People are more active when the weather gets warm. They participate in more sports and recreational activities. Do you have the right type and amount of insurance to be well protected against all of the things that can go wrong?
During the winter there are not as many boats out on the lakes and waterways. When summer comes around, the level of recreational boating increases exponentially. If you own a boat or a jet ski and are planning on taking it out of storage and into the water, you need to buy insurance. You pretty much have all of the same risks when you operate a boat as you have when you operate a car. If you run your boat into a pier, insurance can cover the repairs. If your boat is stolen you will not suffer a huge financial loss. Most importantly, a boat insurance policy can cover valid liability claims should you cause property damage or personal injury to another person while operating your boat.
When the weather is good and the kids are out of school, people tend to drive more. They go to amusement parks, the beach and on family vacations. The roads are more crowded and you may want to have more than your state’s minimum required amount of automobile insurance. If you don’t already have it, consider adding collision, comprehensive, roadside service, towing, and rental car reimbursement to your auto policy.
People get more active when the weather is warm. Whether you are out surfing, playing soccer, hiking, or riding a bike, you could fall and get injured. If you break an arm or need medical attention for some other reason, it is important to make sure that you are covered by medical insurance.
Most summer activities are just fun and work out just fine. However, for those cases when the unexpected happens, you will be glad you bought insurance.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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Everybody has felt that unpleasant surprise when a car comes zooming into view after being hidden in a blind spot. Older motorists are no different, and they see warning systems against this hazard as the top safety feature in newer cars, according to a new report by the MIT AgeLab and The Hartford Insurance Company. After surveying hundreds of drivers over age 50 who get behind the wheel at least three times a week, the study found that these “mature motorists” felt more confident with cars which have at least one of 10 advanced safety technologies.
Here are the top 10 safety features for older motorists (in order):
- Blind-spot warnings alert drivers when another vehicle is approaching unseen and also help with parking.
- Crash mitigation systems detect imminent collisions and can help reduce passenger injuries.
- Emergency response systems alert paramedics or other emergency personnel if there’s an accident.
- Drowsy driver alerts warn motorists when they nod off or otherwise become inattentive.
- Reverse monitoring systems help drivers (especially those with reduced flexibility) judge distances and back up safely by warning of objects behind the vehicle.
- Vehicle stability control reduces crashes by helping steer a car if it veers offline or has trouble navigating a curve.
- Lane departure warning alerts motorists when they drift from a lane.
- “Smart” headlights illuminate the road more effectively by responding to the direction the driver is steering and the vehicle’s speed.
- Voice-activated command systems allow motorists to use a car’s features without losing focus on the highway.
- Automated parking assist calculates the angles and steers the car into the space, reducing driver stress and increasing the number of potential parking spots.
How many of these safety features does your newer car have?
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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Norma is an assistant manager at a video store. After feeling very sick for a couple of days, she goes to the doctor and is diagnosed with strep throat. Since her employer provides sick time benefits, she calls the store manager and tells him she cannot work that day. He dismisses her illness as “just a sore throat” and orders her to report for work. She complies, but the strep infection takes most of a week to go away because she could not rest. On the third day, she calls in sick again, despite the manager’s obvious displeasure. Six weeks later, the manager terminates her employment, citing declining sales as the reason. Norma believes otherwise and files a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Since the great recession began in late 2007, complaints like this have become common. The EEOC reported that it received almost 100,000 job bias complaints in 2010, a new record. More than a third of them were from employees who felt their employers retaliated against them; another third were race discrimination claims. Why is this happening? Employment law experts believe the recession has a lot to do with it, as dismissed employees have had trouble finding new jobs. They also believe the EEOC has stepped up enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. However, they also point to internal problems with employers.
Some employers might perform only those activities that they believe will give them an effective legal defense should an employee sue. They write anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation policies into their employee handbooks, make supervisors attend training once a year, and then call it a day. However, these things by themselves might not be effective. Policies do no good if managers do not enforce them. Training that does not address trends such as discrimination and retaliation complaints will not stop them from happening. In addition, if managers do not monitor whether this training changes supervisors’ behavior, supervisors might conclude that the company is not serious about it.
Employment Practices Liability insurance covers an employer’s legal liability for wrongful acts against employees, including discrimination and retaliation. Insurance underwriters will look at an employer’s policies and training practices, but they will also consider its claim history. Underwriters will be wary of insuring employers with a record of frequent complaints against them. If they offer coverage at all, they will charge higher premiums to account for the perceived higher risk.
To prevent claims and keep insurance premiums low, employers should consider these measures:
- Study financial results to determine how much these types of claims have cost or might cost in the future in terms of settlements, legal costs, time more profitably spent on other matters, workplace morale, insurance costs and other areas.
- Ensure that you have strong policies in place against discrimination and retaliation.
- Require supervisors and managers to attend training to prevent these kinds of claims. Include in the content of the training discussions of what is and is not permissible when it comes to discrimination and retaliation. Make it clear that performance evaluations will include incidents of discriminatory behavior.
- Create a workplace culture that does not tolerate illegal activities of any kind. Senior managers should conduct themselves in ways that model the behaviors they want to see from subordinates.
