CEBC.org Business Pulse

Being “on the pulse” means you are up to date with the latest. The Business Pulse addresses many of the issues confronting the consulting engineer and is intended to provide members with the latest information to assist them in their business practices.

Watch this section for professional practice resources such as standard contracts and guidelines, fees and insurance related documents and other tools for small consulting engineering businesses. Upcoming professional development events will also be posted in this section. To help us keep you “on the pulse” in business, please let us know what other information you would like to include here.

Professional engineers who have been in practice for three to ten years face different business and personal issues than their more senior counterparts. The Young Professionals Group was established in 2005 to create a forum in which young professional consulting engineers can meet regularly with others in similar situations to exchange ideas and to get frank feedback on business issues.

For additional information, please contact us at Tel: 604.687.2811 or email:info@cebc.org.

The agreement between Client and Consultant is governed by the size, complexity, duration and other aspects of the assignment. For simple projects with well defined parameters and requirements, a simple agreement may suffice, appended with a mutually accepted set of standards, terms and conditions. On the other hand a mega project may require documentation drafted by legal counsel. Projects between these extremes may use one of the four standard agreements most commonly used in British Columbia.

The following documents are available from CEBC. See below for ordering information and other resources.

Fees and Insurance
Fee Guidelines
Remuneration of Consulting Engineers
The Fee Guidelines for Engineering Services (1996) and Fee Guidelines Errata (1998) are jointly published by CEBC and the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC (APEGBC). The Fee Guidelines provide a recommended schedule of fees for building, transportation and infrastructure engineering projects. More general information about consulting fees is contained in the CEBC Commentary article Consulting Fees in Perspective and The Business of Consulting Engineering.

Tools for Small Business
This section provides related information to issues facing the small consulting engineering firm and some of these may also affect the larger firms.

XL Insurance Bulletins
E-CLIPS FOR DESIGN PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION PUBLICATIONS
Here is your October 2005 installment of the Design Professional group of the XL Insurance companies' new service called E-Clips for Design Professional Association Publications.

XL Insurance is providing timely loss prevention articles based on our extensive risk management research of architects and engineers. We make these informative articles available to you as a part of our commitment to the design community. If you want to bring your members information that will help them improve business practices, these articles will help you do it.

Last month we sent you our response to the Hurricane Katrina tragedy together with an article entitled "In the Aftermath of a Disaster. . ." that set forth some things for design professionals to remember when providing emergency services and a sample short form contract for emergency professional services. We'd appreciate knowing whether you were able to use these resources and whether this type of information is of value to your organization. Please let us know by responding to this email.

Take the opportunity now to determine whether this month's article will work for your newsletter or other association publications. All articles available for publication are listed on our website. See how to review them below.

YOUR CLIENT'S "IMPOSSIBLE" INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS
It's only natural. Clients want to know that you have adequate and appropriate insurance. That's why most professional services agreements contain detailed specifications on the insurance clients expect you to carry. But lately, many design professionals have found themselves in situations that would make seasoned insurance professionals weep. In addition to clients' usual unreasonable demands that they be named additional insureds on your policy or requiring you to defend them, they're also insisting on coverage terms that are impossible or impractical for most design professionals to meet.
Copyright 2005 XL Specialty Insurance Company. All rights reserved. Reuse only with the express written permission of XL Insurance.

For a list of all articles for publication and instructions on how to access them, please click or paste this website link into your web browser: http://www.xldp.com/eclip/index.html. We look forward to learning of your interest in this new service; please let us know if it is valuable. For questions, suggestions and feedback, please contact Tom Bongi, Director of Industry Relations, at thomas.bongi@xlgroup.com or 925.362.1564.

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