Professional Liability Insurance for Office?

[TehMightyEngineer]

As a soon to be licensed engineer I asked my boss if he wants me to take over some of the responsibility of stamping drawings when he's out of the office. He said he would like me to do that since he was the only PE and was quite the bottleneck for those weeks where he would spend more time out of the office than in it. I asked him how the liability insurance would work and he brushed it off saying that the insurance was for the business and would cover me as well. This doesn't seem right so I figured I'd ask here if this was common to have insurance for a business cover all of the practicing engineers. Should I press him further for details?

Maine EIT, Civil/Structural.

 

[Ron]

Congrats TME....glad you passed. Based on reading your posts for a long time, would have been surprised if you had not!!

 

[SteelPE]

Ron,

I understand what you are talking about, but what if I am hired to provide a preliminary design of a structure to a client for budgetary purposes? In this instance I might spend a day or two coming up with a rough design I think might work, something that is good enough to define a budget, but not fully designed. The client doesn't want to spend the money coming up with a fully engineered set of plans because he is not sure if he wants to go forward with the project or not. Do you seal the drawings then?

 

[Ron]

SteelPE...No. You only sign/seal plans for submittal to a public agency or to a client for the purposes of going forward with the project. Preliminaries should be marked as such (with a clear note that the drawings are not complete and not to be submitted for permit or construction) and do not require signing/sealing in most states. Check the state's laws and rules just in case!

 

[SteelPE]

Ron,

I guess my point is that there is some grey area where you might have done work on a project which is not complete or ready for construction vs a project you designed but didn't stamp. If I have a project that is finished and ready to be submitted to the client the drawings/calculations/letters are sealed and submitted to the client. In this example, I was hired to do some rough engineering but never sealed my drawings as I didn't want anyone to think they were complete (even though they might say they are preliminary).

 

[BadgerPE]

Does anyone have a document or link to a site in which all state liabilities are discussed. I myself only practice in WI, but we will be working in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and possibly New Jersey in the near future. I understand that I might need to look into all states individually, but it would be nice if there was one document that linked to all state statutes.

 

[glass99]

Ron,

Part of the deal in the facade consulting gig is that you write a performance specification which requires the contractor to provide stamped drawings and calcs. Yes the consultant can be named if the facade leaks or falls down, but you are only secondarily responsible compared with the party with a stamp on the documents. This is different from a traditional structural design-bid-build contract, and it is also different from no one at all stamping the documents. The key is to get someone else to take the responsibility, and to make it as clear as possible who that person is. Engineering responsibility is usually prescribed in the specification and contract for larger projects at least.