Commercial Property Inspectors Roundtable Meeting #31: OREP + CCPIA^® Exclusive Insurance Policy

• • CCPIA^® Partners with OREP to Expand Insurance Coverage for Commercial Property Inspections
  • International Standards of Practice for Inspecting Commercial Properties (ComSOP)
  • ComSOP 2026 Audiobooks
  • Become a Certified Commercial Property Inspector
  • Commercial Property Inspection Standards of Practice Online Course
  • Commercial Property Inspection Walk-Through Online Course (Includes sample inspection reports)
  • Pricing, Proposals, and Inspection Walk-Through Basics Online Course (Includes sample inspection reports)
  • Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) Walk-Through Survey Online Course
  • Cost to Remedy Reporting Fast-Track Course
  • Building Your Business Ep. 28: CoStar, The Secret Weapon for Building a Commercial Client Base
  • Commercial Property Inspectors: Who They Are and Who Hires Them Article

CCPIA (00:05)
All right, we’re right at the top of the hour good morning everybody and thank you for taking the time to be at the CCPIA Roundtable for this month We’re pretty darn lucky that that this month. We’ve got a very special guest We’ve got OREP insurance here ⁓ and representing OREP is Isaac Adam and Gina and so

to get started, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna rotate this over and ⁓ let you guys introduce yourselves. But the reason you’re here is, what is it? Two months ago, we’ve launched this program. Our executive director, ⁓ Maggie A. and Isaac have been, and Adam and Gina have been working really, really hard to build an insurance solution that

doesn’t exclude all of those items that are historically excluded and really becomes a very viable product. And so we invited you guys here to talk about that. I guess Isaac, you’re gonna take the lead.

Isaac Peck (01:17)
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ Thanks for having us, Rob. ⁓ It’s great to be here. We’ll just do some quick introductions. My name is Isaac. I’m the owner of OREP Insurance, and I’ve been doing professional insurance for over 15 years now. And Adam, you want to just give a quick intro?

CCPIA (01:21)
My pleasure.

Adam Merrifield (01:40)
I’m always that guy that’s on mute. Yeah. My name is Adam Merrifield. I’m the head of business development at OREF insurance.

I am more on the business development side of the insurance business. So I’m going to be handling your member benefits and any questions that you have. ⁓ This is really an important program for me because ⁓ I grew up, my first real job out of school was I was a commercial ⁓ real estate agent. So ⁓ in Miramar down here in San Diego. So

I knocked on thousands of doors and talked to hundreds of business owners ⁓ regarding their commercial space. And I have a warm spot in my heart for you guys and kind of know ⁓ what you do on a daily basis. So I’m really excited about this. Thank you.

Gina?

Gina Hood (02:38)
Hello, my name is Gina Hood. I’m a senior agent and underwriter with OREP. So I’m going to be working closely with the inspectors. Really excited about the new program because it allows our inspectors to actually do true commercial work and not have to worry about those gray areas that aren’t covered underneath just a basic policy. So really excited about it. And I’ll be the one typically working with all of the inspectors moving forward.

Isaac Peck (03:04)
Awesome. Well, it’s great to be here. We’ve been looking forward to this meeting for, you know, since we put it on the calendar, I think, four to six weeks ago. And, I mean, we started talking to Maggie and to Nick ⁓ last year about, you know, trying to put something together for CCPIA ⁓ that’s exclusive to CCPIA and that can cover some of the pain points that a lot of the commercial inspectors have been feeling.

And I think, I’ve talked to a number of inspectors, right? Some of them have said, you know, that every year when I go to renew, I hear from my insurance agent and the folks that are handling my insurance. You know, the policy that we have you on is really, you know, designed for more of a residential home inspector, that kind of thing. It’s not designed for…

You know a twenty million dollar industrial building or or a large mixed use building and then. Yeah it’s setting the.

Isaac Peck (04:11)
being uncomfortable with commercial on the program level, right? We see a lot of exclusions. I want to say the status quo for insurance has been coverage for apartments, coverage for condos, coverage for retail, and then coverage for office buildings. And there’s also been a limit of 100,000 square feet. I’m sure many folks that have been doing this for a while have.

have heard of the 100,000 square foot limit. even though that’s changed, Some of the providers have increased the limit beyond 100,000 square feet. We’re still seeing kind of limits for inspectors that say, our policy will only cover retail, will only cover office, will only cover apartments and condos. And that leaves out kind of ⁓ tons of categories for commercial insurance, right? ⁓

hotels, ⁓ churches, ⁓ light industrial buildings, ⁓ special purpose, know, schools and daycare facilities, auto dealerships, car washes, breweries, vet clinics, ⁓ medical offices. ⁓ There’s just so many different categories of commercial where, you know, the basic status quo policy that a lot of ⁓ inspectors are carrying, that’s just departments, condos,

Isaac Peck (05:33)
retail other than restaurant and ⁓ office buildings, right, leaves out. So if you were an inspector carrying one of those policies, you’re probably doing work or you’re looking to do work that’s gonna fall outside of those categories. And restaurants is another kind of key ⁓ position where we’ve heard some insurance providers say,

Our policy says, you know, we will cover retail other than restaurants, but we’ll cover restaurants, right? Restaurants are covered ⁓ even though restaurants are clearly kind of excluded in the policy, right? And so that’s kind of another area where we’ve, you know, our policy covers restaurants ⁓ clearly, right? It doesn’t exclude restaurants and we’re not kind of relying on some verbal confirmation of restaurant coverage.

