The 13th Annual Inspection Expo - Changing Course in Changing Times was held October 20-22, 2008 at the Rio All-Suites Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2008, it is essential for home inspectors to re-evaluate and understand how "Changing Course in Changing Times" it provided opportunities to maintain and grow business, even in today's challenging market. This year's spectacular line up of speakers includes Mike Casey, Don Norman, Mark Cramer, Joe Zaabadick and our own Joseph Ferry plus many more, as we focus on diversification and business options to benefit you and your home inspection business.
Inspection Expo is the original education and opportunities conference specifically for home inspectors. Brought to you by the world leader in home inspection education, Kaplan Professional Schools, Inspection Training Associates, to offer you the best, most relevant training and exhibitors in the home inspection industry. Inspection Expo is truly the one home inspection event you can't afford to miss!
Saturday, October 4th 2008
Joseph Ferry, Law and Disorder
This course is designed to give professional home inspectors an overview of the legal and insurance issues that they are likely to encounter in the conduct of their business. Students will be introduced to the basic concepts and doctrines in Contract Law including the legal grounds for enforcement of promises, the role of consent in contract formation, contract remedies and interpretation and enforceability of popular clauses in Home Inspection Pre- Inspection Agreements, Negligence Law, including the concepts of duty, reasonable home inspector standard, breach of duty, causation, damages and defenses will also be covered. The course illuminated the provisions of Professional Liability (E&O) insurance including the insurance agreement, prior acts coverage, extended reporting period coverage and general liability insurance. Finally students will learn how to handle a potential claim whether or not they are insured.
Your company should be prepared and protected from possible mistakes made by the owners, employees or possibly hired contractors. Errors and Omissions Insurance is an important insurance product that consulting or service companies should add to their insurance coverage.
How Does Errors and Omissions Insurance Take the Worry out of Business Liability?
If you consult, provide services to others, or sell for others, a client can hold you accountable for errors in your work. With Errors and Omissions insurance, you are protected against claims and lawsuits for mistakes or omissions that may cause a financial loss for your client.
What is Errors and Omissions Insurance?
Errors and Omissions Insurance is an insurance product that protects a professional when a customer holds you responsible for a service provided that did not have the expected or promised results.
Why Does My Company Need Coverage?
By not buying Errors and Omissions insurance, you are taking a serious financial risk. Mistakes are made by even the best of employees or business owners. Things can be forgotten or misunderstood, and the client can litigate risking the future of your company.
Isn't My Company Already Protected by My Commercial General Liability Policy?
No. These claims arising from your professional advice or services are typically not covered by general liability policies, and if there is coverage, it may have limitations.
What Type of Business Should Consider Errors and Omissions Insurance?
Is Errors and Omissions Insurance Expensive?
Premiums vary depending on your business, however not having the proper insurance coverage is more expensive. Premiums are based on revenues, deductibles, the type of business, the number of professionals providing the service, and the company's loss history.
Elite InspectInsure, or eiipro.com, offers competitive, cost effective ways to protect your business from liability with Errors and Omissions Insurance. This tailored insurance can guard your company from unexpected losses.
Elite InspectInsure is excited to hear that Joseph Ferry, Esq. our own "famous attorney" in for the seminar "Law and Disorder" will be teaming up with Ken Compton a renowned marketing coach for an exciting live presentation on September 23rd at 8pm EDT. Both Joe and Ken will be discussing marketing strategies for home inspectors as well as common pits falls often faced by inspectors. DO NOT MISS this amazing opportunity to gain marketing advantages for your business.
Joseph Ferry and Elite MGA will also be attending the up and coming TAREI convention in Austin, so be sure to join us in Austin for fun, food and of course education!
Elite MGA andis a Managing General Agency that specializes in all of your home inspection needs with our unique InspectInsure program. Elite will continue to partner, sponsor and help to advise home inspectors on all upcoming events that will help your business grow!
Pamela Brunges, Senior Vice President Elite MGA said "I think this is a great opportunity for all of our clients as well as any home inspector to take this advantage and listen in on two of the industries leaders in this field."
How to Register [WMV]
If you consult, provide services to others, or sell for others, you should purchase professional insurance. This tailored insurance may help protect you from a potential claim arising from your professional advice or service. In your type of business, a client can hold you responsible for errors or failure in your work. The insurance that best meets your need is called professional liability insurance, malpractice insurance, directors and officers insurance (D&O) or errors and omissions (E & O) insurance.
