Property Considerations

There are gaps between your business insurance policies and your employees’ homeowners policies, leaving you vulnerable to loss due to property theft or damage. If your employee is using your company’s computer equipment to perform their job from their home, it may not be covered. Additionally, if employees use their own computer to perform company work, it may not be covered either. This is because residential insurance policies severely restrict or exclude coverage for business property. A further complication is that business property usually consists of high-valued items that are vulnerable to damage and/or to theft. Such property includes fax machines, copiers, computers, computer peripherals (monitors, printers, scanner, modems, routers), phones, answering machines, PDAs, etc.

Liability Considerations

Personal insurance policies that include liability protection typically exclude business-related losses. Further, different policies can be quite broad in interpreting how a loss is connected to “business.” Liability Policies A and B would routinely respond to handling an insured who spilled hot coffee on a guest in his home during the work day. What if the visitor was your company’s client rather than the employee’s social guest? Policy A may still offer coverage because it considers the coffee spill to be a common home hazard. Policy B, however, may flat-out exclude the loss because the injured person was in the home for a business reason.

Vehicle Liability

Your telecommuting employee will be using their personal vehicle less for going to and from work, but perhaps more for tasks related to their job, such as making deliveries or client calls. Many instances of job related use might be excluded from their personal auto coverage, which could result in a dispute.

Please read Part 2 in next Monday’s blog.

Most Rock Hill individuals use their homeowner or residential insurance policy to handle their hobby activities as a collector or enthusiast. A homeowner (HO) policy usually includes a definition of “business” and some are so broad that nearly any activity qualifies as a business. In such instances, a hobbyist or enthusiast should consider whether separate business insurance is necessary.

Is Your Hobby a Business?
Let’s say you love photography and take pictures at events such as weddings to finance this passion. While you consider this to be a hobby, your insurer may define your activities as a business. If your camera equipment is stolen or damaged, there may be as little as $250 protection under your HO policy. HO coverage for business property differs depending on whether the property is located at or away from your residence.

Imagine being a photographer at a wedding. As you are snapping photos of the wedding party, a large boom stand with hot lighting equipment tips over injuring the maid of honor and the flower girl. If the injured women sue you since the injury is part of a business activity, your HO may exclude coverage.

When Your Job is Out of Your Home
There are numerous types of sales and service jobs. These include cosmetics, clothing, kitchen supplies, home decorator items, computer repair, web site design, photography, music lessons, auto repair and many contractors. Each job involves some type of business property that is excluded or severely limited under the HO policy. Therefore, each situation may need to be covered by business insurance.

Although independent consultants are in business, too often they think their HO policy will provide coverage because they don’t have special equipment or leave their home office to run their business. Office furnishings such as laptops, PDAs, desks, chairs and file cabinets are subject to HO policy limitations. Without adjustments to the homeowner policy there may be little or no coverage for property used in a business.

Need More Insurance?
The legal form of the business may create a need for business insurance. If a limited liability company, corporation or partnership is formed, the related activity is a business and needs business coverage. Also, most HO policies will not provide coverage for employees or for any professional liability.

What can you do? First, determine if your activities qualify as a business. Then talk to Peoples First to determine what coverage is provided by the policies you currently have and what options are available to fill-in any gaps in protection.

Respondents to the survey were concerned that the amount of litigation they face will increase in the coming years due to the more complex regulatory environment. In the United States labor law issues were identified as the number one source of additional litigation; in the United Kingdom it was contract disputes.

It’s important to consult with us about your contracts and customers, and to discuss possible laws that apply to your obligations under those agreements. While it won’t be possible to insure every conceivable risk – it is still worthwhile determining if specific expenses can be covered such as the cost of investigations and some forms of fines.

We specialize in commercial insurance for businesses in a wide variety of industries. Using our excusive Risk Watch™ process is a comprehensive approach to identifying risk and developing a plan to mitigate it. Please contact us today to discuss a review of your company’s process for responding to allegations of violating state or federal statutes and requirements.