And we see a lot of the CCPIA members that we’re talking to are doing some percentage of restaurants, some percentage of light industrial, some percentage of churches or hotels or all those kinds of things to where on a different insurance product, you might be covered for half or 40 % of

of the work of the commercial buildings that you’re doing, right? You’re covered for the apartments, you’re covered for the condos, or you’re covered for a little bit of this, but if you’re really trying to build a commercial inspection business, you’re probably already doing things that are excluded by your current insurance policy. And so that’s why we wanted to kind of create a much more comprehensive ⁓ commercial policy.And I’ll get right to kind of what our policy doesn’t cover right? So we’re not the one kind of category that our policy is not meant to cover is heavy industrial. And what is heavy industrial? We’re talking, you know, oil refineries, power plants, mining and extraction operations, wastewater treatment plants, ⁓ steel mills. ⁓

Paper manufacturing plants chemical processing plants so like heavy industrial would be huge kind of industrial facilities. ⁓ Is is what our policy is not meant to cover right we don’t want to cover the inspection of a power plant. But.

CCPIA (08:06)
Well, they come up for sale often.

Isaac Peck (08:09)
Do they? But we do cover light industrial, right? And to Adam’s point, right? Here in San Diego, we’ve got the Miramar area. We’ve got kind of an entire huge area where there’s tons of little light industrial buildings and folks that have anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000, 15,000 square feet of

like small manufacturing, light industrial, and that’s something that’s definitely covered under our policy. I feel like I’m just, I’m talking too much. Any questions up until this point?

CCPIA (08:50)
⁓ Does your policy as we’re applying for it, do we have to make a list of or percentage of what sectors of buildings or is it just ⁓ a nice overall blanket policy and we get that opportunity for whenever the call comes? You know, if it falls in the sector, go.

Isaac Peck (09:11)
Yeah, our application takes less than 10 minutes. So if you’re coming up for renewal or even, mean, we do allow midterm switches. even if your insurance isn’t expiring for six months, if you wanted true commercial coverage, you could apply with us today. And it takes less than 10 minutes. But there is a question that says, are you doing commercial inspections? And I want to differentiate kind of between the

Isaac Peck (09:40)
The base policy. So we have a base policy that is just like what I just critiqued, right? It covers apartments, condos, ⁓ retail other than restaurants and ⁓ office buildings. So if you’re just doing large apartment buildings and some shopping centers, you’re not doing restaurants, you’re doing some office buildings, right? If you fit within the base policy, just apartments, condos, retail other than restaurants and office buildings, ⁓ you would fit nicely into the base policy.

⁓ And ⁓ you could just get the base coverage and then if you’re with OREP, if you come along a restaurant or you come across a hotel or a daycare center or a church or something that fits into what we call the full commercial coverage, right? That’s not covered on the base policy.
(10:29)
the

Isaac Peck (10:37)
anything that falls outside of the base policy coverage, we can upgrade you to the full commercial coverage the same day. So you could purchase the base policy and then come to us next week and say, hey, look, I’m looking at doing a hotel or a senior living facility or an auto dealership or a brewery. And then we could upgrade your coverage to the full commercial.

Does that answer the question Rob?

CCPIA (11:09)
Yeah, terrific.

Yeah

Adam Merrifield (11:11)
I think the question was more on the percentage of commercial that you’re doing. yeah. And so we do ask for like a breakdown of the revenue, right? So if you say, yes, you’re doing commercial, then we say, well, what type of commercial properties are you doing? And are you doing properties over 100,000 square feet? And that tells us whether you should be placed on the base policy or placed on the full commercial policy.

depending on what you say.
(11:45)
Yeah.

CCPIA (11:45)
Does anybody

have an ice breaking question you want to Isaac or Adam or Gina?

Guest (11:53)
Can I jump in Rob?

CCPIA (11:55)
Please Garrett.

Guest (11:57)
Does the commercial policy, I might’ve missed this, does it cover the kitchen equipment?

Isaac Peck (12:06)
No, so it doesn’t cover the inspection of equipment or life and safety systems in a restaurant.

Guest (12:17)
And that includes Hood fan, right?

Isaac Peck (12:21)
the fire, like any fire suppression systems in the restaurant are excluded.

CCPIA (12:28)
But no, your point, Garrett, it will cover the ComSOP items ⁓ of the commercial cooking area. So that would be looking for grease buildup, but not the operation of the cooking appliances nor the fire suppression. I correct, Isaac and Adam?

Isaac Peck (12:51)
That’s right.

Guest (12:52)
Yeah, what about the hood fan then?

CCPIA (12:57)
That’s part of the comes up.

Isaac Peck (13:03)
Yeah, so that’s a ⁓ great question. The way that we design the policy is to cover the professional activities of the ComSOP, right? So it’s designed to give you coverage for what you’re doing as part of the CCPIA ComSOP inspection. ⁓ So you’re not, ⁓ you

The

Isaac Peck (13:30)
And then what we did specifically with restaurants that I think a lot of you might appreciate is we added a defense-only layer of protection. So even though you’re not there to inspect for code compliance when you’re doing a restaurant inspection, you’re not there to do kind of life and safety items and fire suppression systems when you’re doing the restaurant inspection.

