Do you know that Scurich Insurance Services, located in California, is on some of your favorite Social Media Sites? All of our helpful and friendly agents at Scurich Insurance Services want to invite you to connect with us so that we can get to know YOU better and provide more outlets for you to learn about all the different insurance related topics. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn today and make sure that you also subscribe to receive our latest Blog Posts to your inbox.
Read more
Overtime is highly popular among employees who want to squeeze those few extra dollars out of the week for a job well done. It’s far less popular among employers worried about longer work weeks stretching a skimpy budget even thinner. In many industries, overtime has become a way of life. However, eager employees and employers aren’t the only ones interested in the type of work being performed “after hours.” Workers Comp insurance companies and the IRS have developed their own standards for overtime pay — and these rules could mean trouble for companies that violate them.
Here’s an example of a company that decided to ignore the regulations set by Comp insurers and the IRS. The owner of a New Hampshire trucking business decided that instead of confusing himself and everyone else about overtime pay for some of his workers, he would “reward” them by paying the difference in cash under the table. To make a long story short, the owner got slapped with a slew of federal conspiracy charges from the IRS and the Transportation Department — not to mention an angry Workers Comp insurance company.
The bottom line: Creative schemes to cut Comp costs are never an acceptable alternative. Businesses buy this coverage to protect both themselves and their worker in the event of a workplace illness or injury, regardless of whether it occurred during the regular work week or while working overtime.
Make a call to any of our insurance professionals at Scurich Insurance and learn what your first step is in designing and maintaining an affordable Workers Compensation program that can offer the protection you need without incurring legal penalties. To learn more about this and similar topics, follow us on Twitter.
Read more
If you have a post-injury response program for your business, you probably know that it both slashes Workers Comp costs drastically and helps get employees back on the job — quickly.
The more injuries your workers suffer on the job, and the longer they’re off, the more you’ll pay for Comp coverage (not to mention their lost productivity). However, according to a recent insurance trade press report, an effective program that focuses on containing costs after work injuries can cut these expenses in half.
The report recommends that a post-injury program should include a promise that an injured employee will receive the best medical care available and will return to the job only after they’re cleared to do so. What’s more, says the report, the program must be applied consistently, deal with every injury, and list “who reports injuries, who an injury is reported to, who transports the employee to medical providers, and how medical restrictions are obtained.” The plan should be in a format that’s easy for managers, supervisors, and employees to understand.
A post-injury program might also include creating a transitional-duty job to help an injured employee ease back into the swing of things. There are many other steps involved in creating and carrying out a successful plan.
To learn how you can avoid becoming another Workers Comp horror story, contact our insurance professionals at Scurich Insurance Services today. To learn more about Scurich Insurance Services, follow us on Twitter.
Read more
The American melting pot is fast becoming a smorgasbord of distinctive cultures. During the past 10 years, more than half (51%) of new entrants into the U.S. workforce have been minorities. The next 10 years will see a dramatic increase in minority workers, many of whom might lack English proficiency and familiarity with basic workplace safety precautions. To help you meet the safety needs of an increasingly diverse workforce — especially where language barriers are an issue — we’d recommend these guidelines:
- Speak slowly, explain fully, and repeat important points several times.
- Choose simple words and avoid technical jargon (whenever possible).
- Use a translator with groups of employees who have only minimal English skills.
- Team up non-English-speaking employees with English-speaking employees.
- Provide handouts in the language(s) that trainees speak and read.
- Make sure that workers are able to understand written materials. Don’t assume that they can read forms, signs, written directions, etc.
- Stress the importance of following safety regulations and policies.
- Show employees how to use safety protections and explain why they’re important.
- Demonstrate while you speak and use pictures, diagrams, props, etc., to supplement your words.
- Follow up on the job to make sure that employees properly apply what they’ve learned in training.
All of the helpful and friendly agents at Scurich Insurance Service care that your business has the best California Worker’s Compensation Policy available. Contact any of our agents at Scurich Insurance, located in Watsonville, to have your questions answered regarding your Worker’s Compensation Policy!
