Re: Law Suit in NJ

[Nomen Nescio <nobody@xxxxxxxxx>]

Everywhere Man said:

>As for the alarm company getting smacked for 4.5 mil..... tough shit.
>Next time secure the place better, using proper design, equipment, good
>installers, and top shelf monitoring.
>If I get sued for a client losing his ass because I provided an
>unrealiable system then by all means hang me out to dry.

Horseshit!

It said this case was a subrogation action, which means that the computer
company had burglary insurance, filed a claim, and got paid...and now the
greedy goddamn insurance company wants to pass off the loss to the alarm
company or its insurance company.  That insurance company made more in
premiums in one year for that burglary insurance policy than the alarm
company made in five years of providing a real, honest-to-God service --
and now they want to make the alarm company pay off when their customer
gets robbed??  Fuck them!

When you are selling an alarm system for $25 to $50 a month, you can't also
afford to provide five million bucks worth of burglary insurance.  In fact,
for those prices, you can't even afford to hire a lawyer to argue about
whether you're at fault or not.  That's why we have limitations of
liability in our contracts:  if one customer gets robbed and sues you, you
will eat up many years of monitoring profits defending yourself, even if it
eventually turns out you weren't at fault.

If you want to assume the risk of having to pay off if your alarm doesn't
prevent a loss, then you will need to set your rates according to how much
your customer has to lose.  Nobody assumes a risk without getting paid for
it.  And you can be damn sure your insurance company will follow that rule,
too:  it will want to know how much it might lose if your alarm doesn't
work, and set its premiums accordingly.

You think this is just a matter of putting in good systems, but it's not
that simple.  Many years ago, jewelry store insurance was prohibitively
expensive for many people, and some jewelers did without insurance.  These
cheap bastards also bought cheap safes.  They figured all they needed was
an alarm.  When they got robbed anyway, they sued their alarm companies
rather than face the consequences of their own poor decisions.  No doubt
they also bitched about the high prices the alarm company was charging.

Many factors go into whether a customer suffers a loss, and most of them
are not within the alarm company's control.  Why should an alarm company
assume the risk, when its customer is cutting corners on physical security,
insurance, and maybe even his alarm system?  A customer might not even tell
you about his million dollar stamp collection, leaving you to think you're
just doing an average house job.  Until he gets robbed, of course.  Then,
you sold him an inadequate system!

- badenov