|
News
& Links
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August, 2008
Company Equipment Theft- A Sign of The Times
By: Bill Hodgkins
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc
With
today’s current economic climate, equipment thefts (and thefts in
general) are reportedly on the rise.
Hardly a day goes by when you don’t hear of theft on the
six o’clock news. Nothing
can ruin your day like the knowledge that a thief has stolen some of
your company equipment. Whether
it’s a $900 pool cleaner or a $55,000 excavator, the loss of
equipment is financially damaging to your company in a number of
ways. Not only do you have the
cost to replace the equipment, but you also have the loss of production
(including the associated employee wages) as well as the cost of
renting new equipment until you can replace the stolen item. If the piece of equipment stolen is
critical in the construction process you could have a slowdown in not
only the job that the equipment was servicing, but all the other jobs
it was intended to be used on.
So what can
you do to prevent equipment theft?
The first thing you should do is to maintain an accurate and
complete inventory list of all of your equipment. This list should include: year, make, model and color, product
ID number or serial number (the full serial number), engine and
transmission numbers, and some type of company id number and its hidden
location on the equipment. This
list will aid law enforcement in identifying your equipment if
recovered as well as registering the equipment if stolen in national
and manufacturer theft databases.
This list should be updated regularly (multiple times a year)
and shared with your insurance company to make sure their list of
covered equipment matches your list.
Now that you
have your list complete, you should make sure that all your jobsites
are secure and not inviting to would-be thieves. Some ways you can make your jobsites
secure are: conducting
unannounced jobsite visits and checking for anything suspicious,
maintaining a list of employees authorized to be on your jobsite,
keeping disposable cameras readily available to capture suspicious
individuals, performing background checks prior to hiring, making sure
equipment is locked up or disabled prior to ending the work day, and
making sure debris is not piled up around security fencing allowing
thieves to easily climb over the fence.
A little
prevention and planning can go a long way in thwarting would-be thieves
from disrupting your workflow and cash flow. Don’t be complacent and think
that theft won’t happen to you, because unfortunately, theft can
happen to anyone at any time.
For more information, contact your insurance agent.
July, 2008
The Dividends Are Here!!!!
By: Bill Hodgkins
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc
Attention all
members that are Insurance by Ken Brown,
Inc clients and are insured through the Amerisure Insurance
Company. The FSPA member
dividends have just been declared and your checks are on their way! This should be a welcome sight to
everyone considering the current economic climate. Amerisure and Insurance by Ken Brown has just declared a total dividend
of $384,694! This amount will be
distributed to 258 eligible members.
With this declaration, this brings the total amount of dividends
returned to the members of the FSPA to nearly $2,000,000 over the past
five years. In addition to the
dividend return to the membership, Amerisure and Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc contribute to the general
operating fund of the FSPA on a quarterly basis. This contribution helps the FSPA to
continue all of it’s member services and helps defray the overall
cost to the members. So as you
can see, your partication in the FSPA insurance program not only
benefits you, but also benefits your Association. All of the members are to be
congratulated because without your diligent work to operate safe and
profitable businesses, these dividends would not be possible.
It should be
noted that in addition to the dividends and FSPA contribution, the Amerisure
and Insurance by Ken Brown,
Inc insurance program is now able to offer even more coverage than ever
before. This year we have been
able to add limited pollution coverage as well as the ability to increase
the per occurrence pool popping limits.
For those
businesses that are not receiving their dividends, you should take note
that in order to be eligible to receive dividends you must be a member
of the FSPA at the time the dividend is calculated and declared. In addition, you must be insured
through the Amerisure Insurance Company and your agent must be
Insurance by Ken Brown,
Inc.
Lastly,
dividends are only awarded to those companies that have a loss
experience that meets the eligibility requirements of the program.
For more
information on the FSPA dividend program, please feel free to contact
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc.
June, 2008
Hurricane Season 2008- Are you prepared?
By: Bill Hodgkins
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc
Now that we
are at the start of hurricane season again, you should be preparing for
what could be a very active hurricane season. Experts predict that 2008 could be another
year of increased Hurricane activity.
Even though 2006 and 2007 was relatively mild compared to 2004
& 2005, the natural warming cycle that the Atlantic
Ocean is currently experiencing can still fuel many
tropical systems in 2008. While
we can’t stop the storms, we can be prepared.
