Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Hiring community members

[Jim Snyder-Grant (jimsg]

Answers mixed in below, from New View cohousing (Acton MA)

Terri Hupfer wrote:

> 1. Do you have additional liability insurance to cover community members doing 
> volunteer work in the community?
>  
Our liability insurance covers most every legal activity on site, except 
for folks injured while doing paid work here. For that, we have worker's 
comp. (We also have Directors & officers insurance, but that's a 
different story)

Our worker's comp covers paid workers that don't have their own worker's 
comp (as long as they are doing 'ordinary condo maintenance' - eg no 
ladder or roof work) We pay premiums based on paying out 15K of wages 
during the year. Each year we get a review, and so far, each year we 
geta refund (we pay out less than 15K to workers without their own 
workers comp).

> 2. Have you hired a community member for pay who had special skills?
>
>  
Sure, but not an electrician or plumber.

> 3. Was that community member a licensed contractor?
>  
No.

> 4. Do you require all folks who you hire to work in the community to be 
> licensed and insured, and do they need to have an extra HOA rider on their 
> insurance?
>
>  
No. We need their insurance certificate, which lists what sort of 
insurance they have. If they are a one-person operation, and they don;'t 
have workers comp, and they are working only on general condo 
maintenance, our insurance broker assures us we are covered.

If they are getting up on roofs, or using ladders, we require that they 
have their own workers comp coverage. If we are unsure if what they are 
doing is covered uner our workers comp, we call our agent.

Workers comp & liability insurance laws of course do vary frem state to 
state.

> 5. Do you use a property management company, and if so, what do they cover and 
> at what sort of cost?
>
>  
No.

> Thank you for answers to any or all of these questions.
>
> Terri Hupfer (gordita [at] pacbell.net)
>
> Pleasant Hill Cohousing, Bay Area, California
>  


--
Jim Snyder-Grant
18 Half Moon Hill
Acton MA 01720
978 266-9409
www.snyder-grant.org/jim/who/