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

Fri Oct 3 14:31:05 EDT 2014

Another peeve is the one size fits all insurance requirements used in many
purchasing department contracts. Many of the insurance clauses I have seen
appear to be written for major construction contracts involving use of heavy
equipment, but make no sense for professional services contractors who will
only be operating an automobile.

David Friedland

cid:image001.jpg at 01CC8FEE.A74CABF0

David Friedland, Ph.D.

Phone: (310) 204-0045

From: IPAC-List [mailto:ipac-list-bounces at ipacweb.org] On Behalf Of Harry
Brull (OCE)
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2014 9:45 PM
To: Gene Carmean; ipac-list at ipacweb.org
Subject: Re: [IPAC-List] Indemnify and Hold Harmless Insurance Policies?

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

 <http://www.pdinh.com/> www.pdinh.com

 <http://www.pdinh.com/> 

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<http://twitter.com/>     <http://www.facebook.com/PDINinthHouse>
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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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