Hi everybody! This is Tracy Bookman owner of Homestead Roofing with your Tuesday
tip of the week. Today's tip we're going to tell you how
to make sure that your roofing contractor is fully insured.
So the big question really is what does fully insured really mean? Here in our
local jurisdiction are overseeing authority which is Pikes Peak regional
building department requires that a roofing contractor have at a minimum
general liability insurance. He needs to also have workers comp insurance if he
has employees. If he doesn't have employees he's not required to have
workers comp insurance. So somebody could tell you he's fully insured but doesn't
have workers comp insurance and he would be technically correct here in our
jurisdiction. However, think about this from the standpoint of you as the
homeowner. What does fully insured really mean? Well
let's talk about what the different kinds of insurance do for you as a
homeowner. General liability insurance protects you if something in your
property gets broken or damaged. So somebody's on your property and let's
say they accidentally hit a window with a ladder and it breaks the window. The
general liability insurance is what pays to repair that for you. Workers comp
insurance on the other hand in my opinion is actually much more important
for you as the homeowner because it protects you from much more catastrophic
financial losses. So if somebody gets injured on your property workers comp
insurance is what picks up the tab for those medical expenses, loss of work
things like that if workers comp insurance doesn't exist for the person
that got injured then guess what it's probably going to happen the personal
injury lawyers are going to be swarming in like sharks and you as the homeowner
could end up liable for that. More specifically your property and casualty
insurance company is going to be liable for it but if that comes back where they
deny that you as the homeowner could be in a whole lot of trouble. That's why
this is really an important issue and really is something that you as a
homeowner need to understand when you go to hire a roofing contractor. So how do
you protect yourself? How do you find out really if the roofing contractor has the
insurance that he needs to have? Don't ask the roofing contractor to give
you a copy of his insurance paperwork because that can easily be counterfeit
counterfeited and oftentimes is the best way to do it is ask the roofing
contractor you're considering to hire to have his insurance agent email or mail
you a copy of his insurance certificates so that way you can see whether he has
general liability whether he has workers comp insurance and what the expiration
dates for those are. If the insurance agent is mailing or emailing that to you
you can fairly well know that that's not counterfeited. I hope that helps you as
you're evaluating which roofing contractors to use and as you're
navigating through all the questions about what type of insurance is going to
protect you as the homeowner. If you've got any other questions you can give us
a call right up here 719.433.6991
we're happy to help answer any questions. You can also visit our website
you can go right down here HomesteadRoofingColorado.com. We've got tons of
information out there lots of tips and education for homeowners to help you get
through this whole process. If you liked this video and it's been helpful please
give us a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below let us know what you thought of
this video or let us know what kind of videos you'd like us to make in the
future. Be sure to click the subscribe button up there so that way you get
notified when we have new videos come out until next time, I'm Tracy Bookman
owner of Homestead Roofing and be sure to check out roofing contractors and
make sure that they are really fully insured.