Question Feasibility of a recovery/salvage startup?

[Biz2000]

Hello all once again, this time I'm back with a more ambitious idea, to start something of a side-business doing salvage/recovery work/light commercial diving in Minnesota/Wisconsin. My concerns are about the proper paperwork in order to do something like this as a business venture. Would I need to hold an ADCI commercial cert and have some sort of contractor insurance in the event of a catastrophe? I wouldn't anticipate doing this full-time, just as side option or at the very least to pay for equipment. I was led to believe that public safety divers pull up vehicles all the time, and they don't hold commercial certs (to my knowledge). I would imagine the county they work for would cover the insurance side of things.

Any input is welcome as always, and I apologize if this isn't the right forum for this type of question.

 

[Wookie]

I do not have an ADCI cert. I purely hold recreational certifications.

When I formed a commercial diving company, I formed it as a sole proprietorship in the state of Florida specifically to do work for the Navy. I followed the navy requirements to be insured as well as generate a diving safety manual in accordance with OSHA 29 CFR 1910 Subpart T.

The major OSHA limitation for SCUBA is that you are still required to have a 3 man team, and you are required to have a chamber if diving deeper than 100 feet, and scuba divers must have a buddy or be line tended. If surface supplied you are required to have a dive supervisor and a tender.

The commercial diving insurance company checks neither certs nor your diving safety manual. The Navy wanted to review both the manual as well as the insurance policy.

Public safety divers are not commercial divers, and typically are employed or otherwise fall under the auspices of a jurisdiction like a county or agency. They often are certified as public safety divers by an agency like ERDI. While a public safety diver may hook a to truck cable to a submerged car, they are not under contract to do so like a commercial diving company would be, nor are they utilizing salvage equipment like lift bags or air lifts to recover sunken “treasures”.

 

[DrakeTheDiver]

Hello all once again, this time I'm back with a more ambitious idea, to start something of a side-business doing salvage/recovery work/light commercial diving in Minnesota/Wisconsin. My concerns are about the proper paperwork in order to do something like this as a business venture. Would I need to hold an ADCI commercial cert and have some sort of contractor insurance in the event of a catastrophe? I wouldn't anticipate doing this full-time, just as side option or at the very least to pay for equipment. I was led to believe that public safety divers pull up vehicles all the time, and they don't hold commercial certs (to my knowledge). I would imagine the county they work for would cover the insurance side of things.

Any input is welcome as always, and I apologize if this isn't the right forum for this type of question.

I sent you a DM but I’ll also respond here, my PSD team will not do salvage work. If we are requested to locate and search a car for a body or evidence, we will and depending on the situation we will either mark the car or may hook a tow strap and cable to it, but otherwise we will not assist a tow company just for the sake of removing a car, and we can’t be requested just to remove a car or boat. There are dedicated companies that do just salvage, and they are generally required for those roles. I have never managed the paperwork side of things only being and employee but the county covers our insurance and so did my previous employers.