KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ
ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE
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Understanding additional insured / webinar notice
October 12, 2019
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Webinar notice
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Title:    Subcontractor v Employee and Consequences of Misclassification
When:  October 17, 2019 12-1 PM EST
Who Should Attend: Alarm owners, managers and CFOs
Presenter: Michael Foster, Esq. and Ken Kirschenbaum, Esq.
More information: Proper classification and consequences of misclassification of independent contractors and employee s; 1099 v W2; California's new law and how it impacts other states.
Register here:  https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8194366993832988675
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Notice:  New K&K Concierge Program perk.  Concierge clients will be credited half hour each month for subscriber contract review.  This credit does not carry over to next month; it’s $250 value each month.  Use it or lose it.  This perk adds up to $3000 value to the Concierge Program.  To learn more and sign up for the Concierge Program click here: http://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/page/concierge
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Understanding additional insured 
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Ken
            RE: Please help me to better apply the Additionally Insured (AI) inclusion.
            I have had great success with clients signing contracts as-is.  But I have never enforced having our company listed as AI on a separate certificate issued back to us.  That is, unless you can assure me that somehow in the very signing of the All-in-One the client has in fact obligated their Insurance Company.  Do you have exempli gratia to support this?  
            Or more troubling, without delivery of physical AI, does this mean the client becomes immediately in breach?  If not immediately, then how long after they sign the contract (waiting for the AI certificate in-hand to)....does it take for them to have officially denied their obligation to deliver the AI?  Furthermore, is their some unspoken implication of a requirement for me to produce Notice of the breach BEFORE they become in breach?
            What does it mean for my company to hold several hundred All-in-Ones without up to date AI's??
            The slippery slope may begin in the event I deliver a written reminder of their need to comply with the agreement; it may imply they are not in breach at this time but will be if they do not comply, .while in reality they are in breach the second they sign and do not accompany it with the AI?  Please advise this community.
            Incidentally, the lead up to the All-in-One 'signing' (usually in person) begins to feel like a freaking house closing! (believe me, I respect your work and appreciate your contributions....I am no lawyer).  You probably already know, alarm companies have other in-house processes that demand even more documents be presented, reviewed, and completed for processing.  The client normally expresses this in one of two ways: -
1) overwhelmed and defiant (making them feel abrasive and confrontational).  
2) overwhelmed and submission (making them feel inwardly weak and stupid).
            (Remember, we are trying to sell stuff here, and ironically, at the very moment of contract presentation.  So we, as an integrating community are looking to you for ANY help that relieves the negative aspect of contract presentation.
            If a particular situation dictates that I am working  before a married couple, there is a good chance that bickering goes on either in front or behind the scenes anyhow.  Then the contract can have the effect of galvanizing the bickering couple against a common threat, or pressure....me.  I understand completely that this is one of the aspects of being a professional integrator that is mine to bear.  I only seek to communicate with you some of the 'real-world' rationales we navigate.  The stamina we conjure to wrestle the minutia grants us the privilege to call ourselves Professionals.
            Just when a discerning client decides to go with our smaller company - mainly to avoid dealing with the corporate 'gotchas' they have been trained to expect - we have to soft-ball to them to contact their insurance company in order to comply. inherent 'gotcha'.
            Our Certificate of Inspection bears lines denoting their Policy Number, Insuring Company, Policy Term, and a Yes/No have they supplied Additionally Insured?  I did this as a means to avoid having the AI conversation, hoping a client would naturally inquire about the blanks on their inspection cert.  No one has ever done that yet.  But hopefully, these little lines may serve as our 'Notice' of the missing document?
            The Additionally Insured covenant is extremely thought out and legally effective, almost completely emasculating to the client. But if it makes the contract in breach on inception, then it may be a bridge too far.
Peter Mason
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Response
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            The All in One agreements require the subscriber to obtain, carry and name the alarm company as additional insured on the subscriber’s liability insurance policy.  This serves two purposes;
1.  The additional insured status add insurance coverage for the alarm company
2.  The subscriber’s insurance company will not be able to sue the alarm company exercising its subrogation rights because a carrier cannot sue its own insured for reimbursement of the insured event.   
            The subscriber agrees to obtain the insurance when the contract is signed.  Failure to comply with this insurance procurement provision is material to the agreement and a breach that cannot be cured.  I suppose the insurance procurement provision could be waived or excused by action of the alarm company.  If you realize that the subscriber has not obtained the insurance you could call the breach to the subscriber’s attention.  Then it will be up to you whether you waive the delay or excuse compliance altogether.  
            I would venture to guess that most subscribers do not name the alarm company as additional insured.  Most of these same subscribers have agreed to indemnify the alarm company and when an indemnity claim comes they find out they don’t have insurance to back up the indemnity.
            When challenged I often waive the insurance procurement provision.  The provisions will be a deal breaker for some subscribers.  If other provisions remain in the contract you can give up the additional insured requirement and rely on the other provisions.  It takes a long time to know enough the sell and install alarm equipment; it may take even longer to learn how to sell your alarm contract to the subscriber.  
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Ken Kirschenbaum,Esq
Kirschenbaum & Kirschenbaum PC
Attorneys at Law
200 Garden City Plaza
Garden City, NY 11530
516 747 6700 x 301
ken@kirschenbaumesq.com
www.KirschenbaumEsq.com