Q: how many archaeologists does it take to ruin an industry?

[Sith]

I don’t bother with this as I cant for the life of me see where it might apply.

An example of where you might need to reach for your PI certificate would be if you were to prepare a DBA and identify nothing of interest, the curator agrees it's of limited potential and grants permission with a watching brief condition. However, work begins and Hadrian's palace is found. Twelve months of detailed excavation, another 24 of assessment and analysis and a huge bill later, the client comes knocking on your door questioning your abilities as an archaeologist (and possibly parentage).

[moreno]

I don?t bother with this as I cant for the life of me see where it might apply. I would love to know of any examples where it has been used by an archaeologist, particularly a field archaeologist and having said that I don?t know what you would want to pay for it?

From first hand experience, and no it wasn't my cock up. You'll need public indemnity (PI) if you're providing advice to a client that the client then acts upon. Consultants are usually required to carry PI insurance. If you have a field unit attached to a consultancy you'll need all three. For example back in 2006 a company consultant providing advice on a project in Hampshire provided incorrect information to their client regarding ground levels. To make a long story short, the company PI insurance paid for the excavation ( an aweful lot of pennies), which required public liability and employer's liability. Again, nothing to do with me and my parentage wasn't called into question....:face-approve:

[the invisible man]

As Sith says. PI is PI and PL is PL (and EL is something else again). Ps and Is and Ls seem to be getting a bit mixed up. Unless it's all changed since I had to know about these things.

[Unitof1]

I don?t think that it follows Sith, particularly for archaeology matters rather than somebody fell over my mattock. Have a disclaimer noting the limitation of a dba or note that the purpose of a watching brief being to find something for which provision had not been made.

What intrigues me about having PI is that client in your model might be looking to get the PI to pay for the archaeology. If you were invited into to some bodies house and they then said you cant come in here unless you show me your PI you would want to know why, write the risk assessment and charge them for it? I suspect that the cost of the PI would be commensurate with the risk. You ring up your insurance company and say the client seems very interested in your PI and they would up your premiums.

So what the developer should first do is say I want archaeologists who have got PI and then I want them to say something stupid like the named archaeologist ?guarantees? that there is absolutely no potential archaeology here that will delay your development. Archaeology then delays the development archaeologists charges for the archaeology, developer claims back the costs from the insurance nice little scam, or is it that the developer charges for the delays caused by the archaeology-archaeology which they own. Surely the developer should insure against unforeseen delays and presumably their insurance premiums are reduced if they attempt to reduce the delays by managing the archaeology.

Moreno- great this is the first example I have ever heard of, is there any public record of this case. somehow the incorrect ground levels lead to an excavation- how ? and what consultant caused it ? is that you indivisible man hows it going

[moreno]

Moreno- great this is the first example I have ever heard of, is there any public record of this case. somehow the incorrect ground levels lead to an excavation- how ? and what consultant caused it – is that you indivisible man hows it going

Hmm, I'm not sure there are public records. If there are I'm not sure where these would be located. An article about the excavation did appear in the papers considering the importance of the site, but obviously didn't go into detail as to why there was a need for a full ex. I think there is a monograph on the "rescue" project. What I can say is that the problem originated from a fairly innocuous error regarding how the consultant calculated ground elevations. Due to a QA oversight, the error went unnoticed. The error became a problem when it was determined that rafters for a very large building would impact upon the archaeology. Unfortunately by the time the error was discovered, works were well under way. In all fairness, the client only had one recourse, and that was to claim against the company PI. There's obviously more to the story but there is the need to be prudent.

[Unitof1]

just came across this use of the word archaeology

http://www.iagltd.com/why.asp

not sure about your use of the term consultant. Sounds like the archaeologists had shown where the archaeology was? Possibly the claim was against the consultants PI?

maybe archaeologists should insist that developers have this

http://www.griffithsandarmour.com/adambr...rance.aspx

[moreno]

Unitof1-
It was an engineering company with an intergrated archaeological consultancy. The oversight was a company error so it made them responsible to put it right through their PI insurance. The field work was sub contracted out.

[moreno]

just came across this use of the word archaeology

That's an interesting use of archaeology. Had me confused for a sec.

maybe archaeologists should insist that developers have this

http://www.griffithsandarmour.com/adambr...rance.aspx

Made me chuckle, someone should let them know they need to update the PPG reference....

[P Prentice]

unit why dont you start your own thread about insurance and stop silting up this one which is about the ruin of an industry you dont believe exists

[Sith]

Made me chuckle, someone should let them know they need to update the PPG reference....

Perhaps they should Photoshop some PPE onto the folks working down the deep hole too.