How Hiring a Plumber Could Put You at Risk For a Lawsuit

Home service technicians are the workers who make it possible to live comfortably in a civilized society. Without their help, plumbing problems, electrical problems, heating and cooling issues, and so much more would be difficult to resolve and potentially risk seriously damaging your home or even jeopardizing your health.

However, there’s a downside to hiring one of these professionals. As invited visitors to your property, you’re required to guarantee their safety and freedom from potential hazards that could cause them harm. As a result, any flaws in your property that can cause them to become injured, regardless of whether or not you know about them or their severity, could leave you exposed to a premises liability lawsuit, and thus the damages for the injuries they suffer.

Here are a few examples of injuries you could be liable for:

• A roofer walks onto your roof to conduct an inspection, unaware of a major weak point that’s suffered catastrophic damage and rot from years of rain and sun exposure. When they step on this point, the roof gives out and they fall into your attic, getting injured.
• An electrician turns off the labeled circuit breaker to inspect one of your electric sockets, but the label on the circuit breaker is incorrect and they suffer a serious shock when they begin to probe the wires connected to your sockets.
• A landscaper comes to your property to take care of your grass, but doesn’t see a giant tree root sticking up from your lawn, causing them to trip, fall hard, and become injured.
• A home inspector is investigating your property and fails to notice a gopher hole in your lawn. They step into it, trip and fall, and break their ankle in the process.

As you can see, there are plenty of different ways a home service technician could become injured, and by no fault of their own. In fact, it’s not even really your fault either—you don’t know the problem is there, so how could you prepare for it? According to the law, however, your home and your property is your responsibility. That means even if you didn’t know a hazard was present, you are liable if it causes an injury to someone else.

Insurance Against Injury

So how can you protect yourself from this liability? Simple: do your research when choosing a technician to come to your home. Reputable technicians will have a number of professional licenses as well as an insurance policy. These insurance policies are usually offered by the company themselves as protection for their workers, ensuring that should anything happen, they take care of their people. These actually work for all parties: the worker can have confidence of knowing they’re covered if they get hurt, you’re protected from a potentially devastating premises liability lawsuit, and the company knows that their workers will get the treatment they need should they become injured. Everybody wins.

So when it comes to choosing a home services company for your home, make sure to ask them if they’re insured before welcoming them into your home—you’ll be glad you did in the event a sudden, freak accident results in their getting hurt.