My view is that if the only reason you are doing something is because of the insurance implications, then you've surely made the wrong decision.
Nobody's interests are less aligned with your own than an insurance company's. There are lots of legitimate reasons to hire an electrician, but making decisions solely based on what someone who wants you to perpetually give them money whole finding reasons to never give it back is never good practice.
Nobody's interests are less aligned with your own than an insurance company's when it comes time to pay out.
Investigating a case is expensive, let alone litigating one against someone with their life's assets on the line, so it's in their best interest to prevent the event they're insuring against from occurring. They have the most accurate up to date data on real world outcomes so especially in professional circumstances, it usually pays to follow their advice.
> Then again, electrical work can be life threatening, so the potential damage is rather high.
As a DIYer, I was shocked to find what the previously hired professional electrician left for me: a secondary panel for the whole structure that controls exactly one outlet. The sub panel was apparently not fed from the main panel, but rather from a panel in a different building, so simply switching the main breaker of the breaker panel to off did not turn off that one specific outlet, you know the one I was trying to replace. Why that one outlet (GCFI in the bathroom) required it’s own sub panel was not clear at all but my left hand was numb for a few hours. Thankfully it didn’t go further than that (maybe a few copies of me in the multiverse died but not this one).
The GFCI didn’t go off so I don’t think I touched the ground wire. I wasn’t myself grounded but I grabbed the outlet as I pulled by grasping the sides and my hand completed the circuit between the live and neutral wires. I am generally really careful about this kind of stuff but this was a complete surprise with the wiring of the place.
Honestly it didn’t actually do much beyond just small muscle twitches in my hand. I only realized what happened after I let go of it and my hand still felt a little funny. Definitely do not recommend but at least it was a 240V outlet or anything like that.
Wouldn't plugging in a small appliance (electrical toothbrush, phone charger, alarm clock, etc) be enough to tell you if a socket is live? Why have an extra device unless you need to do actual tests (ie, check what the voltage/current draw is)? Plug in something with a power indicator before shutting off the power, and check it before you start working.
The metal inside the socket that completes the circuit with the male pins can age and get bent, losing contact unless the plug is at just the right angle or the pins are bent in the right direction. It's unreliable and unsafe. If its your house and you're intimately familiar with the state of the sockets, it's slightly less unreliable and unsafe.
The EM coming off AC mains makes a non contact detector hard to fool and it's such a simple device that even cheap knockoffs are reliable.
I generally agree with you, but electric work is different. Except if you’ve wired your whole house by yourself, having someone qualified and legally responsible for rewiring is important. Even if their own work is minimal, they also take responsibility for not fixing the previous work if there was anything that should have been noticed, and it’s a role you can’t take.
On insurance, as you say their interests are opposite, and you need to be defensive about how to deal with them. Not having insurance on a house is not an option, so making sure you have a standing ground when shit hits the fan is pretty reasonable in my opinion.
All parties related to a home (owner, occupier, bank, insurer) have an interest in the asset they have a stake in.
Home electric is one of those things that many people claim to know and understand. The reality is that most people are clueless, and can and do make mistakes. If you ever bought an old house, you get this — there’s always some dangerous cob job hiding somewhere.
The evil insurance company doesn’t want to pay when you are seriously injured in a fire. You probably don’t want to get injured. In the end, interests are aligned.
> My view is that if the only reason you are doing something is because of the insurance implications, then you've surely made the wrong decision.
In this situation, I am paying someone else to assume risk for me. That is, I suppose, a type of insurance, in a very broad sense.
However, I am not in any way relying on my interests and the other person's to be aligned, except in the sense of performing the work they are legally contracted to perform. All I am doing is asking this person to assume some risk for me, in exchange for which I provide them a fee.
Short of "take on all the risk yourself", which, even if perhaps desirable (I'm not sure …), is often not feasible, what is a better approach here?
I see those as separate. Paying someone to take on risk I see a clear argument for.
Its specifically the "do it this way because insurance wont cover you otherwise" that I'm reacting too, because I think that had caused a lot of damage to society. Effectively nobody is taking on risk under the model insurance companies push - insurance won't let you do anything risky, and won't pay if you do. That's why I say it's a losing proposition to have your behavior dictated by an insurer. (Probably a prisoner's dilemma really, because inevitably some group gives in, then makes to worse for everyone)
This is a good point, and also a general fact of life I think. Society is not just modeled by laws, but also by influencial groups.
If your company gets banned by visa/mastercard for dealing with porn, you’ll steer away for anything porn related.
You know banks won’t give you a loan for growing legal weed, if your goal is actually to make money you’ll grow other fancy aromatic plants instead, etc.
You still can push through, but getting nudged is not new, will never stop, and most of the time reflects your societies values anyway.
That's a good, concise description. My particular beef with this happening with respect to insurance is that it "nudges" us to all be risk averse and boring, and artificially prioritize safety over all kinds of other outcomes.
You are right on the distortion. Even safety can be kind of out of the wibdow with people taking their insurance's approval as a GO sign for otherwise detrimental behaviors, like building houses in submersible areas.
> insurance won't let you do anything risky, and won't pay if you do.
This is the part that is outright fraud. A legitimate insurance policy is literally a cheque; if something happens, you deposit it in the bank and get you money, and it's the insurance company's responsibility to prove that your claim is not covered by the policy written on the cheque. The insurance company does not make a decision about whether to pay.
Without trying to sound snarky, I feel like maybe you haven't had to deal with insurance companies for anything substantial. A lot of them go out of their way to say no to as much as they can, and you need to fight with them to get them to change their decision.
> A lot of them go out of their way to say no to as much as they can, and you need to fight with them to get them to change their decision.
I am aware of that; I'm pointing out that their being able to say no (rather than the cheque being valid by default and claim being paid out without the insurer's involvement, and the insurance company having to go to court to recover the money after the fact) is fraud, precisely because it enables them to "say no to as much as they can".
I have never had an insurance company flat out deny a claim. The only back and forth i generally have is on how much as they try to pay as little as is allowed.
Nobody's interests are less aligned with your own than an insurance company's. There are lots of legitimate reasons to hire an electrician, but making decisions solely based on what someone who wants you to perpetually give them money whole finding reasons to never give it back is never good practice.