And your contract says that, right? You say, look, your contract clearly lays out, your standards of practice clearly lays out what it is that you’re doing and what you’re not doing. But we’ve added 100 grand of defense-only protection if someone still tries to bring a frivolous claim against you regarding kitchen appliances or life and safety items or fire suppression systems. So for example,

Your contract says, look, this is not a code compliance inspection. I’m not looking at the life and safety. I’m not testing the fire suppression systems. And I’m not ⁓ inspecting your commercial ⁓ kitchen equipment. And the client signs that agreement. then six months from now, a problem surfaces. And the client still tries to bring a claim against you regarding.

⁓ Life and safety item or a code compliance issue or a fire suppression system issue the even if you’re we’re on and you know if you’re if you’re on another insurance policy even if. ⁓ You know the.

How should I say this? You’re on another insurance policy that that policy is going to deny coverage and you’re going to be on your own defending against that claim, right? Defending even though your contract clearly says you’re not, you weren’t inspecting that, you’re not responsible for that. So other insurance policies might completely hang you out to dry and give you no coverage, but our policy is going to be providing a hundred grand to ⁓ kind of shut down those types of frivolous claims.

So even though the policy is not meant to respond to fire suppression systems, our policy will provide a hundred grand of defense only coverage to shut down any frivolous claim that involves fire suppression systems, life and safety items, and ⁓ commercial kitchen appliances. And our hope is that, you your contract is excluding it, your contract is saying, look, you’re not doing it, but just in case someone tries to bring a frivolous claim against you,

there’s still some protection under the OVREP policy to shut that down and kind of put it to bed.

CCPIA (16:08)
With that protection, Isaac, are we required to use your attorney or can we use the attorney of our choice?

Isaac Peck (16:22)
⁓ So the insurance carrier gets to select counsel. ⁓ And the insured definitely has kind of a say there, right? Where if you have an attorney that’s really good in your area that you’ve been working with a long time, ⁓ you can certainly come forward and say, look, Isaac, and insurance carrier, I really think that we should use this attorney. And we definitely take that into consideration. the

CCPIA (16:29)
Sure.

speaker-4 (16:51)
the

Isaac Peck (16:52)
Provision

is like the carrier, you know, gets a real strong say in the attorney that defends you in court.

CCPIA (16:59)
Perfect. ⁓

Guest (17:01)
Brad here. Just as ⁓ I have a comment and a question. Thanks Isaac and Garrett. I thought that was a great question as well as yours, Rob, with the kind of the pre-claims attorney question and whatever it is for my two cents, I’ve had the good fortune of inspecting a number of restaurants, fast food places, either in the capacity of a pre-lease or pre-purchase inspection and inevitably

if it is that type of property, the topic of the kitchen appliances and life safety hood and suppression system come up. And from my experience, and this is just my experience, I know it’s gonna vary from region to region. Most of the time they’re disconnected and really not in a state to be operated. so when the client will ask, they’re kind of a lot of times finding their way and they’re not really

They maybe haven’t been through it. Adam can appreciate that a typical real estate purchase contract, it would exclude furniture fixtures and equipment. And so that’s kind of then where I’ll have the conversation with the client about what’s included the building envelope, side improvements, roof, mechanical equipment, and then get into a, one of the areas of the specialty would be furniture fixtures and equipment. So tables, your prep tables.

And then your kitchen equipment on that. I’ll even make a joke. You know, I’m not going to fire up the. The grease, you know, the fryer or turn on the oven and things like that. And a lot of times then it is. The reality is when I get out there, they’re disconnected. The last two that I did, the gas was turned off and they weren’t really inspectable and and in the big picture of things, it’s usually not a material thing. And then in regards to the life safety. ⁓

You know, just my scope of the inspection and I think as it fits into the comsocket, describe if it’s a type 1 or type 2. Good and then ⁓ if it’s type 1, it has a suppression system look for some of the safety features that are in there. And then the scope of the inspection is if it has been recently inspected or not by a certified state inspector cleaned and.

inspected and that would go then for a fire alarm, fire suppression system and most of the time that’s great. That’s all people really want to hear and if it hasn’t been inspected then not a real big deal but I usually just kind of relate to people as you know it may just be as simple as hiring somebody to come inspect it or it may be there may be a reason why it hasn’t been inspected and maybe more expensive and kind of leave it then yeah they need to get it inspected because most of the time for most of us we aren’t even really

certified nor do I want to be for the life safety equipment. So, well, I don’t know if that helps, Garrett. I thought it was a great question. To be honest with you, I never really thought if the policy even covered the kitchen equipment, even though I usually just stay away from it. All it sometimes couch it is anything that you can unplug and roll out of the restaurant. I typically won’t inspect or be beyond my area of specialty. then to Rob’s question, just to take off to that Isaac as well.

Isaac Peck (20:10)
You know, right.

Guest (20:24)
I know sometimes there are like pre-claim ⁓ services and that kind of would maybe tie in if we get a complaint in maybe in your policy what really then qualifies as a quote unquote claim or pre-claim and then the second question would be and I’m not really looking for an answer one way or the other but do you have then your own inspection agreement that you prefer people to work with? That’s it, thanks.

Isaac Peck (20:27)
EMS

Yeah, thanks, Brad. So the first part of your question, I mean, we have kind of real deep expertise in the inspection insurance space, right, and defending residential home inspectors. And our experience has been, you know, even though, let’s say, a home inspector might have in their contract that they don’t do code compliance inspections, right? Or a home inspector might have in their contract that they don’t do mold inspections.

for example, and I could just go on the list, right? A home inspector says, this is what the inspection is, and this is what it is not. Does that stop them from getting claims regarding code compliance? Or does that stop them from taking mold claims? Or does that stop them from getting sued or having claims be brought against them that are clearly excluded in the contract? No, absolutely not, right? They still take…

claims that are clearly excluded in the contract and the attorneys try to argue around that. And so that’s why we wanted to add kind of the defense only provision of the policy that still gives you a defense. ⁓ If someone does does try to bring a claim regarding a kid, you know, a commercial kitchen appliance or a life and safety or fire suppression system that you’re not completely.

