Florida Marine Construction Today

Florida Marine Construction Today

By Rick Fender, Founding President Florida Marine Contractor’s Association

 I doubt that there is a better State than Florida for marine construction businesses. We have an enormous amount of waterfront properties, both coastal and inland. Although Florida is loosing residents overall right now, that is a new trend. Marine Construction here includes everything from building bridges for FDOT to repairing a dock for a homeowner.

Your Florida Marine Contractor’s Association was originally organized by Marine Contractors and industry suppliers with the goal of enhancing the ability of legitimate marine contractors to do business in Florida. One of the factors that we felt was critical to our business success was a way to separate the legitimate marine contractors from those that are doing just enough marine projects to be dangerous.

In the beginning, USL&H (Longshore) was a very big issue; it was very expensive and not every marine contractor carried it, even some of the larger ones. The work your FMCA did on USL&H changed the issue through education and lobbying. Now the USL&H is still very important, but the coverage is reasonable so there isn’t a good reason for anyone in the marine construction business not to carry it. However, educating of the public, the permitting authorities and our commercial and government customers is still important with regard to when the USL&H or 6006F code is required.

When you are bidding against other FMCA member contractors on a project, you know they have the USL&H/6006F coverage. But what about the other contractors that don’t normally do marine work but are snooping around for any job to do? On commercial or government projects, if USL&H is not mentioned in the insurance portion of the specifications, you can bet that I would be questioning the requirement at the pre-bid conference or I will question the owner in writing.

So even now, one of the things that separate the legitimate marine contractors from the others is still the USL&H. If you do a good job on education of the customer on this issue you can reduce the number of your competitors on a particular marine project.

 Another way that you can separate yourself from the rest of the bidders on marine construction projects is to acquire the new Florida State Certified Marine Contractor’s License. The license has been available for about 1.5 years as a division II license in the Florida Construction Industry Licensing Board. I ask my residential and commercial customers if they would rather trust someone who does marine construction as a sideline or a Florida State Certified Marine Contractor specifically licensed and insured to perform marine construction in Florida. I explain to those customers that the contractors who receive that license have proven to the State of Florida that they have the experience and USL&H/6006F insurance required for the license. Further the State of Florida is satisfied that the licensee has the required marine construction knowledge after having passed the State’s written test.

When it comes to governmentally funded marine construction projects being bid in my area, several of the governmental entities are beginning to require that the successful bidder hold the Florida Marine Contractor’s License. You may be thinking, “Hey I have a General Contractor’s License or other license…I can build that boat ramp!” While it is true that you may be able to procure the permit for the work with another license, the owner has the right to specify the licensing they require for a project. If this trend continues and you do not have the Florida Marine Contractor’s License, you could be disqualified from bidding even though you could pull the permit for the work.

My hope as a longtime FMCA member is that after the Florida Marine Contractor’s License has been around for 5 years that the FMCA ask the FCILB to move the license to Division I so that if you want to perform any of the items of work covered under the Marine Contractor’s License you will have to possess that license. This would hopefully preclude other general, building, residential and other contractors from just jumping into marine construction contracting without the prerequisite experience, expertise and insurance.

Therefore, I encourage all of our Contractor Members who have not procured the Florida State Certified Marine Contractor’s License yet, to do so when possible. The License will help you, our Association and the industry.