When I was growing up, my dad worked as a contractor doing home renovations around our small Queensland town, and the neighbouring city. He was good at it and developed a great repuation. He worked a lot and was always at a new home doing repairs and renovations.
While he was technically self-employed, he didn’t really have any business experience. My mom had taken a couple of business and accounting classes a long time ago and she took care of the business side of things for him. The truth is that neither of them had much knowledge when it came to running a business. They did not know that something as simple as an accident could have a major effect on the business and change all of our lives.
As a result of that, we ended up having to move to a smaller house when I was around 12 years old. The move happened because neither of them knew about public liability insurance, which means my dad didn’t have any for his business. And that is not a position you want to be in when an accident happens.
He was hired to lay some bricks on the exterior of a home when the accident happened. The homeowner just happened to come outside at the exact moment that a piece of brick fell off the scaffolding my dad was on. From that height, it did quite a number on the owner of the house. My dad had to take him to the hospital because he was bleeding so much.
Within a few weeks, my dad got sued for the medical fees. He didn’t have liability insurance to cover it. In fact, he only learned about its existence when he went to a lawyer to determine if he was actually liable for the guy’s bills. Of course, he was legally liable.
To pay those bills, my parents had to sell our house. We ended up moving to a cheap rental home because the bills had practically bankrupt my family. Fortunately, my dad was still able to get work doing renovations. Of course, he did not take any new jobs until he got some liability coverage.