(22:01)
here that

Isaac Peck (22:15)
out in the cold when someone brings a frivolous claim, even though your contract excludes it and you probably explain to them on site, you know, look, I’m not really looking at that, right? If they decide that they want to kind of still try to bring a claim against you, you’re not in the cold if you’re on the OREP policy. And then, I mean, great question about pre-claims, right? We’ve got a really, really great

speaker-4 (22:28)
Throw all that out.

Isaac Peck (22:45)
Preclaims attorney right Jeff Benny out of Texas. He does pre claims for us all over the United States He has experience doing ⁓ Preclaims on the commercial side and that is one of the benefits that we provide to our members both residential and commercial so if we’re pre litigation right so that you’re you’re a commercial inspector and your client sends you a demand or

any type of pre-litigation claim, then you would get the free benefit that we provide to OREP members, which is attorney-led pre-claims on that particular situation. So we’re batting like a 90 % 95 % accuracy on the residential side, where we’ve got well over 100 in the last few years, where

You know, our inspectors take a pre litigation demand and then Jeff Binney will investigate the case, look at it, look at all the information and then write a response letter to those folks. the vast majority of the time we never hear back from them. ⁓ And then in terms of agreements, using ⁓ CCPIA, like the, I’ll talk briefly about kind of the requirements for this program, right?

First of all, this commercial insurance product is just for CCPIA members. So it’s exclusive to, you have to be a member of CCPIA and you have to do your inspection to CCPIA standards. ⁓ So folks that are ⁓ not, that are kind of, I think when I just hopped on, we were talking about some commercial inspectors that are kind of the…

Guest (24:10)
this

Isaac Peck (24:35)
operating outside of CCPIA, right? Those folks don’t have access to OREP product that we’ve developed. And you have to do the inspection to CCPIA standards, right? And that speaks to the way that we design the coverage is to follow CCPIA com stop. ⁓ And then you have to use either an agreement that’s provided by CCPIA or that has been approved by OREP.

speaker-4 (24:40)
to the…

follow the

the

Isaac Peck (25:05)
⁓ So if you’re, you that you might have gotten the CCPIA agreements and then maybe through your own legal counsel or your own judgment said, okay, I’m going to make some changes to them, right? I’m going to add a paragraph or adjust this or adjust that. if you’re making your own edits to the CCPIA provided contracts, then we would want to review and approve those. ⁓

And you need to be using either their agreement or an agreement that’s been approved by us in order for coverage to be effective.

CCPIA (25:39)
The key is, in my opinion, Isaac and Adam and Gina is, have a dialogue with your insurance provider. Make them a valuable asset to your team and not just an expense on your balance sheet. So to that order, I gotta ask the question whether anybody else is thinking about it or not. Since you are a valued member of my team and so many of my

of my inspections, I might be doing 30 to 40 a month, require me to have an also insured or provide my potential clients with a copy of my insurance with their name on it. How fast is the turnaround for something like that with you guys?

Isaac Peck (26:27)
Same day. Send in the request like at 430 PM. Is that right Gina?

speaker-6 (26:29)
Unless you-

Gina Hood (26:37)
Sorry, so yes, we actually have a dedicated a box to that. So it goes directly to the inspectors at our up.org. And once we have that request submitted, there’s several of us that are able to take a look at that. It usually takes maybe an hour tops for it to get out again, unless like Isaac said, if it’s at the end of the day and we don’t see it on Friday afternoon at four 59, then it may be Monday that you do receive it, but it’s very quick turnaround time.

CCPIA (27:03)
And all the good news for everybody on the East Coast is you get a couple extra hours because OREP is located on the West Coast.

Isaac Peck (27:13)
Well, that’s right. We still open at ⁓ 8 a.m. Eastern. So our phone line is open 11 and a half hours a day. So we’re open from, we answer the phones from 8 a.m. Eastern time to 7.30 p.m. Eastern time. ⁓ So our offices are open and we’re answering the phone almost 12 hours every day.

CCPIA (27:41)
Any other questions?

Guest (27:44)
Yeah, Joe Hogan, you answered the ComSOP question for me regarding you have to be a member. What if you follow ASTM standards? That’s what I’ve been doing for years and years. ⁓ How does that fall in?

Isaac Peck (28:01)
So I mean, this particular product was developed for CCPIA members, and it requires CCPIA membership, CCPIA standards, and ⁓ a contract that’s provided by CCPIA or approved by OREB. So it’s just- Okay.
(28:18)
Yeah, I’m not

Guest (28:19)
not against following that because I do like the product. another question, you said heavy industrial isn’t covered. can see waste water treatment plants, things like that. But where do you differentiate from light industrial, heavy industrial? Is that spelled

Isaac Peck (28:36)
So

the heavy industrial is kind of like the list of items that I just ran through, mining operations, ⁓ waste plants, really large scale manufacturing, chemical processing, power plants, those types of things.

