Oregon Licensing and Insurance

[onishaw]

New guy getting started in Oregon. In the process of licensing and certifying with a couple questions...

1) For licensing, are there any advantages or benefits to licensing as a general over specialty contractor (residential). I know the coverage requirements are higher so I assume that specialty would do the trick, but I have made enough assumptions in my life to have learned what "assume" makes out of "u" & "me". (I do not forsee doing anything in the future that would involve "working two or more trades on one job".)

2) For the bond and liability insurances, I am planning on obtaining just the required levels. On E&O, the common offerings seem to be $300k, $500k and $1mil. Any comments on reasonable coverage in today's world?

I have immensely enjoyed following this FORUM during my training, interning and testing. You have all been a great help (unknowingly) and I am grateful. I hope to be hanging my shingle by the end of the month. I presume that's when the real training starts.

[Jim Katen]

New guy getting started in Oregon. In the process of licensing and certifying with a couple questions...

1) For licensing, are there any advantages or benefits to licensing as a general over specialty contractor (residential). I know the coverage requirements are higher so I assume that specialty would do the trick, but I have made enough assumptions in my life to have learned what "assume" makes out of "u" & "me". (I do not forsee doing anything in the future that would involve "working two or more trades on one job".)

Unless you plan to use the license for other contracting work, the residential specialty endorsement is all that you need.

2) For the bond and liability insurances, I am planning on obtaining just the required levels. On E&O, the common offerings seem to be $300k, $500k and $1mil. Any comments on reasonable coverage in today's world?

As a general rule, you want the lowest bond that you can get away with and the highest insurance that you can afford. Look carefully at the difference in cost between a $300k policy and a $1M policy. It's usually not a lot. Also consider that you're unlikely to miss a problem worth a million dollars in itself, but if that problem leads to a personal injury, then costs can climb above a million very quickly. All it takes is for you to miss a loose handrail that would cost $50 to fix. But if a pregnant woman falls off that stairway and miscarries, the lawsuit would easily top a million dollars.

I have immensely enjoyed following this FORUM during my training, interning and testing. You have all been a great help (unknowingly) and I am grateful. I hope to be hanging my shingle by the end of the month. I presume that's when the real training starts.

Good luck.