Tag: Commercial Insurance

Ride Sharing and Auto Insurance

Our country is dealing with some phenomenon’s that we have never experienced before and its causing some big changes in the insurance business.  Not all insurance companies have caught up to the technological advances of Drones, Driverless Cars and Ride Sharing or “Transportation Network Companies” as states are now referring to now.

Drones and Driverless cars are going to have to be an article for another day. For now, companies like Uber and Lyft are quickly changing how Americans get around. They both offer an opportunity for individuals to make money off their personal vehicle by giving others a ride for a fee. Ride sharing is a trend that is developing into a major industry that insurance companies and state lawmakers have quickly had to adjust to. Most states are opening up to this, some more openly than others as you would expect and the same goes with insurance companies.

 

What does Ride sharing have to do with Insurance?

Most personal auto policies are going to exclude business use from coverage on your policy. Many carriers have “business use” as an option, however it is important to know what that means as the coverage can vary greatly from carrier to carrier. So if you are driving for one of the new or existing Ride sharing companies it is important to know your personal auto coverage well. If Ride sharing is not covered at all, you really should take action. Either by seeing if a commercial policy is available with your current insurance company that would cover Ride sharing (not all carriers do) or by shopping for a new personal or commercial auto policy that will cover these operations.

 

Limits, limits limits….

As insurance agents we preach that the state minimum limits are very risky for your personal auto policy. In states like Missouri the state minimum liability limits are $25,000 for bodily injury, $50,000 for total bodily injury and $10,000 for total property damage. Think about the last time you went to the doctor with anything serious. It’s not far fetched to say these types of limits are not hard to meet in any serious vehicle accident. Consider if you were to have a paying customer in the car or possibly multiple. Many articles are pointing out the coverage gaps that Ride sharing brings about. This is important, however the limits of your policy are something that need to be addressed even if your insurance carrier says they will cover the claim. The coverage doesn’t matter as much if the limit of the coverage is too small to cover the claims.

For example; say you were to get into an accident which caused injuries to the another person which resulted in bodily injury claims of $90,000. If you have state minimum limits in Missouri with $25,000 in bodily injury liability per person this means $65,000 of the damages are not covered by your insurance and that goes back to you personally. Forget about mortgage, student loans and all other bills, that is a big hit that leaves nothing for you to show for it. If you had spent a little more on your auto insurance policy and had limits that were more acceptable, your insurance could cover this.

The amount an agent would recommend for auto insurance is going to vary on your individual circumstances and risk. Generally most recommended commercial auto policies have limits of at least $1 Million combined single limit. This allows a sufficient baseline of liability limits to make sure your covered claims are covered to the amount you would need them to be. The minimum limits we would typically recommend for a personal auto policy are around $100,000 bodily injury for each person, $300,000 for bodily injury liability for each accident and $100,000 Property Damage Liability. If you add the Ride-Share exposure, increasing those limits to at least $500,000 or $1 Million individually or combined single limit is better to make sure your protected for the full amount you need. This does cost a little more in premium. However, if a claim occurs the premium difference is the last thing you are going to worry about. Especially if your limits are less than the cost of the accident.

What is Workers’ Compensation Insurance?

Workers’ Compensation Insurance is a state mandated insurance coverage required by nearly every state in the country. The basic purpose of Workers’ Compensation Insurance is to assure injured workers get medical care and compensation for a portion of the income they lose while they are unable to work as a result of injuries sustained on the job.  Workers give up the right to sue employers for injuries that occur as a part of normal business practices. Inured workers can sue employers if there is some form of negligence on the part of the employer.

Workers' Compensation

Workers receive these benefits regardless of who was at fault in the accident. In most cases if a worker is killed while working, workers comp (as it is often abbreviated) provides death benefits for the worker’s dependents. Also, Workers’ Compensation Coverage prevents the employer from bearing the full cost of injuries that occur during normal business operations. Employers also gain the relief that they cannot be sued for injuries that occur as a part of normal business practices.