CCPIA (28:57)
Yeah, Joe, had the same question. And then I started thinking about it. You kind of know it walking in, right? It’s a few. It’s you’re not going to do Ford Motor Company’s assembly line. That’d be a heavy industrial. You’re not you’re not doing a steel mill. ⁓ You know, Things like that. ⁓ A die shop is is fairly is fairly typical. You know, that that small

Gina Hood (29:19)
Yeah, you can.

CCPIA (29:26)
you know, 30, 50,000 square foot building.

Guest (29:30)
Yeah, but what if it’s 70 or 80 or 90,000 square feet, then you get into, don’t know. But I had one question, Isaac. do, um, manufactured housing communities. Is that something that would be excluded from your policy too?

CCPIA (29:38)
What? ⁓

Isaac Peck (29:49)
So are they, I mean, is it considered real property?

Guest (29:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Isaac Peck (29:56)
Yeah, then it would be covered under our policy.

So like we wouldn’t cover like the inspection of like, ⁓ I mean, we could find coverage, like our flagship primary program wouldn’t cover like a mobile home, right? Something that’s on wheels. ⁓

Guest (30:16)
⁓

I’m talking about the community as a whole, like water, sewer, septic, utilities, things like that.

Isaac Peck (30:26)
Yeah, buildings that are attached and inspection of real property systems are covered under our policy.

Guest (30:34)
Okay, one last question. What kind of experience do you have in the past? what’s a common complaint or lawsuit or something brought against commercial properties?

Isaac Peck (30:46)
So, I mean, the…

Certainly taken the almost, I want to say, complaints, right? In the sense of like churches or light industrial, right? In terms of what are some of the common complaints that we’ve seen. So water intrusion, right?

(30:56)
the same type of

the

the

Isaac Peck (31:13)
The roof is leaking water has gotten into the walls, cetera, et We haven’t seen, you

Guest(31:17)
Stimulate the hoses.

(31:20)
the

Isaac Peck (31:22)
A claim on a huge warehouse right or something that that’s that would be specific to. A commercial only type of construction yeah water intrusion.

(31:35)
is the

Isaac Peck (31:37)
something we’ve seen a couple times in the last few years on commercial buildings.

CCPIA (31:41)
We got a couple of chat questions, ⁓ Isaac and Adam and Gina. First one, ⁓ what standards of practice, if you’re a CCPA member, but you also do residential, what standard of practice on the residential side are you supposed to inspect under?

Isaac Peck (32:03)
So I mean, that’s a really important question because I want to clarify that this policy covers both residential and commercial. So if you got the full commercial policy, you would still have coverage for all of your residential stuff. And the CCPIA standard requirement only applies to the higher end commercial properties ⁓ in the sense that we don’t have a specific inspection standard.

⁓ for residential inspections.

CCPIA (32:35)
Yeah, especially with 38 states having licensure or registration, it’d be almost impossible to write 38 different policies for each standard of practice.

Isaac Peck (32:44)
Yeah, we’re not saying if you’re doing residential work, we’re not saying you have to inspect to this particular standard on the residential side. we’re only looking at CCPA standards with respect to full commercial inspections that you’re.

(32:54)
the

the

CCPIA (33:02)
which is the only standard in the world, but we’re not gonna go down that. We’re not gonna go down that rabbit hole. The other question that’s up in the chat is, what if you’re already an OREP client, a member, and you’re transitioning into commercial with CCPA, how fast is the transition process?

Isaac Peck (33:26)
So if you’re on, like, let’s say you’re on OREPs based policy, so you’ve got coverage for apartments, condos, retail, other than restaurants and office, and you want to get the full commercial product where you’re getting coverage for restaurants, for light industrial, for hotels, for churches, for all that, et cetera. ⁓ If you reached out to us in the morning, ⁓ we would quote you kind of the additional premium required for the full commercial product.

speaker-4 (33:53)
the

Isaac Peck (33:55)
and then you can transition midterm. ⁓ You would just tell us, I want the full commercial product. These are the types of properties that I’m planning to do, et cetera. And we can endorse your policy with the full commercial.

CCPIA (34:12)
Fabulous and there’s a bit of change and a lot of us are seeing it in the industry of this of this no longer The dynamic of a single inspector operation. We’re seeing more and more now conglomerate operations with multiple inspectors If you were to throw a ballpark out there Every inspector you add your base policy is what is the percentage of?

of premium increase or is there a dollar value increase ⁓ per inspector?

Isaac Peck (34:52)
So our program and I think a lot of professional liability insurance is is written on revenue sure we’re not necessarily adding ⁓ a Ton of premium every time you add an inspector but as your revenue increases revenue in the in professional world, right whether you’re a home inspector or your A different type of professional right as your revenue increases it increases the opportunity that things might go wrong, right? You’re

It’s more economic activity. You’re taking on more clients. You’re doing more. And so as revenue increases, generally, premium increases.

CCPIA (35:33)
Good. And that, know, so everybody listening, that’s something to remember is you could have 50 or 60 inspectors, but if your revenue is the same, it’s probably more nominal than it is if you have a monster. But what about in residential, it’s difficult to do, to have contracted inspectors. In commercial, it’s normal. ⁓ For a 1099 inspector to help me here and there. ⁓

you’d probably safer and better for you to say to your 1099 inspector, go get your own OREP policy. And then we can make sure that we also ensure each other or is there something that we can add that says we bring in contracted inspectors?

