[IPAC-List] Indemnify and Hold Harmless Insurance Policies?

Fri Oct 3 00:45:03 EDT 2014

Allow me to add a couple I have personally experienced.

1.     A County in Maryland had a 9 AM deadline for a proposal. Since FedEx only guaranteed 10 AM delivery, I called a week before the deadline and received permission to have the proposal delivered up to an hour later. Imagine my surprise when my proposal was returned unopened. When I called for explanation, I was told that the individual who granted me the one hour extension was not authorized to do so. Allowing our proposal to be read might result in a protest from another proposer.  The proposal, by the way, was delivered at 9:17 AM.

2.     I wrote a proposal to Maricopa County, AZ and didn't hear anything. When I called inquiring about the result, I was told the project had been awarded to another bidder. When I asked why we weren't informed, they told me it was too onerous a task to inform the non-selected bidders. I the asked how many proposals they had received. The aswer - five!
I told them next time I would send a stamped, self-addressed postcard with my proposal,
Needless to say - there was no next time.

More experiences? Maybe we could send these experiences  to the association of municipal purchasing departments.
When I'm feeling churlish, I call them "spawns of satan".

------------------------------------------------
Harry Brull, Senior Vice President

PDI Ninth House, a Korn/Ferry Company
8157 Buck Run
Salida, CO 81201
USA

1.612.414.8998 direct
harry.brull at pdinh.com
www.pdinh.com<http://www.pdinh.com/>

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From: IPAC-List [mailto:ipac-list-bounces at ipacweb.org] On Behalf Of Gene Carmean
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2014 1:05 PM
To: ipac-list at ipacweb.org
Subject: [IPAC-List] Indemnify and Hold Harmless Insurance Policies?

At 10:35 PM 9/29/2014, you wrote:

The problem is that far too many HR departments turn the RFP process over to the clerks in the purchasing department who don't know any better.  (I am sure that no one who subscribes to the list would make the same kind of mistake as this!).

And this particular error is just one of long list of aggravations that come from purchasing departments.  Among the many others:

1. Charging consultants to read RFPs.  Are you serious purchasing departments?  Yes you Arizona!

2. Title RFPs in such a way as to conceal the nature of the RFP.  The typical examples are Consultant Services, Professional Services, Study, Training Services, Writing Services, Medical Services, and so forth.

Why would a purchasing department think anyone has the time to determine what these terms could possibly mean?

3. Throw in some artificial barriers to ensure your pre-selected friend is the only one who can qualify.  Thus, a State issues an RFP that can only be responded to by a Ph.D. psychologist who has years of experience in job analysis and testing hearing-impaired persons in jobs related to public safety work.  Audiologists and   university experts need not apply.

Or, more typically, unless a person is a certified physical therapist, they will not be considered qualified to validate a physical ability test.  Of course, physical therapists are uniquely unqualified to perform this activity, but no matter.

4. Demanding that all the proprietary tools, methods and techniques you utilize in performing the contract, become the property of the organization for whom you have provided the service.

5. Turning over the writing of the RFP to a clerk who does not know much about the service be asked for.  Determining what the writer means can sometimes be impossible.

These are some of my gripes about this process.  Alas, there is probably no solution. Grrrrr

Gene Carmean
MED-TOX.COM

RE:

Indemnify and Hold Harmless Insurance Policies?

I'm just curious to find out if anyone knows of an insurance company that has ever paid a government agency's legal bill when a consultant's test was rented and used by the government agency, but challenged by one or more candidates?

I've seen a few purchase orders lately that are actually purchase contracts with fine print on the flip side which says that the consultant agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the agency, it's officers, etc., etc., and this apparently means that if a candidate or group of candidates challenges the consultant's test, then the consultant's insurance policy must pay for the legal defense and all expert fees that result from the challenge.  Is there such an insurance policy available to testing consultants?

I've seen several of these purchase orders/purchase contracts but have not been willing to do business under these circumstances.  Wasn't it Griggs v. Duke Power where the U.S. Supreme Court told the Duke Power company that it was their responsibility and they couldn't off-load the liability onto the Wonderlic Corporation (who published the test in question, the Wonderlic Personnel Test)?

My attitude has been no way, I won't take that liability and I don't think there is any insurance policy that will pay up.  I had an errors and omissions policy when I used to belong to A.P.A., but after awhile, I thought it was probably useless in the employment context, and I stopped paying for this policy, and later I quit APA!  I guess I'm just getting too old to see the benefits of trying to please the Risk Manager crowd, but I would love to hear other opinions, views, and any interesting experiences.

Richard Joines, President
Management & Personnel Systems, Inc.
925-932-0203

Gene Carmean
MED-TOX Health Services
3350 Shelby Street, Ste. 200
Ontario, California 91764

909 944 3181 Tel

www.med-tox.com

<http://www.med-tox.com/>
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