Cohousing-L Mailing List: Liability for COA maintenance operations

[PAMELA LEITCH (info]

Hi Gary,

Glad to hear that your community is thinking about liability issues.There are 
two types of coverage that my community, Columbia Ecovillage in Portland, OR 
has.

Volunteer liability, which acts similar to a worker’s comp policy in that it 
pays the medical expenses for anyone injured while doing volunteer work.  The 
premium is very reasonable and we have had a claim on it for a community member 
who broke a hip while doing yard work.

The COA liability policy may cover any damage done by the volunteers such as 
car damage or accidents such as running over someone.  With the current tight 
insurance market, we are being told that risky types of work such as climbing 
on high ladders and operating heavy equipment should be hired out and not be 
done by volunteers.

Check with your insurance broker about both of these policies and what they 
cover, including the risk of having to get non-standard insurance (perhaps 
triple your current premiums) if you have a claim resulting from volunteers 
doing work.

Pam Leitch, JD, CMCA
HOA Coaching, LLC
hoacoaching.com <http://hoacoaching.com/>

> On Aug 5, 2024, at 6:41 PM, Gary Hellenga <gary.hellenga [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> 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?
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