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Michele Davis wondered: <<I Incorporated as an S-Corp on January 01,
2003. I've never been sued, and I've never been asked by a client to
have general liability insurance, until now.>>
For such things, always consult a lawyer. Liability varies among legal
jurisdictions, and only a lawyer can tell you what is appropriate in
yours; speaking of which, your standard contract should define which
jurisdiction the contract will be adjudicated in.
It's sometimes possible to add a clause to your contract that protects
you from most forms of legal liability, thereby greatly lowering the
cost when you do purchase the insurance. In layman's language: "The
client recognizes that the writer/editor/whatever is not a technical
expert in this domain, and agrees to accept full legal responsibility
for confirming the correctness and adequacy of the written material."
Your lawyer can word this correctly, but the key is to shift the
liability to where it belongs: to the client, since they're the only
ones sufficiently expert to perform quality control on what you write.
<<So, I called my insurance agent. I didn't understand his explanation
about liability insurance, but then he told me I needed error and
omissions insurance IN ADDITION to the liability to protect myself from
getting sued.>>
This may be true. My understanding is that E&O differs from liability
insurance. For example, if the client prints your fine manual and
discovers that you forgot to include a table of contents or index,
you'd be liable for the cost of reprinting the manual. E&O insurance
covers this cost, and may be more important than liability insurance if
you can insert the abovementioned clause into your contract. The client
cannot reasonably be expected to be as expert in communication as you
are. Thus, if you make a mistake of this sort, you're responsible for
fixing it.
<<As an addendum, what is a hakis?>>
A sheep's stomach stuffed with oatmeal and organ meat? <g>
<<I can't find it in any dictionaries, even my French-English one, and
hakis.org doesn't give an understandable xplanation...>>
Ask your lawyer. Whatever definition you may find may not relate in any
reasonable way to the legal definition.
--Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
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