In the United States, Workers’ Compensation Laws were implemented throughout the first half of the 20th century.  In 1908 President Taft signed the first legislation requiring mandatory employer coverage for employees working in multi-state commerce. Over the next 40 years each state enacted their own state specific workers’ compensation programs. Wisconsin was the first state to adopt such legislation and Mississippi was the last state to adopt a formal workers’ compensation program.

Workers' Compensation Insurance Claim Form

One of the most important legal concepts with regards to workers’ compensation insurance is that it is the “exclusive remedy” when an employee is injured on the job.  This means that employers who purchase coverage  can not be held liable for employee injuries in most states, except under narrow circumstances where the employer intended to cause injury to the employee or was willfully negligent. The idea behind the exclusive remedy clause is to force compromise between employers and employees. Employees give up the ability to to win large suits against employers in order to receive fast and limited financial return. Employers exchange liability regardless of fault, for legal protection from potentially devastating tort judgments in court.

In most states, employers are legally required to carry this insurance coverage. Each state has certain exemptions to the requirement. Two states (Oklahoma and Texas) have laws that allow certain employers to opt-out of the workers’ compensation requirement, if they qualify. Tennessee and South Carolina Legislatures are also proposing similar opt-out provision’s. This opt-out provision has been in the news a bit as of late. Oklahoma is in its second year of allowing companies to opt-out and fewer than thirty businesses have applied for and been granted the privilege.  Unlike Texas’s system, Oklahoma employers must meet certain financial and other requirements to qualify, including a written benefit plan that provides coverage and benefit levels that meet or exceed the minimum requirements set forth in the law.

Most states and employers are taking a wait and see approach to these changes to the opt-out provision.

 

 

What is Pay as You Go Workers’ Compensation?

Pay as You Go Workers’ Compensation Insurance is a fairly new program that is designed to help business owner’s free up cash so they can pay their insurance premium’s monthly instead of in one lump sum. Pay as You Go Workers’ Compensation benefits employers in three main ways:

  1. Pay as You Go Workers Compensation Insurance allows businesses to pay their premium monthly instead of in one large payment.
  2. Pay as You Go frees up cash flow for more immediate business needs.
  3. Pay as You Go prevents audits because both payroll and premiums are calculated monthly instead of yearly.

My Insurance Question can help you pick out the best Pay as You Go Workers' Compensation Insurance Policy.

Pay as You Go Workers’ Compensation Insurance Coverage benefits businesses by allowing them to pay their insurance premium’s monthly based on the payroll of their workforce that month only. This is a great option for industries like construction, farming or landscaping. These industries sometimes have a hard time forecasting payroll because of the weather and many other factors. If your business deals with these types of issues than Pay Go may be a great option for you and your business.

 

Another benefit of Pay as You Go Workers’ Compensation Insurance is that it frees up cash flow for more immediate business needs. With a traditional Workers Comp policy typically twenty five percent of the premium is due all at once. The rest is usually paid in nine monthly payments. This means the business is spending money on insurance immediately that could be used on other more urgent business needs.

Pay as You Go Workers' Compensation Insurance

Finally, business owner’s benefit from Pay Go Workers’ Compensation Coverage because it prevents audits from happening more frequently. An end of term audit still happens, but Pay Go prevents audits from happening more frequently and makes the difference owed much smaller. With the monthly payment format there is less risk of over or underpaying the premium.

Should you Price Check a Flat Renewal Quote?

In meeting with carrier representatives frequently, I always get updates on the marketplace from a broad array of perspectives. Recently, one of the common themes in the current marketplace is that many renewal quotes are a similar price to what they were in the last year. However, carriers are often pricing quotes for new business to that carrier at very low rates in an attempt to win additional business in a flat market.