Beyond
preparing your home or business with necessary items such as water,
non-perishable food, necessary medicine, and other emergency supplies,
your insurance program should be evaluated as well. One of the first places to start
looking at is your covered property values on your policy(s). Cost of goods continue to rise at
dramatic paces and while you may have had accurate replacement cost
values on your insurance policy at one time, if you haven’t
raised your policy values in a few years, you may be underinsured. If you are unsure if your values are
accurate, it is a very good idea to get your property appraised. An appraisal will tell you the
replacement cost of your property should there be a loss. Compare the appraisal with what you
are insured for and see if you need to increase your coverage. Another area to consider is
purchasing flood insurance.
Hurricane Katrina caused tons of damage in the form of flood/storm
surge to areas that had never experienced a flood. Flood insurance is a separate
coverage, backed by the Federal Government, and is most likely not on
your standard property policy.
If you are a builder or you install any new equipment at a
jobsite, than you need to be aware of your materials at your jobsite
that haven’t been installed yet.
What if you had a heat pump or a stack of pvc piping at the
jobsite that wasn’t installed yet and a Hurricane blew it
away? Coverage is available to
your property while it is awaiting installation in the form of a policy
called an installation floater.
Finally, if you own a retail store or you manufacture goods of
any kind, a coverage you should consider is business interruption
coverage. The purpose of this
coverage is to replace the operating income of your business during the
time your property is damaged beyond use by a covered peril. If you have this coverage and your
store is damaged by a Hurricane, than this coverage can soften the
monetary blow experienced because your store was shut down because of the
damage. Make sure this coverage
includes what is referred to as “extra expense”. Extra expense will provide you with
money to replace the “extra” monetary expense you incur to
keep your business operational (temporary location rent, temporary
telephones, moving expenses, etc...)
Hurricanes
are an unfortunate reality for those of us living in Florida. While they can’t be stopped, we
can lessen their impact on our lives by being properly prepared. Reviewing your insurance polices to
make sure they are up-to-date should be on your Hurricane preparedness
checklist alongside water, food, and other emergency supplies. For help on any insurance questions,
please contact your insurance agent.
May, 2008
Company Vehicles and the Liability That Surrounds Them
By: Bill Hodgkins
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc
It is quite a common practice for companies to
provide their employees with vehicles to handle the business of the
company. While this may be a necessary practice, have you really
thought about some of the serious legal ramifications and costs that
could be incurred by you if you put the wrong person behind the wheel
of one of your company automobiles? A term that you should always have
at the front of your mind when allowing an employee to drive your
vehicle is the term negligent entrustment. Negligent entrustment is a
legal term that means you trusted someone with something dangerous (an
automobile for example), and you knew or should have known better than
to trust that person. A prime example of an untrustworthy driver is one
with a poor motor vehicle report. Many courts throughout the country
have found employers to have negligently entrusted a vehicle to an
employee due to the driver’s poor motor vehicle report.
Consequently, when the employer is sued due to an accident caused by
their employee, they have been found guilty and have had to pay big
dollars due to the negligent entrustment action asserted against them.
What’s more is, even if you don’t necessarily know the
employee’s driving record, you could still be held responsible.
There have been many cases wherein the employer was held responsible
for their employee even though the employer did not know the driving
history of the employee. Another example of employers being held liable
for the acts of their employees comes in the form of cellular phone
usage. It is becoming more and more evident that cell phones are a huge
distraction to drivers of automobiles and more and more courts are
finding employees (and their employers) liable in accidents simply
because of cell phone usage.
The best course of action for any employer is to
carefully scrutinize the motor vehicle record of each and every
employee that drives a company automobile. In addition, a carefully
crafted, written company policy on company vehicle operating
procedures, that includes a policy on cell phone usage, is critical to
managing your company automobile usage. Insurance companies often look
at driver motor vehicle reports of company drivers, but it is
ultimately the employer’s responsibility to carefully screen all
of their drivers. Some insurance companies will also review an
employers written automobile policy (many will help you set one up),
but some do not. It is therefore imperative for the employer to take
the initiative and implement a written automobile policy before an
accident occurs and you find yourself in front of a jury of twelve of
your peers.
April, 2008
Is Your Subcontractor’s Coverage in Force?
