Blasting Uninsured vendors

[Mark Hegeman]

As a landscape contractor most of my competitors are uninsured but I find homeowners seem to care more than landlords about insurance, why is that? This is a generalization to elicit feedback but my comment is based on experience. Please let me know if you have had this experience as a vendor and your thoughts. Perhaps as a landlord you can express your feelings as to why you lean one way or the other. Any horror stories of using uninsured vendors would be appreciated also. 

A lesson for all those new real estate investors like myself who aspire to get Bigger Pockets. 

[J Scott]

It's simply a form of self-insurance for investors (whether they recognize it or not)...

For example, I often don't get builders risk insurance on my flips, as I've done the math, and have determined that my lifetime cost will be reduced by covering any issues out of pocket.  The benefit is lower holding costs across my business; the risk is obviously large one-time payments if there is an issue that would have been covered under insurance.

Same with insured contractors.  Most of the time I'll use them (when I determine the cost/benefit is in favor of insured contractors), but occasionally -- and this is often true of landscapers -- I'll determine the risk is relatively low, and the per-transaction savings are great enough that I'm willing to eat a potential cost down the road should there be an issue.