Anyone else have an E&O policy with Hiscox? Confused about coverage

Looking For Advice
1

Hi there.

I operate my mobile notary/signing agent business under an LLC. I admit that I am new to signing agent work and VERY new to running a business.

I have an E&O policy with Hiscox for my LLC that has “notary services” listed on the policy docs. I was initially under the impression that this policy also covered the signing agent side of business but reached out to Hiscox via phone last week just to confirm, after reading that you need to have a policy that specifically covers signing agent work and that many notary policies do not.

At first, the rep said that it (signing agent work) was covered. When I confirmed what he had just told me, the rep backtracked and said that he “actually wasn’t sure” and they would get back to me.

A whole week goes by and they finally send me an email this morning that said “At this time transporting documents is not something we can cover under your policy and we do not have a policy to cover that part of the business.” Huh?

So I called back again and a different rep says that my policy covers all services that my business provides, including the signing agent work. Just not “transportation of documents”.

How important is it to be covered when “transporting documents”? Should I ditch Hiscox and try to find another policy that covers this?

Thank you!!!

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2

Remember when you do this work you’re wearing two hats - your notary hat and your signing agent hat.

As a signing agent you’re doing more than “transporting documents” - a signing agent policy will cover you for any errors you make in getting loan packages signed in addition to, I believe, errors made in your notarial acts. If you told Hiscox that all you’re doing is transporting docs, you mislead them as to what kind of work you’ll be oding and that’s why they’re not sure how to answer you.

Standard Notary E&O only covers errors made as a notary - your notarial acts authorized by your state - failure to ID a person properly, wrong certs, certs not completed correctly, etc. etc. The Signing Agent E&O (from what I’ve heard) will cover you for that along with any repercussions from errors you make in doing loan signing work (with limitations, I’m sure).

Notary Rotary offers this insurance. You may want to check there for a more detailed description.

And since you’re new I’ll throw in my other tip for new people - if you haven’t done it yet go to irs.gov and get yourself an EIN - and never ever ever give anyone your social security number.

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