By: Bill Hodgkins
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc
Attention All Contractors! Just because one of your
subcontractors has supplied you with a certificate of insurance three
months ago stating that they have workers compensation coverage in
force, doesn’t mean that by the time they are on your jobsite
they still have the coverage. Certificates of Insurance are usually
issued when a policy renews or when the policy is first written. What
will happen though if by the time that subcontractor is on your
jobsite, they haven’t paid their premium to the insurance
company? What happens if that subcontractor, who has just lost their
coverage by not paying their premium, brings their employees onto your
jobsite and one of them is injured? According to State Statutes, you
the contractor then become liable for the injuries of that injured
employee of your subcontractor. You as the main contractor heading up
the job are ultimately responsible for anything that happens on the
jobsite. Because your subcontractor has lost his/her workers
compensation coverage and is therefore unable to have their employees
injuries covered, you as the contractor then become responsible for
their injuries. Just as scary a scenario is if an inspector from the
State Bureau of Workers’ Compensation happens to be on your
jobsite and finds that one of your subcontractors is working without
their proper insurance. If this happens, the inspector will shut down
not only the jobsite he/she’s at, but also any other jobsite that
subcontractor may be connected to.
So, if that subcontractor is working at three of your
jobsites, then all three will be shut down. So how do you help prevent
this from happening? Well, you can either require a new certificate of
insurance before the start of every job (which is a time consuming
proposition) or you can simply go on the internet a check online with
the Florida Department of Financial Services Workers Compensation
Database. It’s a free public database and can be found at
www.fldfs.com/WCAPPS/Compliance_POC/wPages/query.asp. This database is
updated daily and will tell you if your subcontractor’s workers
compensation coverage is in force or not. You can also check to see if
they have a valid exemption or not as well. Using this tool daily can
help prevent you from having to pay for unexpected medical bills of
uninsured subcontractors or from having to deal with unexpected
shutdowns of your jobsites. For more information, please contact your
agent.
March, 2008
Florida’s Behind the Scenes Fight on Fraud
By: Bill Hodgkins
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc
By now, most business owners have probably heard that
workers’ compensation rates decreased yet again on January 1st.
This is the fifth such rate decrease since 2003. While much of the
decrease can be attributed to declining claims and less attorney
involvement, a bit of the credit can also go to the State of Florida for
fighting fraud that was very much un-checked before 2003. Through the
combined efforts of the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Fraud and
the Bureau of Compliance the two agencies arrested 233 individuals from
2006-2007. The arrests came as a result of over 660 investigations into
workers’ compensation fraud. In addition to the arrests, the
Bureaus collected $254 million in fraud restitution. The arrests ranged
from claimant fraud, to working without workers’ compensation
insurance, to purposely evading paying premiums. Some were even
arrested for using falsified certificates of insurance.
While the power of arrest is oftentimes all that is
needed to ensure compliance, the State has the authority to go even
further to ensure workers’ compensation compliance. The State can
close jobsites due to even a hint of workers’ compensation fraud
by even just one individual/company on a particular jobsite. From
2006-2007 the State issued 2,517 stop work orders, which generated over
$75 million in penalty fines. Also as a result of the stop work orders,
more than 6,700 workers were added to workers’ compensation
polices and generated $12.3 million in additional premiums. These
numbers are important to those that strive to always be in compliance
and are frustrated to hear of a competitor that is skating around the
law and undercutting the competition.
The State has been able to make this all possible
because since 2003 they have hired 35 more compliance officers bringing
the total investigator count to 71 located in over 18 different cities.
In fact, between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007, the Bureau’s
officers closed a total of 24,800 cases. Hat’s off to the State
for doing there part in ensuring Florida’s
workforce is properly protected from workplace injuries!
*Statistics received from Florida Underwriter
Publication
February, 2008
Damage to Your Work by Subcontractor Ruling
By: Bill Hodgkins
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc
Recently, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the
standard post-1998 ISO General Liability policy does treat damage to a
contractor’s “work” if the damage was caused by a
Subcontractor working on the contractor’s “work” as
an occurrence, thereby opening up the policy for potential coverage.
Before this ruling, only claims brought in District Two court (Charlotte, Collier, Desoto, Glades, Hardee,
Hendry, Highlands, Hillsborough, Lee, Manatee, Pasco,
Pinellas, Polk, and Sarasota
Counties) for
this type of damage was considered an occurrence. In all other counties
however, lower courts had ruled that damage to a contractor’s
“work” by a subcontractor was NOT an occurrence and
therefore was not eligible for coverage. What is meant by all of this?
