Good Morning, I need to see if I can get your take on a Commercial General Liability claim related to work done by a sub-contractor hired by my client. The client hired a sub-contractor to install water meters in an apartment complex, and some of the meter plumbing connections leaked causing resulting water damage to the building. My client attempted to get the sub-contractor and their insurance carrier involved, but with no luck in getting them to step up and take care of the damages.

We then submitted this to our clients General Liability policy. The carrier has taken the stance that our client has no legal liability or negligence in this matter and is unwilling to handle the resulting water damages to the property. We have requested that they assist our mutual client with the resulting property damages and then pursue the sub-contractor for the damage payments. Currently they are still taking the stance that our client was not negligent and thus they will not pay and subrogate.

Our view is that our client did in fact hire the sub-contractor and is responsible to make sure the work was done correctly and therefore does have culpability for the damages. Since the sub-contractors installation of the water meters resulted in property damage we would look to our client's carrier to assist with the claim and they are not following through and remain staunch there is no liability on our client that hired the Subcontractor. If that is the case I would think that our client's GL policy would never step in on a sub-contractor claim where they caused resulting property damages.