Experts say that recessions always breed increased discrimination complaints against employers. However, that does not have to be the case with every employer. Effective training costs money, but that cost is far less than the cost of insurance deductibles, higher premiums, demoralized workforces, and damaged reputations. Discrimination and retaliation claims hurt a business’s bottom line. Preventing them makes both economic and moral sense.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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A sharknado is not a specifically named peril on a standard homeowners insurance policy. But would your insurer pay up anyway if, as in the instant cult classic Syfy TV movie, a giant tornado blew in from the ocean and dumped thousands of man-eating sharks on your neighborhood?
Or, to put it a bit more bluntly, if–in spite of being blown out of its habitat and short of breath–a great white aimed its massive jaws at your left bicep and tore it off, would you get reimbursed?
We asked folks at the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group, for their take on the issue. The considered opinion of several experts, including their chief economist, was yes–for the most part.
“A tornado is a wind event,” says Mike Barry, vice president of media relations. Wind events, including hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones and other such calamities, are covered under a standard policy. But a falling shark?
“It would be covered, yes, as a falling object,” Barry confirms. In case you were wondering, damage from an errant asteroid would be covered by your homeowners insurance under the same principle.
And if your car insurance included comprehensive coverage, your car or truck would be protected against damage from a sharknado. (Barry notes that comprehensive coverage protects in the event of “contact with animals, such as birds or deer;” but why quibble over details like fur or feathers?)
As for the arm that got munched by that ferocious flying fish, you’d have to file a claim under your health insurance policy. If, however, you owned the shark and it bit someone else, you would be covered by liability insurance through your homeowners policy. From an insurance perspective, it’s not so different from a bite by a really big, finned dog.
What to do afterward
Of course, in the aftermath of a sharknado, there would be so much more to consider. You wouldn’t want all that shark meat go to waste, so you’d need to check out Consumer Reports Ratings of chainsaws and kitchen knives, not to mention freezers. And what better way to celebrate your survival than with a magnificent slab of marinated mako cooked on one of our top-rated grills, accompanied by a cold glass of a best-in-class craft beer?
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Everyone wants to hit the water now that summer is here. Pontoons, kayaks, sailboats, motorboats, and the like can be found everywhere. As with everything, safety measures need to be in place before your boat hits the water.
- Pay attention to the weather before you head out. No one likes to get caught in a storm. And certainly no one wants to be on the water in a thunderstorm.
- Do you have the proper equipment for your guests and your boat? For boats with engines make sure you have enough gas for a roundtrip.
- Don’t overload your boat. I know it’s going to be hard to keep your guests at a minimum, but if you don’t everyone can be swimming.
- Have lifejackets for everyone. Sure they are big and bulky, but they’ll save lives.
- Don’t drink and boat. Be the designated boater of the party. Everyone will thank you for it.
- Pay attention. I’m sure you wouldn’t want anyone to run into you and the best way to avoid that is by paying attention, cause someone else might not be.
If you are heading out on the water this summer, you need to make sure you are fully insured. Most homeowners insurance policies won’t cover boating incidents.
Contact our office today for a review of your policies.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
Sources: http://www.discoverboating.com/beginner/safety/tips.aspx and http://www.coit.com/blog/boating-safety-tips
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When your insurance company issued your Workers Compensation policy, you paid an estimated premium for the term of the policy. This rate was based on the nature of your business and your estimated payroll. However, once your policy expires, the insurance company conducts a premium audit to gather data about your actual costs for the applicable policy term. If there is any shortfall, you are responsible for the difference between the original estimate and actual premium.
Naturally, you want to keep the difference between the estimated and actual rate as low as possible. Consider the following list of tips:
- Have all necessary records available for the auditor.
- Break down your payroll by classification code so that the auditor doesn’t have to classify any unexplained payroll. Leaving the decision up to the auditor could result in having the payroll placed in the highest classification.
- Separate overtime wages from regular wages. This allows the auditor to discount the overtime wages back to regular wages.
- Exclude tips, severance pay, meal and travel advances and bonuses paid for inventions, because none of these are included in Workers Compensation premium calculations.
- Divide uninsured subcontractor billings into material and labor costs since you are only required to pay premiums for labor. If you don’t have an actual split, figure on 50% for each. One important exception to this is for heavy equipment operators who are employed as subcontractors. In this case, use a third of their total billings as reportable labor costs.
- Don’t include short- or long-term disability payments in the data given to the auditor because these are excluded from premium calculations.
- Be sure to cap all covered officers’ payroll at the maximum for your state.
- Exclude wages paid to employees who are on active military duty because their wages aren’t included in premium calculations.
- Present the auditor with all Certificates of Insurance for covered subcontractors so you aren’t charged for them.
- Classify all employees in the lower-rated payroll classifications if you aren’t sure about where they should be classified. However, you should never deliberately misclassify an employee.
- Be sure you make the auditor aware of all employees who do only clerical work and are physically located away from the shop floor. These employees qualify to be classified in the lower rated clerical codes. If your clerical staff isn’t physically separate from the shop, you should consider changing their work location.
Contact our office for more information.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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People are more active when the weather gets warm. They participate in more sports and recreational activities. Do you have the right type and amount of insurance to be well protected against all of the things that can go wrong?
