Errors and Omissions Insurance - Is it necessary? | Hacker News Reader

Errors and Omissions Insurance - Is it necessary?

3 pointsviggity3 comments

I'm a contract developer and in my 10 years of developing professionally, I've never once heard of a developer getting sued for an error or omission. You hear about other professionals getting sued all the time like realtors, CPAs or attorneys, but never a developer. I've heard of them getting sued for other contractual things (non-competes) but never because a single developer really screwed a system up.

Am I just living in a sheltered world? I'm about to start a contract that does not explicitly require it and all my work will be done pair programming with a FTE developer and all the code is has unit tests. Is it really worth it for me to drop $1000+ for an insurance policy?

In reality the "correctness" of a solution should be a shared burden on everyone involved in the development process, not just the developer.

Can something like this be added to the contract:

"The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. In no event shall the authors or copyright holders be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the software or the use or other dealings in the software." :-)

In my "better safe than sorry" opinion, $1000 seems like an ok price to pay to be safe. However, if it's not required, and you're covered for general liability, workmans comp, etc, I don't think I'd go for it.

Pairing with a FTE, having good tests, etc all make the situation sound safer, but I'm not sure you should take them into consideration when buying insurance. Shit still happens even if someone is there watching with you.

I might also add that I'm pretty damn confident in my developing skills, which makes me further weary of spending so much money on a policy.

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