E & O coverage offers you or your company and your employees' additional protection against claims or lawsuits for mistakes or omissions which may have caused financial losses for your client. The insurance can be written to protect you from attorney fees as well as the amount of a settlement if you are found at fault. Consider the following information about the insurance coverage as it relates to your business:
The following businesses should consider E & O insurance:
The cost of each E & O Insurance contract varies with its specifics. Each contract should be written specifically for you, and should contain the following information:
Every company can and will make a mistake at some point. Be prepared. Purchase Errors and Omissions coverage to insure your mistakes, your employees' mistakes, and even mistakes made by the contractors you hire.
March 26, 2008
Mr. Nick Gromicko
NACHI
1750 30th St.
Boulder, CO 80301
RE: Inspector core course approval
Dear Mr. Gromicko:
Our records indicate that the National Association of Certified Home Inspectors is a professional trade association which offers inspector courses.
We will accept course completion certification from students who complete the inspector course listed below.
Course Title: Law & Disorder
Core or Renewal Credit Hours: 4
Each student seeking credit from our agency must provide a course completion certificate that includes the name of the education provider, the number of classroom hours, the name of the course completed, the course completion date, the student's name, and an authorized signature.
If you have any questions, please contact the Education Staff at 512-465-3981.
Sincerely,
Margareta White
Education Manager
ClaimIntercept™ is a concept developed by the inspection industry legal icon, Joe Ferry, for interdicting unmeritorious professional liability claims against home inspectors insured by Elite InspectInsure before they blossom into lawsuits.
The program was developed by Joe after he became aware, in his capacity as General Counsel to InterNACHI, of the torrent of professional liability claims against home inspectors that had no underlying factual support.
The seminal case that Joe interdicted involved a home inspection that had been conducted in February 2005 in Southwest Florida. The claim did not surface until twenty-two months after the inspection and sought compensation for defects that the inspection had actually uncovered and that the inspector had noted in his inspection report. Joe's responsive letter to the claimant's attorney on the home inspector's behalf in that case [which can be read here] was a locus classicus of the kind of moral outrage anyone would feel for the victim of an injustice.
As a trial lawyer with over 20 years of experience representing both plaintiffs and defendants in a wide variety of civil litigation, Joe was astonished to discover the sheer number of claims being brought that were eminently defensible but which the industry's E & O insurance providers were routinely validating with a claims approach that actually encourages the filing of unmeritorious claims.
Shortly after Joe's letter succeeded in defeating the Florida case, Joe developed his acclaimed Law and Disorder seminar wherein he teaches home inspectors his tried and true methods for reducing their exposure to professional liability lawsuits. A complete list of upcoming seminars can be found here. Inspectors who had attended the seminar began to contact Joe for help when they were presented with similar unmeritorious claims.
Following Joe's extraordinary success in derailing and defeating unmeritorious claims before they blossomed into full blown lawsuits, the claims departments of two of the largest insurers who provide E & O insurance coverage to the home inspection industry began to take notice. Subsequently they agreed not only to allow Joe to intervene whenever a home inspector insured under the Elite InspectInsure E & O insurance programs received a preliminary notice of a potential claim from either a claimant or a claimant's attorney, but also to allow the home inspector to credit Joe's fee for the intervention against his deductible, a win/win situation for the home inspector.
Here is how ClaimIntercept™ works in actual practice. When an insured receives a notice of a potential claim, he reports it to Elite InspectInsure. Elite InspectInsure forwards the claim to Joe for a determination of merit. After consulting with the insured home inspector and reviewing the case documents, including the demand letter, the inspector's pre-inspection agreement and the inspection report, Joe will make an informed judgment, based on his vast trial experience and surpassing knowledge of the home inspection industry, as to the validity of the claim.
If Joe determines that the claim is not valid, with the insured's consent, he will respond to the claimant or the claimant's attorney on the insured's behalf, explaining the legal and factual reasons why the claim will not succeed. In every case, eighteen of eighteen, where Joe has determined the claim to be unmeritorious and he has intervened, the claim was dropped by the claimant following Joe's intervention. That astonishing record is indicative of both the sheer number of invalid claims that are made against home inspectors and Joe's consummate powers of persuasion.
