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Chicago Condo Charging Station
- Thread starter niketpatel12
- Start date
RedModel3
Member
My guess is they want to know who to sue if it all starts on fire. I'd talk to a lawyer to see if they have the power to require this.
Ask an insurance agent. When I installed mine, I called my insurance and they had no idea what to do or if it was even possible. After all, its an electrical connection and a plug (or Tesla charger). Typically, the electrical connection belongs to the condo and hence their insurance should cover it. But it is a new enough area that not many are aware how to deal with it. (I no longer have that condo)
As for liability of the contractors, that is a common ask and so should be easy to obtain.
As for liability of the contractors, that is a common ask and so should be easy to obtain.
srs5694
Active Member
Agreed. The publicity around Chevy Bolt fires has people spooked, largely unnecessarily. (I read somewhere about a Bolt owner who was unplugged while charging at a public charging station with a snide note on the car about how charging the car unattended was a fire hazard.)
It's possible that your auto insurance would already cover property damage, but likely not up to the $500,000 value cited in the letter. If the EVSE is going in your own dedicated garage, then it's possible that your existing homeowner's insurance would cover it -- but up to what value depends on the value of the condo. If the EVSE is going in a shared parking facility, then I'd expect that insurance already held by the condo association would cover it, and the HOA's letter may reflect ignorance of this fact, or maybe an effort to get you to foot the bill for part of this insurance. (If the HOA does not already have insurance on common areas, then that's a serious problem.) Asking your insurance agent(s), and maybe getting ahold of the HOA's insurance documents, will help clear this up. Of course, if the HOA is inserting this as a "poison pill" clause so that you drop your request to add an EVSE, then there won't be any reasoning with them. In that case, you might want to check out YouTuber Tesla Joy's video on how she convinced her condo association to add public charging:
rpiotro
Active Member
SOP. I do IT support for a couple of car dealerships and they require an insurance certificate from ALL contractors. No surprise that the HOA would require the same for an electrician. It is not likely that I would burn the place down from a misconfigured PC but I carry $2M in coverage anyway.
I'm sure any reputable, professional electrician would automatically do the same. No big deal.
I'm sure any reputable, professional electrician would automatically do the same. No big deal.
westernvine
Member
Our association had similar wording. The vendor/contractor one - totally typical.
However, the requirement for the *owner* to carry anything is a tough one.
The rules author through standard attorney boilerplate basically said this was "in case someone is electrocuted from the charger", which just feels like fear-mongering. Our policy was implemented in our building before the Bolt problems.
Our board in the end said as long as we had umbrella insurance, that would be sufficient. All the insurance companies I took the verbiage to said they have no idea who wrote the policy, but it didn't make sense as a rider for an individual or even to build a specialized policy for, especially since it's all common or limited common area, which the master insurance policy for the association covers, with a $25,000 deductible which my own insurance policies already cover.
However, the requirement for the *owner* to carry anything is a tough one.
The rules author through standard attorney boilerplate basically said this was "in case someone is electrocuted from the charger", which just feels like fear-mongering. Our policy was implemented in our building before the Bolt problems.
Our board in the end said as long as we had umbrella insurance, that would be sufficient. All the insurance companies I took the verbiage to said they have no idea who wrote the policy, but it didn't make sense as a rider for an individual or even to build a specialized policy for, especially since it's all common or limited common area, which the master insurance policy for the association covers, with a $25,000 deductible which my own insurance policies already cover.
I'll pile on to say that this looks typical for any reputable condo building. You'd also want any vendors that your neighbors are bringing in to meet similar liability coverages, so it's a good requirement to have overall.
Edit: I missed the part where the HOA is also requiring personal insurance on the charging station itself. I don't think that one is as common, but not totally unreasonable either I suppose. I'd check if umbrella coverage would be a good way to go. On a side note, every year I have to re-prove to the HOA that I have separate coverage in the event that someone falls over the balcony... HOAs are interesting.
Edit: I missed the part where the HOA is also requiring personal insurance on the charging station itself. I don't think that one is as common, but not totally unreasonable either I suppose. I'd check if umbrella coverage would be a good way to go. On a side note, every year I have to re-prove to the HOA that I have separate coverage in the event that someone falls over the balcony... HOAs are interesting.
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