For example, as I was price checking my upcoming renewal accounts recently, I was able to save one client around 20% on their policy even though their renewal quote with their carrier had not changed from the prior year. By having their renewal policy price checked, this client saved 20%. It’s not to say you should move your business insurance every year as there are advantages to having continuity with one carrier in case claims or service issues arise. However, potential savings can exist even if your renewal pricing is the same as last year’s pricing.

The current marketplace has several carriers notably pricing aggressively to compete for new business opportunities. One of the carriers that comes to mind right away for workers’ compensation insurance is The Hartford. They are discounting their base rates up to 40% for certain business types and in certain states. It is a hard to beat combination when an A rated carrier with excellent customer service is pricing as low as any carrier in the marketplace for certain businesses.

Another carrier that comes to mind is GUARD Insurance. They are another A rated carrier that is affiliated with insurance giant, Berkshire Hathaway. GUARD has been rapidly expanding into the marketplace for small and mid-sized businesses. If you haven’t shopped your business insurance in a few years, GUARD may not have been an available option at the time you decided on a carrier. Now, they are the leading carrier for many industries (particularly certain artisan contractors) in the marketplace and also offer excellent customer service.

There are so many variables that it is hard to write generally about some of the best carriers in the marketplace for particular businesses. However, AmTrust, Employers, FirstComp and Travelers are all highly rated carriers which offer great customer service and are pricing certain industries very aggressively to attempt to grow their business.

There can be other reasons that it may make sense to price check your business insurance. For one, your claims history may be more favorable than it was several years ago.   Other insurance carriers may offer more favorable payment plans than you currently have. An example in the workers compensation arena is that pay as you go insurance might be available. Over time, different carriers happen to prefer certain industries more or less than they do at other times. That can lead to better pricing in some cases than may have been available at different points in time.

Without checking prices, it’s hard to know whether or not there might be better options out there than your current carrier.

Lets talk about Landscaping!!

When I first started doing workers compensation insurance, I had the privilege of writing a lot of landscaping types of risk. I have never been a landscaper, so it was difficult to understand all the aspects of landscaping insurance. For example, are you just mowing yards, are you trimming bushes, are you cleaning the yards, are you replanting the grass or flowers, are you doing edge work? Who knew there would be so much that goes into just one risk?

Landscaping insurance liability questions at myinsurancequestion.com

So, while you ponder on the type of landscaping you do, let me tell you there are plenty of carriers that love writing landscaping insurance.  Except tree trimming and that does not classify as landscaping!! So moving on, I find it very interesting that all the types of work my clients have been doing and the challenges I had to write them. So let me walk you through the process of how this is done.

First, we need to talk about exactly what you do. Never be scared to tell an agent what you actually do on a daily basis. If you cut grass, say that. If you trim trees, tell them! I can’t stress how important it is that you tell the agent exactly what you do. The agent and underwriter will do research on your company and we will scroll through every picture and question whether or not you are doing something… so tell us everything!! It is beyond stressful for the client (i.e. you) to have to wait for a carrier to quote your work comp landscaping insurance policy and at the very last minute tell you they found some issues with what you say you do. Especially if you didn’t tell them that you did something. If you have a website that says you do tree trimming, we will know. If your Facebook page has pictures of you climbing ladders to hang plants, we will see them. So tell us exactly what you do. We understand you might have been declined by a lot of other agents, but we are trained to write tough/difficult risks, or we can tell you who to call exactly. We won’t waste your time and we don’t want to waste ours.

Secondly, after you have told us exactly what you do, we will discuss the payroll and employee count. No agent has your actual monthly payroll reporting in front of us, so we need you to be honest. If you pay one of your landscapers $10,000.00 a year, tell us! Honesty is the best policy. If you are starting out as a new company, we will help you figure that out.

Thirdly, this is the best part, we quote your landscaping business. Believe it or not there are a lot of carriers that are competing to write landscapers. You need work comp for a reason, so let us find the best price for you. I get how stressful it is to try to find coverage in your area… but let me take that stress away. I can shop dozens of carriers and I can get you the best coverage for the lowest price.

