Cylinder Inspectors & Liability Insurance

[ID diver]

I have taken the classes, invested in the tools, worked with a dive shop and been inspecting my own cylinders for a while. I have been talking to some other local divers and some have expressed interest in having me do the annual inspections on their cylinders. My question is for people who are inspecting cylinders; do you charge when you inspect another diver's cylinders and do you carry liability insurance? I have checked and my instructor liability insurance only covers me as a scuba instructor not as a visual inspector. While I don't plan to make a mistake or have a cylinder go bad between inspections I am also realistic in the fact that the potential is there and our world being what it is someone could take me to court. I don't want to pay for all the court expenses out of my pocket so would prefer to carry liability insurance. If the other independant inspectors out there are carrying liability insurance what insurance company are you using?

Thank you for any input on this subject.

 

[theduckguru]

Let your buds get their own VIPs - they are not that expensive and not worth you taking on any risk.

 

[Scared Silly]

Ditto the above, I do my own inspections and in the past did a few inspections for friends as a favor where they paid for the cost of the sticker. But the reality of today's society it is not worth it without first setting something. Personally, if was teaching scuba or really doing anything on the side with potential liability I would set up a LLC and do everything through it. That way there are very few assets should anything arise.

 

[oly5050user]

many lds where your friends would get their fills will not honor a generic sticker that does not have a lds name on it..all about liabilities..

 

[boulderjohn]

many lds where your friends would get their fills will not honor a generic sticker that does not have a lds name on it..all about liabilities..

Interesting. I have never heard of that. I just put my PSI number on the stickers and have not had a problem so far. The lds with which I used to work does not put their name on the stickers.

 

[Tug]

Interesting. I have never heard of that. I just put my PSI number on the stickers and have not had a problem so far. The lds with which I used to work does not put their name on the stickers.

+1, none of the shops around me have an issue with the PSI stickers with my number on them. I was talking to the owner of one shop the other day and he said that as long as there was something on the sticker saying who did it (shop name, PSI number, etc) he generally doesn't have a problem filling them. However, he doesn't like the generic stickers that you can find on eBay, leisure pro, etc.

As for the OP, I've often been asked to inspect some friends tanks but so far I haven't as I don't want that liability.

 

[boulderjohn]

OK, I am not an attorney and I am speaking from a combination of limited legal knowledge related to scuba instruction and common sense.

I am not all that concerned about liability when it comes to doing a visual tank inspection.

A visual tank inspection says that you, working within the prescribed limits of your craft, saw no problems with a tank at the time you did the inspection.

First of all, the process is not perfect. A good inspector can miss a minute crack. Pits are hard to measure with any real accuracy. In the case of tank explosion because of such a defect, they would have to prove you missed something clearly faulty, which 1) I am not going to do, and 2) they will have one very hard time proving. If I recall correctly, I was told during my PSI training that a tank that fails hydro probably should have failed 2-3 visuals before it. The fallibility of the process is understood.

Next, in most cases it would be very hard to show that the problems were not introduced after the inspection. A tank certified O2 clean in the morning can be fully contaminated by a bad fill that afternoon. A perfect steel tank could get water introduced the next day and start rusting immediately. Neck cracks have to start sometime--how do we know it did not start on the first fill after the inspection?

Far too much of my PSI training was spent looking at pictures of exploded tanks. (OK, I got the point--let's get on to how to prevent it!) I am pretty sure that if there had been any cases in law about inspectors getting sued for faulty inspections, we would have heard about it. I wonder if it has ever happened anywhere.

I think we sometimes paralyze ourselves with unrealistic fears of unlikely lawsuits. If any of my friends need inspections, I will do it for them.

 

[Tug]

OK, I am not an attorney and I am speaking from a combination of limited legal knowledge related to scuba instruction and common sense.

I am not all that concerned about liability when it comes to doing a visual tank inspection.

A visual tank inspection says that you, working within the prescribed limits of your craft, saw no problems with a tank at the time you did the inspection.

First of all, the process is not perfect. A good inspector can miss a minute crack. Pits are hard to measure with any real accuracy. In the case of tank explosion because of such a defect, they would have to prove you missed something clearly faulty, which 1) I am not going to do, and 2) they will have one very hard time proving. If I recall correctly, I was told during my PSI training that a tank that fails hydro probably should have failed 2-3 visuals before it. The fallibility of the process is understood.

Next, in most cases it would be very hard to show that the problems were not introduced after the inspection. A tank certified O2 clean in the morning can be fully contaminated by a bad fill that afternoon. A perfect steel tank could get water introduced the next day and start rusting immediately. Neck cracks have to start sometime--how do we know it did not start on the first fill after the inspection?

Far too much of my PSI training was spent looking at pictures of exploded tanks. (OK, I got the point--let's get on to how to prevent it!) I am pretty sure that if there had been any cases in law about inspectors getting sued for faulty inspections, we would have heard about it. I wonder if it has ever happened anywhere.

I think we sometimes paralyze ourselves with unrealistic fears of unlikely lawsuits. If any of my friends need inspections, I will do it for them.

good points, I can see where you're coming from...

 

[BVickery]

Even though you may not be liable, it wont stop someone from at least trying to file and get something. Its a sad state of our nation that people always look for someone to blame if something goes wrong.

 

[boulderjohn]

Even though you may not be liable, it wont stop someone from at least trying to file and get something. Its a sad state of our nation that people always look for someone to blame if something goes wrong.

Since attorneys work on contingency in these cases, they usually won't take a case they don't have a chance of winning. It's just a loss for them, and the client may have to pay the court fees of the person they sue.

Can you give a single example of any time in history that a person who did a visual tank inspection was sued, successfully or unsuccessfully, after a tank accident?