In the course of your business, you rely on crucial relationships with contractors, subcontractors, vendors and consumers. With relationships, agreements/ contracts are made. A growing trend involves contracts in which one party agrees to assume the liabilities of another. Savvy business owners recognize the benefit of transferring potential liability to others, and often have the leverage to advantageously negotiate contracts to do just that. What does this mean as you agree to take on someone else's liability? By signing such an agreement, you may be forced to pay for claims (i.e. injuries, property damage, and vehicle damage) that normally would not be your responsibility. Alternatively, you may be asking one of your vendors to sign an agreement holding you harmless, as a condition of doing business -creating the advantage for yourself. In either case, it is important that you understand what you are agreeing to, so that there will be no surprises. In addition, the agreement should clearly define who will "indemnify" whom, should an incident occur.
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