A top emerging concern are the number of new regulations coming out across a wide variety of subject areas.  How confident are you in the ability of your company to comply with new regulations?  It’s difficult to keep up with every new law or requirement – for example, those designed to protect an individual’s right to privacy – and violations can quickly result in follow-on litigation.  Corporate insurance policies, such as General Liability or Umbrella forms, frequently contain language that restricts or eliminates coverage for the expenses associated with responding to suits alleging violations of state or federal law.

Even though we are in a period of more, not less, regulations and legislation you cannot count on corporate insurance programs to indemnify you for the expenses to fight allegations or pay penalties, fines, etc.

We specialize in commercial insurance for businesses in a wide variety of industries.  Using our excusive Risk Watch™ process is a comprehensive approach to identifying risk and developing a plan to mitigate it.  Please contact us today to discuss a review of your company’s process for responding to allegations of violating state or federal statutes and requirements.

When filing an insurance claim, it is important to be truthful and to cooperate with your insurance company’s investigative procedure; not doing so may lead to a complete forfeiture of your rights. Read the following court case and learn the consequence for a retail business.

A fire in an insured’s furniture store caused damage to the merchandise, fixtures, and leasehold improvements, and the insured filed proof of loss in the amount of $129,000. Of this amount, $71,000 was for damage to merchandise “in sight” after the fire; approximately $20,000 for merchandise missing or not identified after the fire; and about $38,000 covered damage to the improvements, betterments and fixtures.

The insured and the insurance company were unable to agree upon the amount of the loss. The company conducted numerous oral examinations under oath of the insured’s principal officers and its accountant. During the last hearing, the insured announced that it was amending its proofs of loss by withdrawing the “missing merchandise” portion of its claim, reducing its total claim to $109,000.

At the same time, the insured, pursuant to policy provisions, demanded an appraisal and named its appraiser, but the insurance company refused to take part in any appraisal because of the insured’s intentional and fraudulent concealments, misrepresentations, and refusal to produce documents and information during the examination. The insurer denied liability because of the insured’s breach of warranties.

Judgment was entered in favor of the insurance company. The court stated that the policies were void because the insured had willfully refused to answer questions and produce documents. The higher court affirmed the judgment insofar as it held that the insured was not entitled to an appraisal. However, it ruled that the questions of the insured’s breach of policy provisions (their refusing to answer questions, etc.) were triable issues of fact, and the judgment was modified accordingly.

Peoples First helps its clients through simple and complex claims processes to ensure maximum, allowable benefit according to the terms and conditions of the insurance policy. Contact us should you ever be in need of assistance.

In August 2011, The National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) published a report titled, “Workers Compensation Claim Frequency.” Their analysis of claims and trends revealed a success story. The NCCI study showed that as more and more U.S. workers began using computer keyboards in the 1990s, the frequency and problem of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) became a fast-growing source of Workers’ Compensation (WC) claims throughout the U.S.

Insurance companies sought to slow this trend and reduce the number of CTS claims. They and consultants began targeting the ergonomics of work station design and other conditions that were believed to lead to CTS, providing employers and individuals with measures one could take in the work place to prevent or significantly mitigate the development of CTS. Did all this time and attention to targeting CTS pay off for the insurance companies and employers?

Success in Lowering Claim Types

Well, according to the report cited above, the frequency of Carpal Tunnel Claims has declined a successful 47% from 2005 to 2009. Virtually every type of business has the potential for some form of repetitive motion injury or for a similar problem area (e.g., back claims for commercial drivers) that affects a large number of employees. This CTS example shows that focusing on specific operational or procedural environmental issues can yield dramatic results in reducing workers’ compensation claims. The employers who implemented the preventive CTS measures, such as more ergonomic equipment and conditions for their workers, received a reward for their investment. Their efforts reduced costly WC claims and increased worker productivity.

Coordinating the development of targeted loss control and claims reduction programs requires expertise and can be tremendous work. Peoples First has expert experience with designing and implementing such programs, providing this as a service to our clients. Just as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome claims were targeted for reduction by multiple parties to the Workers’ Compensation system, and those efforts produced great outcomes, you can rely on Peoples First to help you identify and attack potential systemic issues in your workplace environment and reduce your long-term Workers’ Compensation costs.