If you ask a garage door repair service whether or not it has insurance, you will get a resounding “yes” nearly 100% of the time. The service will be telling the truth, because it probably does carry at least one type of insurance. Yet you should continue Overhead Door Modern Aluminum Collection asking questions because every garage door repair service should carry three types of insurance: auto insurance, liability insurance, and worker’s compensation insurance. Only when the company carries all three can it consider itself fully insured.
Auto insurance is required by the state, and is not terribly costly, so almost every repair service will have it. Still, you should ask because you don’t want to learn the company lacks this coverage after the company truck drives through your newly repaired door.
Liability insurance is also relatively inexpensive, so the majority of companies carry this, too. Liability insurance Swing Up Garage Door Hardware will cover the expense of any damage that takes place at your home, like broken windows or ruined fences.
The third and most important type of insurance you repair service needs is worker’s compensation insurance. You would assume every company carries worker’s compensation insurance because most states require it. What you probably don’t know is that states does not regulate the industry closely, and a company can get by for years without purchasing worker’s compensation insurance. As a result, only about half of all the companies carry this insurance.
This type of insurance is very expensive for these companies. A garage door technician works in a rather dangerous environment, handling heavy pieces (a garage door weighs about 200 pounds), electrical components, and moving parts. Adding to the danger is the fact that he does most of his work on top of a ladder. The technician is more likely to have a serious injury than workers in many other industries.
The way the less reliable companies get around the requirement of worker’s compensation insurance is to close down the company after there has been an accident, then open as a new company — without worker’s compensation insurance, of course. Guess what the worker who had the accident is going to do. He’s going to sue you because the accident happened on your property.
If you hire a company without worker’s compensation insurance, you’re taking a serious risk. Your homeowner’s insurance could refuse to pay because you didn’t do due diligence.
When a technician, or any other worker, comes to your home, make sure he has up-to-date documents stating that he has all three types of the necessary insurances: auto, liability, and worker’s compensation.