In the past three months I’ve spoken with 19 landscaping companies. Seven of those companies have become my clients.  I’ve used four different carriers to place those policies. That shows how much our insurance carriers are willing to compete against each other for landscaping insurance. Landscaping has so many aspects to it that it is a fun risk to write. Also companies are competing for the general liability and business owners insurance too.

OH NO! AUDITS!?!

This past week I went to a training seminar on workers’ compensation insurance. I showed up to this event expecting to learn about claims,  class codes, and all the new products coming out. When I got to the seminar I first sat down at the table I was assigned to. While I introduced myself to all the other insurance agents, I asked them, “What do you expect to learn this week?” To my surprise, everyone wanted to learn about audits. Everyone wanted to learn about things like how an audit works, who does the audit and why do we need to do them? I really was shocked that so many agents didn’t know much about an audit.

What is an audit?:

Workers’ compensation policies are issued with estimated payroll figures for the policy period. An audit is completed at the end of the policy period in order to determine the final policy premium. It can be completed either by phone, mail, or physical visit.

How to prepare for an Audit:

Assemble all financial documents that you have accumulated throughout the year. You should really start at the beginning of each policy year. Things that will be helpful/needed: payroll books, 941s, SUTAs, 1099s, checkbook (which is best if you have a separate checkbook for personal and business), general ledger, or tax records and lastly all Certificates of Insurance. It is very important to know that all grossed wages are used, for example wages for all payroll, commissions, bonuses and lodging allowance.

Who does the audit?:

Typically it is the actual carrier that will do the audit. Your agent will be able to assist you, but it will be the carrier that will proceed with the actual audit. There are times where the carrier can use a third party as the auditors.

When do audits take place?:

Audits typically take place at the end of the policy year. Your agent can request a quarterly, monthly or semi-annual audit for your company. The reason they might suggest that you do one mid-term, is to check on your payroll. It is always best to get the most accurate payroll, but sometimes we might have to actually estimate what an employee will make in a year. When we estimate the payroll, it is always nice to check to see if you are close or going over the estimated payroll. It is a lot easier to adjust payroll during the policy term, than to do it after. It is also a lot nicer to not have to pay any additional premium at the end of the term.

I understand that audits can be stressful and just a pain in the butt, but they are necessary. But if you are prepared for the audit, then you will be okay. The auditor isn’t after you or after your business. They just want to make sure you are paying the correct premium. They also want to make sure that you are classified correctly. So don’t think that audits have to be the end of the world, just breathe and relax. With this advise you will be all set for the audit. You can always call your insurance agent and they will gladly assist you with any additional information you might need.

Janitorial Business, Liability Needs.

One of the first accounts I ever quoted was for a janitorial cleaning company. This company really stuck out to me. The client called me bright and early one morning looking for a workers compensation quote. It was a commercial cleaning company and when I started the quoting process, I realized there was much more to this risk than I actually thought. I noticed commercial janitorial cleaning was actually a very popular risk to insure, but sadly not many people know how to do it. It is not a difficult risk to write, but some might find all the questions to be rather nerve racking. So allow me to help you out!

If you are thinking about getting workers compensation for your own janitorial cleaning company, you need to first ask yourself these fundamental questions.

1) Will you be doing residential or commercial janitorial cleaning?
* There is a huge difference between commercial cleaning and residential. Commercial consist of any legal business, office, or sometimes contracted apartment cleaning (if the resident has moved out and you are cleaning it for the next resident.) Residential cleaning is basically any home that is occupied by residents.

2) What will you be cleaning?
* It is very important to tell your insurance agent exactly what you will be doing. For example: We will need to know if you are leaning window or gutters.  If so, we will need to know how you get to the gutters. What will be the maximum height you will go to, to do the cleaning? If you are moving furniture around.