Say you are building a swimming pool and you have subcontracted out the
shotcrete portion of the construction. The subcontractor finishes
shooting the pool and a week later the pool shell collapses in on
itself. This ruling clarifies that damage to the pool shell itself in
this scenario could be considered an occurrence and therefore could be
considered for coverage (previously it was not considered an occurrence).
Conversely, any resultant damage (i.e. to the home) has always been
considered an occurrence and was eligible for coverage. Bodily injury
to third parties was also always considered to be an occurrence. This
ruling was only designed to clarify the “damage to your
work” provision of the standard ISO general liability policy.
It remains to be seen how the insurance companies will respond to this
ruling because it was never the intent of insurance companies to cover
damage to a contractor’s “work” caused by a
subcontractor. Some carriers have indicated that they will be placing
an exclusion on their general liability policies called “Damage
to Work Performed by Subcontractors on Your Behalf” to clarify
their policy intent. For more information on this and other insurance
topics, please call your insurance agent.
January, 2008
Harassment in the Workplace (and other employment-related offenses)
By: Bill Hodgkins
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc
Harassment and other employment-related offense suits
are on the rise, even for the small business. That’s why this
month’s insurance update revolves around employee-related
lawsuits such as sexual harassment, wrongful termination,
discrimination, and other employment-related offenses. Ask yourself as a
business owner, “Am I covered from a lawsuit if my employee sues
me for wrongful termination.” “Am I covered if I am sued
because one of my employees harasses my receptionist or my office
manager?” Chances are the answer to both of those questions will
be “no, you are not covered.” In most instances,
employment-related offenses are specifically excluded under the
commercial general liability policy. In addition, employment-related
offenses are not covered under a workers compensation policy either. So
where do you turn for the coverage? The answer lies in the insurance
coverage known as Employment Related Practices Liability or EPLI
for short. EPLI covers employers against lawsuits relating to
employment such as discrimination, harassment, violation of Federal
Employment Acts, etc. It also covers, and this is the big point, the
defense of the claim. The actual monetary damage of a claim may be
comparatively small, but the defense of an employment- related claim
can be monstrous. You may know in your heart of hearts that you had
proper grounds to fire an employee, but you will still have to defend
yourself if that employee files a claim against you and your company.
Employment-related offenses can take years to defend; which leads to
years of paying attorney fees. The defense of a claim can literally
bankrupt your business. According to a survey conducted in the year
2000 by Tillinghast, the average employment-related suit costs
$350,000. Something else to consider: no business is immune from a
lawsuit. Whether you have 5, 50 or 500 employees, every business can be
sued by an employee for violation of their rights or for wrongful
termination or for any employment-related offense. Cases of
employment-relates offenses are on the rise so now is the time to talk
to your agent about employment related practices liability and how it
can protect your business before disaster strikes your business.
December 7, 2007
Are You in Danger of Losing Your Exemption?
By: Bill Hodgkins
Insurance by Ken Brown, Inc
This is a warning to all the corporate officers or
members of an LLC out there currently exempted from workers’
compensation coverage. Unless you filed your annual report with the
Division of Corporations, your exemption may have been revoked and you
may not even know it.
May 1st is the annual filing date for all corporate Annual Reports. One
of the requirements of your workers’ compensation exemption is
that your company is in good standing with the Division of
Corporations. In September, the State dissolved thousands of corporations
and LLC’s because they did not file their Annual Reports. The
Division of Workers’ Compensation reviewed that list and last
month began revoking over 36,000 exemptions. If your exemption is
revoked and you don’t have workers’ compensation coverage,
you could be breaking the law. If you continue to work, you could face
some stiff fines for violating the State Workers’ Compensation
laws. The law reads if you operated a construction company with one or
more employees (a non-exempted officer counts as an employee), then you
are required to carry workers’ compensation coverage.
This is also particularly important to any contractor that subcontracts
work out. Your subcontractor may fall into the above category and may
have had their exemption recently revoked. A great way to check the
status of an exemption and/or workers’ compensation coverage is
to go to the website:
www.fldfs.com/WCAPPS/Compliance_POC/wPages/query.asp
This site will allow you to check the status of exemptions, see if they
are active or revoked, and also check the status of workers’
compensation coverage for any entity operating in Florida. For more information on
workers’ compensation coverage and exemptions, please contact
your insurance agent.
|
