The challenge in running a non-profit is that it still takes money and resources. Just because you’re not interested in getting rich off of this idea doesn’t mean that money is not an issue. If a worker suffers an injury on the job, their compensation has to come from somewhere.
Something that may come as a surprise to many: Volunteers are not typically covered by worker’s compensation policies. In more states than not, worker’s compensation only covers, well, workers. If you are paying actual employees at food banks workers’ compensation insurance will cover their injuries. Likewise Meals on Wheels insurance policy will cover the organization’s workers. If you’re working with unpaid volunteers this is not the case.
Your volunteers may wind up covered by a general liability claim, but this is not always the case. If you want to make sure that your people are covered no matter what, then you’re probably going to have to bring them in as paid employees, or at the very least, under an internship program that includes medical and worker’s compensation benefits and so on.
A problem with relying exclusively on volunteers for your workforce is that you don’t really get to pick your staff from the best and brightest. Many who volunteer will bring their A-game, they will take the task just as seriously as they would take their day job. This isn’t always the case, unfortunately, and without any payment or compensation or even the safety net of worker’s compensation to draw talent, you wind up taking what you can get.
Non-profit doesn’t mean nobody gets paid. Non-profits are usually devoted to a humanitarian cause and their primary concern is not making anybody rich, but making a difference, but that doesn’t mean that everyone involved is simply donating time and resources without compensation. Typically you’re going to have benefactors and other income streams that will allow you to hire qualified people for your food bank, and provide them with the appropriate coverage they need in order to provide them, and you, with peace of mind.
To put it bluntly: a volunteer force is a great idea in concept. In reality, you’re asking some of the kindest, most generous people in the world to foot the bill themselves if they get hurt on the job. That’s a recipe for, if not a lawsuit, at least a guilty conscience. The most effective way to make a difference in the long term is to get some money behind your cause and treat your workers like you would paid employees at any other business.
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Buffer Liability Insurance is a useful risk transfer tool as the P&C insurance cycle transitions from a soft to hard market. A “soft” market is ideal for consumers, as it is the best time to find insurance coverage and the lowest premiums.
On the other hand, a “hard market” occurs as insurance companies, who have had to pay out a lot in claims for catastrophic events, subsequently increase premiums and decrease the amount of coverage they’re willing to underwrite. For the last two decades, the insurance industry has largely experienced a soft market period, and Buffer Liability Insurance was usually not needed. However, with today’s changing market, this insurance is becoming more popular.
Buffer Liability Insurance Basics
Buffer Liability Insurance is any layer of insurance (or risk retention) that resides between the primary layer and the excess layers. For example, if the primary layer coverage is $100,000 and the excess layer attachment point is $500,000, a buffer layer of $400,000 is required. In the past, if you had both Primary Layer Insurance and Excess Insurance, there was essentially no gap between those coverages; if your primary layer capped at $1 million, the excess layer insurance would kick in at that point.
However, now insurance carriers are less willing to write high primary insurance limits. That, coupled with a hardening market, will make excess insurance more expensive to purchase; this means the excess layer will kick in at a significantly higher point than the primary cap. This creates a gap between the primary layer and the excess layer, indicating the need for Buffer Liability Insurance. The wider the gap, the more Buffer Liability coverage that’s needed.
Who Should Consider Buffer Liability Insurance?
Buffer Liability Insurance is important for large risks that can be difficult to insure, such as the following:
- Truckers, emergency vehicles and auto fleets with more than 500 vehicles
- Employers who self-insure their workers’ compensation
- Companies with a poor loss history that want liability coverage over the usual primary layer
- Condo owners and apartment building owners who have Habitational Insurance
As the insurance market begins to harden, protect your business from all of the risks that can occur. To learn more about adding Buffer Liability Insurance to your current insurance coverage, contact us today.
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Taking the time to understand the language and symbols on your commercial automobile insurance policy may seem like trying to learn a new language, but it is important to fully understand your policy so you know how you’re protected.
Here are a few general guidelines that are helpful when deciphering your policy:
- Each symbol represents the type of vehicle protected by the applicable liability or physical damage limit.
- The symbol may apply to the type of vehicle covered or the vehicle’s ownership status.
- The various terms within your policy have specific definitions that you should become familiar with.
- The symbols are different on coverage for liability as compared to physical damage coverage.