3) How many employees will be on location?
* Since workers compensation is based off the employees’ payroll, it will be beneficial to tell your agent how many employees you will have at each location.

4) What chemicals will you be using?
* If you are using any type of harsh chemicals to clean with, then you should explain to the agent what the chemicals are and how you will be handling them.

5) What will be the travel exposure between job locations?
* This is a very important question. Your agent will need to know the estimated miles between job locations.

6) What safety program do you have in place?
* This is something you should always have no matter the job. It is critical you have a safety program in place.

These are some of the questions I always ask my clients. It is very critical to know exactly what the janitorial company does.

Now like all other workers compensation quotes, the agent will need to know employee count and payroll for each employee. If you have employees doing jobs other than janitorial cleaning, then you need to explain what those employees will be doing. After you have answered all those questions, then you will be ready to get started on the workers compensation quote.

Now I also want to share a piece of knowledge I learned while quoting janitorial companies. If you are seeking General Liability for your business, then here is a good piece of information that you want to ask your agent. A lot of janitorial businesses are trusted with a key to get into the building. Now if you have a lot of contracts with different locations, then you probably have several keys. Here is the gem I told you about, you need to ask your agent for ‘Lost Key Coverage.” Lost Key Coverage will be an endorsement added to your general liability policy that will pay to replace all the keys you have lost or were stolen. Having the locks replaced for 25 different businesses is very expensive. So if I were you, I would make sure that my general liability policy has lost key coverage or something very similar to it.

**There are also Janitorial Surety Bonds. These bonds will protects the insured’s clients, if one of your employees were to steal from the client. The employee must be convicted before any coverage will be applied.

Insurance Help on Vacation

A while ago, I took a phone call from a client in need of help getting Errors & Omissions (E&O or professional liability) Coverage for a large contract he was working on.  However, my client was in Italy on vacation and the coverage needed to be in place before the job started in three days. To say he was in a panic would be an understatement.  I wrote his work comp insurance and our agency handled many endorsements on his policy for him.  However, it was a different agent here within our company who wrote his Liability Policy.  But he trusted me with his insurance needs, so I presented him with the following options:

  • I could write him a new Liability Policy with E&O Coverage included.
  • I could become his Agent with the current carrier, but it would take several days.
  • I could write a stand alone E&O Policy, but it would cost a little more since the liability would not be attached.

This actually was no problem at all. I just needed an Errors and Omissions application filled out, signed and returned to me. Thanks to technology the client had all of this information back to me by the next morning. All the way from Italy.

Liability Insurance help on a beach vacation.

When I presented the first quote, which was the stand-alone E&O policy, my client was shocked at the price of the coverage. In the past he had only had a liability policy. I explained the bulk of his company’s exposure was in the Errors and Omissions Liability and he should expect to pay more for this coverage.

The second quote was with a new carrier.  It was a Business Owners Package (BOP) with E&O as an added coverage. This was also the carrier I had his Workers’ Compensation Policy with. This was a great quote and made the most sense to me. However, the client did want to wait for the quote from the carrier he currently had for his liability coverage. This is the company I had taken over as the Agent of Record (AOR). In the end both carriers had great pricing and coverage. My client chose to go with the carrier that already had written his Work Comp and offered all of the endorsements he needed for the contract he was working on.

After discussing all of the projects his company had coming up in the next year I offered him a Commercial Umbrella Policy to extend his coverages. I explained that this would help protect his company if ever a claim went beyond the limits of his policy. The client thanked me for mentioning an umbrella policy and he agreed that his business needed this coverage.

We were able to get all the documents signed, the policy bound and all of the needed certificates of insurance out to the Holder by the deadline. It all got taken care of expediently. All while my client was on vacation.

Insurance For Home Health Type Businesses – W-2 – 1099 – Leasing

The home health care industry is one of the fastest growing business types in the U.S. As the American population grows and the life expectancy becomes longer the population needing health care type services at their home continues to increase. In my experience home health companies are servicing the elderly, the mental or physically disabled and people with permanent disabilities that require constant care.