Isaac Peck (36:20)
Yeah, so our policy provides coverage for independent contractors. ⁓ But as a risk management practice, mean, especially if you’re bringing in specialty contractors or specialists for particular systems, ⁓ you want to require proof of insurance and then have an agreement with that subcontractor where they indemnify you for any mistakes that they might make.

⁓ So the two really important steps, right? Not just asking them if they have insurance, but actually having them show you proof of insurance. And then you always want to have an agreement with them that they indemnify you and hold you harmless if they make a professional mistake that ends up coming back on your firm. If you miss one of those two steps, then you’re going to be in hot water if a claim arises.

Guest(37:17)
Can I a question related to that?

CCPIA (37:20)
Hey Gary!

Guest (37:22)
Hey, getting back to the Ford plant. We do a lot of big buildings with specialized equipment inside and we just do the building. ⁓ and somebody else had to win the equipment. Can we not hire that trade to do the inspection and include it in our report? Or do we have to keep that separately or not do it at all?

Isaac Peck (37:52)
Yeah, so I mean, our policy doesn’t cover, I mean, our policy doesn’t exclude specifically like other types of equipment, We specifically exclude commercial kitchen appliances, ⁓ but there’s not kind of a general equipment exclusion across the board. But I think that there’s certainly the potential in the commercial space where… ⁓

A commercial inspector might hire a trade to come in and kind ⁓ of go beyond the CCPIA ComSOP, right? So whether that’s taking something apart or really, know, the getting into invasive inspections. So imagine a commercial inspector hires a trade that comes in and does kind of a much more invasive inspection that goes beyond the CCPIA com stop or.

really, you know, gets into the equipment and starts, you know, taking apart the equipment and doing an inspection. So I think that there’s the potential for a CCPIA inspector to hire a trade or hire a specialized ⁓ person to provide a service that goes beyond the CCPIA ComSOP. And I think once you’re getting out beyond the CCPIA commsop, you’re moving into territory where you’re potentially not covered by the policy.

The more that you do that, the more important it is for you to have proof of insurance from your independent contractor and then have a contract in place with them where they agree to indemnify you and hold you harmless for any mistakes or professional errors that they might make.

Guest (39:34)
Is that would include a big building like a Ford plant? Is that right?

Isaac Peck (39:42)
Sorry, I didn’t hear a part of that.

Guest (39:45)
Would that include the big buildings like Ford plant that was mentioned by Rob?

Isaac Peck (39:52)
Yeah, like if you’re doing like what would qualify as heavy industrial, right, like a huge industrial manufacturing plant, ⁓ that wouldn’t be ⁓ covered under the OREP policy.

Guest (40:08)
Well, what about just the building? That’s my question. We do several a year over 200,000 feet. And I just want to know where I should be.

Isaac Peck (40:21)
You mean like you’re doing a huge, heavy, heavy industrial building.

Guest (40:28)
not heavy industrial, but well sometimes they are. We did a big manufacturing plant overhead cranes and all that kind of.

Isaac Peck (40:40)
Yeah, mean, unfortunately, we have an exclusion for heavy industrial in our policy.

CCPIA (40:47)
Now, the question I would have to Garrett’s point, coming from the idea of never turning a job down. I had a potential inspection coming in the door on, let’s say this 250,000 square foot, moderate to heavy industrial building, the overhead cranes, all that other fun stuff.

Guest (40:58)
Great.

CCPIA (41:16)
and I’m only doing the box and I write a proposal, could I send that proposal to you and your team at OREP for review to say, yes, you have written a proposal that fits our scope or no, it doesn’t, but, dot, dot, dot, if you do this, you would maintain coverage.

Isaac Peck (41:41)
Yeah, I definitely think, you know, the questions on, you your policy covers light industrial. How do you define that? I’m looking at a 90,000 square foot or 150,000 square foot building and this is the description of it. I think that we would welcome those questions, right? If you could bring us the particular project or particular proposal and we could advise on that.

CCPIA (42:05)
Because I would never do the cranes. I would never do any of the equipment in the building or probably the connections of any equipment in the building. I can’t even reach the bus bars up through the trusses. So all that’s going to be excluded per proposal. So at the end of the day, I’m looking at a box with a roof.

And so I think that’s the key takeaway for me would be as long as I can write a proposal to provide to you, then that gives you the intelligence to go, yep, this does fit or this doesn’t fit. And then we can take it from there. Because that might be a one job out of 500 a year ⁓ that I may or may not be able to do. But I would not want to enter my world with a

with a boxing, don’t do it.

a question. ⁓ Yes, but before that I do have a chat question real quick and it’s more of a definition question. Are you ready?

Isaac Peck (43:16)
I’m ready.

CCPIA (43:17)
What is the difference between general liability, professional insurance and Arizona emissions coverage?

Isaac Peck (43:28)
Yeah, the errors and omissions is the same thing as professional liability. So those two things are kind of used interchangeably. So professional liability is E &O coverage or errors and omissions coverage. Those two things are the same. mean, general liability and E &O is general liability covers property damage and bodily injury.

(43:44)
The difference between

Isaac Peck (43:55)
So, you know, the many of us have heard stories where the home inspector ⁓ flushes it, leaves water running in the bathroom and leads to an overflow or they might step on a sprinkler in the third floor of a condo, ⁓ a HOA community where they can’t turn the water off and cause all kinds of water damage or someone might get hurt on an inspection, right? That’s bodily injury and property damage. That’s what general liability covers.

E &O is ⁓ errors or omissions that you make in your kind professional capacity as an inspector. So you might fail to notice a defect or fail to report on one, right? That making an error in your professional judgment or in your role as a professional is what E &O and ⁓ professional liability insurance covers.

