Cohousing-L Mailing List: Liability for COA maintenance operations

[Gary Hellenga (gary.hellenga]

Our community (Bozeman Cohousing) is interested in managing groundskeeping
and snow removal tasks in-house, instead of contracting these maintenance
tasks to outside parties.  But we're wondering how to cover ourselves for
liability (e.g., if a plow operator accidentally damages a car parked in
the parking lot, or rips up an irrigation hose while mowing).  We'd be
interested in hearing from other communities that do such tasks if
incidents such as these have occurred, and/or what they've done to protect
themselves from such liability?  Has anyone, for example, formed a separate
legal entity for their maintenance team, so that it could carry an
insurance policy covering such liabilities?