Michael, 

I've run into this problem for years, and the simple answer is, if you can 
afford the bother and cost of getting insurance to cover your works and the 
resulting products, just get it, it really helps with everything across the 
whole project spectrum. 

Now, having said that, I've only recently gotten Insurance and this was from 
the bidders end, as in bidding on a project, the project dictated some fairly 
heavyhanded (IMO) insurance requirements that we needed to provide, and in the 
end, the cost was just charged back as a reduction in hours available for 
working.  There was really no way around it in the end. 

While I'm basically against adding in any unneeded extras, there are times when 
it's just easier to have the insurance available.   I won't lie to you though, 
it was a rather rigorous task to get the insurnce into place, but it's 
typically only a one time deal and it's all setup for the next time too. 

Anote here, there are also options for getting insurance on a project by 
project basis, but the bidder will need to have an insurance agent in their 
pocket to be able to execute something in short order when needed. 

bobb 



>>> "Michael P. Gerlek" <m...@lizardtech.com> wrote:

In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open 
source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been 
independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to 
hiring someone from an agency.

I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that 
any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance.  I understand the legal 
reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have 
business/contractors insurance?  Do companies you work for insist on it, or 
not?  And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships 
or such?

[while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested 
in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over 
the years]

-mpg

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