CCPIA (44:52)
Perfect, thank you. Steven, you had your hand up.

Now Vince did, I had a question. ⁓ No, actually before, I had his hand up for a while, Vince, and then we’ll get to you.

Isaac Peck (45:05)
Question on, I guess some of the oddball type of things that we get requests for. I understand unlike the industrial, we are a licensed drone pilot operator at our companies. have multiple and we also have been through them in row Institute to do infrared. How do we go about notifying you in advance? If I get a call to, we do have Barry global Toyota and other industrial type places around here. Is there a way to get

I guess not necessarily an exception to, but ⁓ an additional policy or right or for a particular type of job to say, inspect the roof only using a drone and infrared technology, which we are qualified to do.

You mean specifically as it relates to heavy industrial? Yes. So if somebody contacts us, currently I have to contact the insurance company and let them know like, Hey, we got something that’s outside a normal scope. then they find like an additional, I guess, policy or rider type situation for those types of things. Cause we’re not really inspecting the whole industrial. I’m doing a particular component of it.

Yeah, I mean, we would operate in kind of the same way, right? We’d want you to contact us with the specifics of the project. And then we’d look at, know, can we provide coverage on our primary policy or would we need to place an additional? That’s what I need to And to give you our credentials, like here’s my drone pilot’s license, here’s my level two thermography information that we got from Monroe and so on for those types of things. And here’s the scope of work, the limited scope of work that we’re doing here.

Right. you.

CCPIA (46:54)
Okay, Vince, we’re ready. Okay, what states do you cover or districts do you cover? Because I cover multiple states and actually I’m in Hawaii right now. So I’m quite a ways of difference. And with that, ⁓ there are limitations. In Arizona, ⁓ we do buildings that are close to a million square feet. In San Bernardino, California, ⁓ we have one coming up.

that is an Amazon building, it’s 1.4 million square feet.

Isaac Peck (47:33)
That’s awesome. mean, we’re certified. we’re licensed in every state and this program is available in every state, including Alaska.

Burger?

CCPIA (47:44)
Are you able to write policies in Canada or those are excluded?

Isaac Peck (47:49)
Yeah, we don’t write policies in Canada.

CCPIA (47:54)
That’s always been difficult. There’s only one or two ⁓ insurance providers in Canada. And for all of our Canadian members, that’s always been a struggle. Yes, Vince. Isaac, you do cover districts like Washington, DC, ⁓ Puerto Rico, things like that.

Isaac Peck (48:10)
The entire United States.

CCPIA (48:13)
anything that’s considered a district or a state you cover.

Isaac Peck (48:18)
So I’d have to, I’d want to look carefully at the Puerto Rico question. Okay. ⁓

CCPIA (48:24)
If

we have Bank One and we do all of their buildings and have been for a while, and it’s a nightmare for us insurance wise.

Isaac Peck (48:32)
You’re going to Puerto Rico and do it.

CCPIA (48:34)
We

get a call and say, we bought a building or we’re about to take over another bank or we have a remodel of a bank. We want it inspected and we get the call and we fly down and we look at it and write it all up.

Isaac Peck (48:49)
I love that. ⁓ Yeah, I’d want to get back to you on the Puerto Rico question. OK.

CCPIA (48:54)
second part of this is I am a general contractor and an insurance adjuster. We incorporate in our reports costs that most people don’t have the expertise to be able to do under a standard inspection report. We can put costs to ours. Is that something that still would be covered under the E &O because we had to get a special writer from the particular carrier that I have now.

Isaac Peck (49:24)
Yeah, so Rob, I was talking with Rob kind of right before we launched this meeting, right? That we’re the I know that there’s been a number of questions about cost to remedy and cost estimate type reports. If your cost to remedy and cost estimate services are are provided as part of your inspection services, then there’s coverage under our policy.

I think where it potentially gets ⁓ sticky and problematic for us would be, know, we’ve seen some contracts where folks are going in and saying, know, this, I’m providing cost to remedy services and this is not an inspection report, right? This is not an inspection services. Our policy covers inspection services. ⁓ And if you’re including cost to remedy in those services, then there’s coverage.

speaker-4 (50:17)
If you

Isaac Peck (50:17)
If you

are out there saying, I’m providing this service and it has nothing to do with inspection services, then that creates a coverage problem on our part because our policy says we’re covering inspection services. So it needs to be provided alongside your inspection services. And if so, there’s coverage for us.

CCPIA (50:34)
So at the end of the day, everyone, the OREP policy was really defined and honed from the ComSop forward. And that’s the one thing that I want to reiterate or stress to everyone. If you’re doing a ComSop inspection and you were looking for another opportunity or you’re looking for another vendor to help you,

with your insurance needs, this is where the OREP insurance started at and was built forward from. And I think that’s absolutely commendable. And that’s what most of us have been looking for in the industry.

Isaac Peck (51:20)
Yeah, we’re super excited to be working with CCPI and serving the commercial inspection community. ⁓
(51:28)
I

CCPIA (51:29)
I know Maggie’s ⁓ AR executive director was working with you guys for months to get this done. And it’s just been terrific since. Since it’s springboard. Any other questions, everybody?

Guest (51:44)
This is Joe. have a quick question. So just to clarify, so any upstream contract has to be CCPIA or approved. And so that’s clear. Downstream, CCPIA also has a contract. So that has to be used also. So if I’m hiring an HVAC tech to ⁓ go deep into review a system, I would have to put them under a contract, correct?

in order to be cut.

