According to the National Association of Landscape Professionals, the Lawn Care and Landscaping Industry amounts to $78 billion as of 2016. This is an enormous part of our economy that employs nearly a million people. Because of the vast size of this industry there is a huge amount of risk being taken on by businesses both big and small. Because of these risks there are an equally big market for the insurance industry to help these businesses to properly protect their businesses. Here are three tips for how to properly protect your lawn care business.
How does a lawn care business owner find the best insurance coverage for their Lawn Care Business?
There are many things that go in to finding the best insurance policies for your landscaping business and they depend on may aspects of your business. Most of those aspects deal with factors that are unique to you and your business. For example, one business owner may be comfortable with more risk than another. The help of an experienced independent agent can help you determine just how much risk your business faces and how best for you to protect your business from those risks.
Once you have found a good agent, it is equally important to take a little extra time to speak long and honestly about everything your business does and does not do. There are numerous classification codes for the landscaping industry and classifying your business improperly can impact your rate on premium tremendously.
How can a business owner find the best price on insurance coverage?
Once a business owner has found a good insurance agent and has spoken with that agent about all the ins and outs of their business, it is important to ask for all credits and debits that your business qualifies for. The best way to do this is to be direct. If price is what you value than tell your agent that is what you value. Insurance agents interact with many different people from all walks of life. Not all business owners value getting the absolute best price on coverage. If this is important to you than express that to your agent and they should be able to find the most suitable coverage.
What do I do when I have and claim and am forced to use the insurance policy?
It is normal for an entrepreneur to be confident. Many of those same confident entrepreneurs have an affinity to assume bad things are not going to happen to their business. The only true way to prevent this is to take the proper steps within your power to prevent and be prepared for when disaster strikes. A major part of that preparation is to have proper insurance in place. Once you have the proper policies in place, it is important to take pictures of all the equipment and property you have covered. This can prove the state of the equipment before the occurrence.
After securing the proper landscaping insurance policies and documenting the state of your covered assets, you need to have policies and procedures in place for how to report an occurrence when a disaster strikes you business. You should have all managers on duty trained to be prepared for all bodily injury occurrences. You should notify both your agent and the carrier when you have a claim. Do not be upset if your agency informs you to contact your carrier. It is the job of the carrier to process the claim, not the agency. At the same time, it is important to keep your agency in the loop in case the carrier is not living up to their end of the bargain. Many medical facilities are not prepared to process the workers compensation system. Your carrier can help you find the proper facilities in your area to provide the best coverage to your inured employee or customer. This can drastically limit the severity of a claim and it can allow your injured worker to get the best care without the least amount of doctors’ visits possible.
Keeping the injured worker on your side is important to getting them to return to work and limiting the severity of the workers’ comp claim. If this process runs smoothly it will make your employee happy and motivated to return to work and it will help your insurance carrier to limit the amount of the claim and prevent too much damage to your businesses experience modification rating.