Operators in uphill battle to steadiness insurance coverage protections and prices
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MAY 16, 2025…..Joe Szczechowicz has spent 11 years calling on state lawmakers to handle legal responsibility points that snow and ice removing service suppliers face throughout Massachusetts.
Szczechowicz, the president of SLS Out of doors Residing, recollects first contacting Sen. Bruce Tarr and former Rep. Lenny Mirra in 2014 in regards to the concern, and seeing an preliminary invoice filed within the Senate the next yr.
Snow removing service suppliers like Szczechowicz, who’ve been held chargeable for incidents they are saying are out of their management, are backing a longtime Tarr invoice (S 1370) that might additional regulate contracts for snow and ice removing companies between suppliers and their prospects.
In 2021, when Doug McDuff’s firm Panorama America had its first “slip and fall” in 19 years, the problem hit with full power.
A number of days after McDuff’s firm completed plowing operations and a number of corresponding property checks, a person pulled into the property’s parking zone with snow nonetheless on the roof of their automotive.
“The solar hit the snow, it melted down the tailgate, fashioned a puddle behind the automobile. The person was transferring into this complicated, and so on the finish of the day, they got here out of the house, they slipped on the ice that had fashioned, and fell after which sued our firm,” McDuff advised lawmakers at a listening to Tuesday.
His insurance coverage firm settled the declare two years later for $365,000 and subsequently dropped McDuff’s enterprise, he stated.
Even when an organization is contracted to start plowing when there’s two inches of snow on the bottom, firms are taking a danger by not proactively treating as a result of they’re chargeable for any slip and fall, Brian Paige, proprietor of Paige Panorama Firm, stated Tuesday.
In the event that they proactively plow the property when there’s one inch of snow on the bottom to create a safer surroundings for whoever’s there, they won’t be paid for that precautionary service, Paige defined.
“We’re compelled to imagine legal responsibility whereas being restricted from plowing or treating companies in sure situations,” Paige stated.
A consultant of the Massachusetts Affiliation of Panorama Professionals and the Snow and Ice Administration Affiliation, McDuff stated legal responsibility components are inflicting insurance coverage charges to skyrocket and lowering the willingness of insurance coverage firms to insure firms like his.
“If a janitor had been to come back outdoors and throw a bucket of water with no snow prep current — if it froze and somebody slipped, we’re going to be held chargeable for the problem,” McDuff stated. “What we’re in search of is simply truthful phrases with reference to legal responsibility and to keep away from absorbent insurance coverage prices.”
At any time when McDuff would cross out or amend phrases based mostly on his lawyer’s suggestions — like indemnification clauses and maintain innocent agreements — contracts had been typically rescinded and given to a different contractor who he stated “was both ignorant to what they had been signing, and/or didn’t have the proper insurance coverage wants that required contracts.”
These choices make it tough for snow and ice removing firms to develop their companies, particularly once they already battle to retain a workforce, he stated.
The Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Improvement reported the Tarr-sponsored invoice out favorably in 2022 and 2024. It stalled in Senate Methods and Means each classes.