Isaac Peck (52:15)
The coverage requirement is for the contract between you and the client. So we’re not specifying like the, I think you called it downstream contracts. we’re using a different contract between you and a subcontractor is not going to avoid your coverage. That’s, mean, a risk management thing. we, mean, if you’re hiring subcontractors, especially specialty ones, we think it’s a super good idea to have an agreement in place between them.

speaker-4 (52:26)
Thanks.

Isaac Peck (52:44)
⁓ But you don’t have to use the CCPA one for that.

Guest (52:48)
Because there’s a unique situation that CCPI has set up with a phase one environmental company. It’s kind of unique. the phase one company generates the ASTM report. I own the relationship upstream to the homeowner, but the phase one company will not sign my contract because I’m also doing work for that.

phase one, I’m doing the inspection site inspection side of it, and then giving them the information or verifying it and they’re generating the report. So it’s a kind of a unique situation where they’re saying you work for us, but not yes, only for a small portion of it, but I’m taking your report and then pushing it upstream to my client. ⁓ I’ve refused to sign their contract ⁓ because of that, because I want to make sure that if I’m handing a report to a client,

that I’m covered. And right now I don’t feel that I am being covered because of that situation.

Isaac Peck (53:54)
Do they have a contract with your client though? No. Yeah, I think you’re taking risk. ⁓ Certainly.

Guest (54:02)
Yeah, I mean, that’s my impression of it is that, you know, I mean, again, I would feel better if even if I adjusted their contract, which I would do, they won’t even entertain that to do that. And so I’ve had to step away from that, do that, because I need to be able to send, you know, give a contract to whether it’s an HVAT phase one, you know, electric, whoever I elevator company, whoever I need to, in order to cover myself.

And then between, and also covering my client too, to make sure the work is done correctly. So.

Isaac Peck (54:34)
Yeah, real quick, I’ll mention our policy also provides a hundred grand of defense only for environmental and phase one inspections. So the whole defense only concept that I was explaining that applies to commercial kitchens and stuff. provide a hundred grand of defense only for environmental phase one type claims. In those types of scenarios, either, if you’re the one contracting with the client, you need to be. ⁓

working with an environmental firm where they’re indemnifying you for the services that they’re providing, right? Which is all the environmental type analysis and stuff. Or the environmental firm needs to be the one contracting with the client and then hiring you as a sub to do site inspection.

(55:18)
you

Gina Hood (55:21)
Great, thank you.

CCPIA (55:22)
So Adam’s been eerily quiet through all this, Isaac. So I want to see if I can throw a stumper at Adam. So because Adam, you’re on the sales side. know Gene is on ⁓ the underwriting and sales side as well. ⁓ But as a BDA, ⁓ let’s say today I sign up with O-Rep and now you’re my insurance carrier.

Do I have to buy tail insurance from my previous carrier or will you or can I buy the tail insurance from you to cover previous work? Yeah, that’s really a Gina question. I can answer the questions, but I’m going to throw that one on Gina’s plate.

Gina Hood (56:11)
So tail coverage ERP is a little bit different than retroactive coverage. I think what the question is or what I’m understanding is if you switch with us today are all your prior acts covered. As long as you had coverage in place, there has been no lapse of coverage. We just asked for your policy declarations page and you’re covered from the time that you started with that carrier or previous carrier. So for example, if you started in 2018, then we would cover you from 5-1-2018 as long as there has been.

complete coverage in place and you’ve had no lapse of coverage. ERP tail coverage is a little bit different as long as you’ve been with OREP for three years or more, then you do have the five years ERP coverage at the end of the year or at the end of that term and it’s not anything additional to you. So that’s included, that’s free for our members that have been with us for three years or more with the Accelerate program. So kind of two-end question on there. Yes, we do have retroactive coverage and yes, we have ERP as well.

CCPIA (57:06)
Excellent. Does that answer the question? All right. Anything else? We’re coming right up at the hour and I want to be respectful of everybody’s time, especially you guys with OREP.

eerily quiet. I think we did a good job. Thank you guys. ⁓ A couple of things coming up. I know this weekend we’re going to be in North Carolina for anybody in North Carolina at the North Carolina Inspectors Conference on Saturday. We’ve got a couple of really exciting classes scheduled in the next few months. I’m going to be teaching a three-day introduction course.

Isaac Peck (57:24)
Alright.

CCPIA (57:50)
in in ⁓ munroe north carolina in june In july We’ve got a very special one day Inspection where in the morning we’re going to inspect an american legion That has two commercial kitchens not one But two commercial kitchens and three bars and we’re going we’re going to go through that process in the morning And it’s got a tank which will be excluded per

per agreement, ⁓ you know, because we don’t want to be liable for inspecting tanks. But then in the afternoon, we’re actually going to do a cost to remedy on the findings from that inspection. And then in September, I believe, ⁓ we’re going to be in Milwaukee doing a one-day field training as well. So check out all that stuff that we’ve got on our calendar right there on our website.

But thank you so much, Orep, ⁓ Isaac, Gina, and Adam for taking some time. I know I’ll see you, this weekend in North Carolina. ⁓ If nobody has any other questions, all I want to do is say thank you, everybody. Stay safe. Follow the Com Stop. It’s out there to protect you all.

Isaac Peck (59:10)
All right, thanks everyone. Thanks, Rob.