There are three types of home health agencies that can have a drastically different impact on the business insurance coverages.

  1. Business that employs all as W-2 employees
  1. Business that chooses to employ all as 1099 independent contractors
  1. Placement agency that places their employees with a third party employer

The first type is the easiest model to insure for professional liability, third party crime coverage and workers compensation coverage. Being employed on a W-2 status, these are direct employees and the ownership of the business has the right to direct, control and fire.   Insurance companies prefer this set-up.   Business owners MUST make sure their third party crime bond extends coverage to the client’s home.

The second type is the most difficult to insure. For the third party crime coverage, business owners must confirm that coverage is specifically for “independent contractors”. For the workers compensation coverage there is a specific question on the application asking about “sub-contractors” and whether they are insured or uninsured. You must answer the question “Yes, the business is using sub-contractors”. If you are covering the 1099’s under your policy the business owner must also answer “Yes, the sub-contractors are uninsured”.

The third type is different from the two above because the business owner is not purchasing a policy to cover their tax id number. For a placement agency, the business owner is “leasing” their employees to a “Leasing Company” aka “Professional Employer Organization” aka “Staffing Agency”. The staffing agency is insuring under their tax id number specifically for workers compensation. If the staffing agency requires the business owner to purchase their own professional liability and third party crime coverage, the business owner must inform their insurance company and make sure coverage is acceptable.

Artisan Contractors

Why would an artisan contractor need data breach coverage?

Data breach (or cyber liability) coverage has been one of the hottest topics in the insurance industry over the past few years. Insurance companies and agents alike unanimously agree that this line of insurance coverage is becoming critical for small businesses to protect themselves, but the odd disconnect is that many businesses don’t see the value.

First, let’s start by explaining what data breach coverage is designed to protect. This policy is designed to cover data breach recovery costs such as notifying any person/business potentially affected, good-faith advertising, and repairing security of the system. The coverage is important because a business is held responsible for protecting the personal information it collects from someone else. Most states have already passed (or are passing) regulations for steps a business must take for their clients when a data breach occurs. These regulations typically require formal notification that a breach has occurred to all potentially impacted clients, and typically the business must offer credit monitoring services for those clients for 1 year. Those steps alone can amount to a huge expense.

Most artisan contractors feel like this risk doesn’t relate to them at all, and others don’t realize that they aren’t properly covered. A recent study found that 39 percent of business owners think that data breach coverage is a part of their general liability policy. This thinking is wrong. Occasionally, a business owners package (or BOP) policy will include some minimal data breach coverage, but the limits are so low that the coverage would likely only cover a portion of any claim that existed. Many artisan contractors buy GL-only policies instead of a BOP anyway, because they feel like the extra coverage’s aren’t important for their business … and cyber liability is one line of insurance that is still considered a “luxury” expense.

In fact, one of my clients who is an artisan contractor and does HVAC work expressed himself pretty clearly: “Don’t try to sell me something that has no impact on my business. I don’t keep much information on my clients, and I’m so small that nobody would want to take the time to hack my company.”

That’s when I brought up the Target data breach, which he knew about because he was one of the victims and had to get new credit cards issued because of the hack. What this artisan contractor didn’t realize was that the hackers used a third-party vendor, HVAC company Fazio Mechanical Services, to gain access to the Target system.

The Home Depot data breach also began via a hack of a third-party vendor. In fact, using a third-party vendor is becoming the most common method for as an access point for a larger hack. As an artisan contractor, this is becoming the new risk and larger companies are starting to take notice.

Many larger organizations are now requiring a sub contractor to carry a separate cyber liability policy, along with the more typical insurance requirements (workers compensation, general liability, umbrella, etc.).

Over the next few years, I think getting a data breach policy is not only a necessary way to protect your business, but it is also a great way to separate yourself from the competition.