[formidable id=15 title=true]
Read more
While you are planning out a remodeling project on your home this fall, have you considered how the cost of the remodel is going to affect you. It is fairly easy to price and get a list together of who much the materials are going to cost you, but have you considered the cost of any mistakes or problems that you may encounter along the way. While it has been said that when planing out the cost of a remodeling you should include an extra 20-30% extra of the total cost for any unexpected costs that come your way, there are 8 types of costs that can catch you off guard.
- Higher Property Taxes: If you are putting a major addition on your house, you will be increasing the assessed value of your home and that means that you will have the chance of having a larger tax bill to pay. An Assessor gets a copy of your building permit application and have the ability to determine if the project will increase your homes value upon completion.
- Hidden Horrors: If you find unexpected guests living in your homes walls while you are starting your home remodel project, you will have pest control costs to add into your budget. Making sure that your prepare yourself for any: mold, faulty wiring or plumbing, asbestos or any other problems that may lie under the surface of your home is always the smart idea because you do not know what lies beneath your home till you start to take parts of it down.
- Offsite storage: If you do not have a place to store the items of the room that you are remodeling then you will have to find somewhere else to store the contents of the room and that can end up being costly. Depending on how much and how big the items are, it has the possibility of costing you hundreds or dollars a month to store them elsewhere.
- Building code quirks: Depending on where you live, the building codes will vary and these will mean that you will have a set things that you will need to have done before the permit will go through. Knowing what these requirements are will save you a lot of money especially if it means that you will need to hire a contractor to do the work for you.
- Utility bills: You should expect your utility costs to go up while you are remodeling your home because of the extra electricity, heating and cooling costs that you will have going on through out the project.
- Eating out: If you are remodeling your kitchen you will not have the ability to cook meals like usual, and it can end up being costly eating out while the construction is going on.
- Pet boarding: Depending on the type of pets or how they are you might have to pay to have them stay elsewhere while the construction is going on for their safety.
- Dumpsters and portable toilets: Seeing these items in your contractors estimate should not surprise you because they will help your contractor keep and maintain clean job site during the construction.
Scurich Insurance Services did not originally write this content.
Read more
One of the true values of Workers Compensation law is the “exclusive remedy” provision to the employer. Basically, in return for providing coverage for injuries arising from the job, this provision protects you from being sued by the employee for the injury, regardless of who has been negligent. Thus, the benefits provided automatically by Workers Compensation become the “exclusive remedy” for the injury.
However, there’s one way to bypass this barrier to employer liability. It’s called “third party over.” Let’s say that an employee is injured when the scaffolding on which he’s standing collapses. Workers Compensation pays the claim, so he can’t sue the employer. However he chooses to sue the scaffolding company, alleging improper equipment and installation. He wins a judgment, which leads the scaffolding company to sue the employer/contractor, claiming improper usage of the scaffolding. In effect, the employer/contractor is being sued for damages arising from injury to its own employee — just what Workers Compensation is designed to prevent.
Is such a suit legal? Yes. Because the scaffolding company isn’t the injured person’s employer, there’s no prohibition against his suing them — and Workers Compensation law clearly can’t prohibit the scaffolding company from claiming against the contractor, either contractually or by alleging negligence.
If you face such a situation, would your Workers Compensation coverage protect you (because the claim originated from an injury to an employee)? Or would you have to turn to your General Liability coverage, as you would when sued by an outside party? The answer: Either policy might cover this situation, depending on the basis of the suit. For truly comprehensive protection, you need to carry several types of insurance. No one policy does it all. A claim that might fall just outside the purview of one policy can be either a disaster, or simply a hand-off to another type of coverage.
Keeping your entire umbrella of insurance protection current and coordinated might seem complicated — but that’s where Scurich Insurance Services, located in California, comes in. When it comes to risk management and insurance, helping you focus on what you do best is what we do best.
Read more
