Bulk tanks have been a part of the welding and gas business for a very long time, and they’re not going anywhere any time soon. You’ve likely been part of a bulk tank installation at one time or another, or maybe you’re about to start your first one. Did you have all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed, or was there no claim during or after the install, and therefore it did not matter?
Consider these questions:
Who pours your pad? Who is doing the installation?
Do you know what type of insurance they purchase?
Do they have the correct coverages? Are their limits high enough?
Are you signing a contract with the firms that are performing the work?
Do you think you should sign a contract?
Who will do the piping?
Who is responsible for hiring the vendors?
Who will the liability fall onto?
Determine Your Risk Tolerance
When you are in the planning stages of a new bulk tank install, you should ask yourself all of these questions. Selecting the appropriate vendors or contractors for your installation is critical. As with any project, you want to select vendors and contractors that will do a good job ensuring that your tank is there for a long time.
Your risk tolerance will come into play as you finalize the details of your bulk tank install. If you are comfortable doing so, you can knowingly take on the risks that are present during the installation. The important part in all of this is that you go into it, eyes wide open.
Having a Contract with Insurance & Indemnification Requirements
Many times, you have signed contracts with major gas suppliers, vendors, or contractors that you do business with quite frequently. Contracts should be used throughout the installation process. How closely are you reading these contracts? If someone is injured or property is damaged during or after the install, who is held responsible?
By signing a contract without a thorough review, you may be taking on the other company’s negligence. Contracts can be risky. If you haven't read our article, Contracts = Risky Business, head on over there! Without checking that they have proper insurance in place, there is the potential for any resulting claims to fall back to you. It is a good idea to have contracts in place with the vendors performing the installation.
If they’re not asking you to sign a contract, you should be asking them to sign one.
Start Early
This all takes time. We must allow ourselves enough time to iron out all the details before the start of the installation. Inevitably, there is going to be a back and forth review that will likely require multiple revisions and edits. We negotiate the terms for the insurance and indemnification sections of these contracts for more than 100 of our welding and gas customers who have multiple contracts with different vendors, resulting in hundreds of contract reviews. We’ve seen all the major gas supplier agreements, the big-name hard goods vendor contracts, and all varieties of contractor contracts. There are many items to review in contracts. We go over those more in this article here, Gas Supplier Contracts - Open to Negotiation.
We will need to work through these and any other terms to be finalized before laying the pad and getting the install started. Let’s not hold up the installation because of the paperwork. Be sure we start the paperwork with enough time before the installation’s start date.
Horton Will Help
We are here to help. Your Horton team is prepared to help you review and negotiate any contracts when it comes to your bulk tank installation. As Horton is the largest provider of insurance and risk management solutions in the welding & gas industry, we will review these contracts to ensure you’re not taking on someone else’s negligence. We can also review their certificate of insurance and help you understand the limits and coverages they currently have in place. If you dictate the terms of the contract, as well as the insurance limits, we can help ensure they’ve met your criteria.
At Horton, we’re well versed in the industry and are prepared to help with everything above. We’re here to answer your questions and strategize the best approach to ensure you are covered correctly.
At The Horton Group, we can help you develop a process to identify how to drive down costs, workload, and risk, especially as it relates to your risk tolerance, risk transfer, and protection. We would be happy to explore this topic with you at length and, or review one of your contracts to demonstrate this in action – make sure to contact one of our Welding & Gas Horton representatives today.
