectors like you. You might need some or all of them, and your home inspector insurance coverage can be tailored to your exact needs.
The seven types of home inspector insurance policies are:
- Errors and Omissions insurance. Home inspector E&O insurance (you might hear it called professional liability insurance) can protect you from the cost of damages and legal fees if someone says you made a mistake or didn’t perform a service as expected and that caused them financial harm. For instance, if you don’t notice a plumbing leak and the new homeowner later discovers extensive water damage from it, you might get sued.
- General Liability insurance. Also known as commercial liability insurance, general liability insurance for home inspectors covers damages and legal costs associated with injury claims from non-employees (clients, for example), medical expenses associated with these incidents, and damage to others’ property during an inspection. So, if you leave a tool behind and a client slips on it and breaks their wrist or the ladder you’re using in an inspection falls over and damages a light fixture, your policy can cover related expenses. General liability insurance for home inspectors really is critical.
- Business Owners Policy (BOP). Also called property & liability insurance, a BOP combines general liability insurance with coverage for space you lease (like an office) or property you own. It also covers business interruption and lost income due to property damage, as well as costs for restarting business operations after suffering property damage—the use of a temporary location is a good example. Imagine that a pipe bursts in the building where you have your office and floods your space. A BOP can pay many of the costs of recovering from that incident.
- Workers’ Compensation insurance. This coverage typically is required by law for any business that has employees. It’s a type of insurance for home inspectors that provides benefits if your employees are injured, get sick, or die as a result of an incident on the job. It can help cover medical costs, legal fees, and lost wages, and can also provide a death benefit to the person’s family.
- Commercial Auto insurance. This type of policy protects the vehicles your business owns or leases. That includes covering liability from accidents caused by people driving them. Let’s say you’re operating a company-owned vehicle, accidentally run a stop sign, and hit another vehicle, damaging it and injuring the driver. If that driver sues you, your commercial auto policy can cover the damages you’re ordered to pay plus legal fees, up to the policy’s limit. This insurance can protect you even if a covered vehicle is used for personal activities outside of its primary business use.
- Cyber insurance. You can purchase this type of home inspection insurance as an add-on to a BOP, general liability, or E&O policy. It helps cover costs related to incidents where a hacker steals sensitive information and uses it to commit fraud or it’s likely they will. For instance, if someone gets access to a client’s credit card information, your cyber insurance can cover you.
- Umbrella insurance. This policy is sometimes called commercial umbrella insurance. It can cover costs that exceed the limit of another biBerk liability policy, up to its own limit. That way, you’re not responsible for paying those costs.
Who needs home inspector insurance?
Any professional in this industry can benefit from home inspector insurance from biBerk, regardless of their experience. New home inspectors who buy coverage from us get help figuring out what policies they need and the right limits for them. They also get access to resources that help them operate their businesses safely and avoid problems that lead to claims. Plus, biBerk policies often cost less than insurance from other companies, which helps home inspectors save money.
Experienced home inspectors often have a deeper understanding of the risks they face and tend to appreciate that they can get everything they need from us. They’re also focused on risk management and see us as their partner in keeping costs down. That includes that we’re happy to help them review their coverage periodically and recommend changes as needed so they don’t experience any coverage gaps.
People who own or operate home inspection companies turn to biBerk for many of the same reasons as independent home inspectors: comprehensive coverage, risk minimization, and cost management. Because they manage a team of inspectors, they also understand the value of having claims processed promptly and fairly so that incidents don’t disrupt their business or hurt the company’s reputation.
What are some examples of home inspection insurance claims?
Home inspections are complicated, so it’s no surprise that mistakes are a main source of legal liability for home inspectors. That’s why errors and omissions insurance for home inspectors is crucial. If you’re accused of making a mistake that hurts your client financially and they sue, your E&O policy can protect you. Insurance for a home inspector will protect you against these kinds of claims.
Home inspection insurance protects you in other ways, too. Let’s say your employee suffers a deep cut on their head while inspecting someone’s crawl space and needs stitches. Your workers’ compensation policy can cover their medical expenses. Or, if you damage the electrical system in a client's house, your general liability policy can pay for repairs.
Commercial auto insurance can provide important protection if your company owns or leases vehicles. For example, if somebody vandalizes your company vehicles, a commercial auto policy can cover the cost of repairs.
And sometimes, a claim can exceed the limit of the underlying biBerk home inspector liability insurance policy. No worries! An umbrella policy can make up the difference—up to its limit, of course.
Home inspector insurance and the resources behind it
At biBerk, our mission is to help businesses like yours run more effectively and safely. That’s why we offer lots of risk-reduction resources—articles, flyers, videos, and more—that are really useful. We also stand behind policyholders if they’re ever sued. As a home inspector or home inspection business owner, you’ll like having biBerk on your side.
What does home inspector insurance cost?
At this point, you may be wondering what home inspector insurance costs. In short, it’s a great value for the protection it provides!
Insurance for home inspectors is very affordable. That’s especially true with biBerk policies, since our direct-to-you approach means we can offer policies at up to 20% less than other providers.
Your home inspector insurance cost will depend on things like the size of your business, your experience, your home inspection insurance claims history, and others. But you can get fast, free, self-service home inspector insurance quotes for the policies you need online whenever it’s convenient for you. You can also buy policies in as little as five minutes, manage them, and report claims online with biBerk. And if you have questions, our licensed insurance experts are happy to assist you.
Talk with us today, and let’s make sure your home inspection business is protected from the unexpected.