Liability Coverage Auto Symbols
1 = Broadest symbol; covers any “auto.” (ANY AUTO)
2 = Covers any “auto” owned by the insured, including those attained after the policy begins. It also applies to trailers used with owned vehicles. (OWNED AUTOS ONLY)
3 = Covers only private passenger “autos” owned by the insured. (OWNED PRIVATE PASSENGER AUTOS ONLY)
4 = Covers all “autos,” other than private passenger vehicles owned by the insured. This includes vehicles that are attained after the policy begins and also applies to trailers used by an owned vehicle. (OWNED AUTOS OTHER THAN PRIVATE PASSENGER AUTOS ONLY)
5 = Applies to “autos” owned by the insured that are garaged or licensed in no-fault benefit law states. (OWNED AUTOS SUBJECT TO NO-FAULT)
6 = Applies to “autos” that are garaged or licensed in states where uninsured motorist coverage is required. (OWNED AUTOS SUBJECT TO A COMPULSORY UNINSURED MOTORIST LAW)
7 = Covers only the “autos” and trailers listed on the policy. (SPECIFICALLY DESCRIBED AUTOS)
8 = Covers “autos” that the insured leases, hires, rents or borrows for their own use. It does not cover “autos” that are leased, hired, rented or borrowed for employee or family member usage. (HIRED AUTOS ONLY)
9 = Covers “autos” that the insured does not own, lease, hire, rent or borrow, but are used for business purposes. These “autos” may be owned by employees or family members, but must be used for the insured’s business or personal matters. (NON-OWNED AUTOS ONLY)
Physical Damage Coverage Automobile Symbols
1 = Covers “autos” owned by the insured, including those attained after the policy begins. (OWNED AUTOS ONLY)
2 = Covers only private passenger “autos” that are owned by the insured. (OWNED PRIVATE PASSENGER AUTOS ONLY)
3 = Covers all “autos” other than private passenger vehicles owned by the insured. (OWNED AUTOS OTHER THAN PRIVATE PASSENGER AUTOS ONLY)
4 = Applies to “autos” that are listed on the policy. This also covers trailers used with a listed vehicle. (SPECIFICALLY DESCRIBED AUTOS)
5 = Covers “autos” that the insured leases, hires, rents or borrows for his/her own use. This does not cover “autos” leased, hired, rented or borrowed for use by an employee or family member. (HIRED AUTOS ONLY).
At times, there may not be an applicable symbol for the type of coverage provided. In those instances, a special symbol is used and added to the policy by way of an endorsement. The endorsement will contain a complete description and explanation of the symbol’s meaning, and the symbol will also appear with the applicable coverages on the policy.
It is imperative that you understand these symbols to ensure that you are properly covered. Consult Scurich Insurance today to learn more automobile insurance policy symbols, their meanings and how this applies to your coverage.
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Directors and officers are responsible for making the tough choices that can make—or break—a company’s fortunes. In doing so, they must consider the best interests of employees, customers and shareholders, while also keeping in mind corporate best practices. Limited or imperfect information and tight deadlines add to the overall complexity of the decision-making process and can lead to poor outcomes or even outright mistakes.
D&O insurance protects executives against the consequences of any alleged or actual “wrongful acts” they commit while performing regular supervisory duties.
To hire and retain talented directors and officers, companies need to give them the freedom to make corporate decisions without the fear of being personally liable for losses stemming from those decisions. Directors & officers (D&O) insurance protects executives against the consequences of any alleged or actual “wrongful acts” they commit while performing regular supervisory duties. Without D&O coverage, executives’ personal assets are at risk in the event of a lawsuit.
A class action lawsuit was brought against a mining company and its board of directors, accusing them of allegedly misrepresenting the cost of construction on one of their mines. When the costs exceeded the initial prediction and were projected to keep increasing, share prices plunged. The suit was filed on behalf of shareholders that had bought shares at the prices calculated after the construction costs were misrepresented. Defense costs reached about $7 million, which D&O insurance helped cover when the lawsuit was successfully defended.
Keep in mind that there are some limitations to D&O coverage. It does not cover cases in which fraudulent, criminal or intentional wrongful acts are committed, or when acts are committed for personal gain.
No matter the size of your company, costly mistakes made by directors and officers can happen, which is why it’s important to take steps to insure your executives against losses stemming from an incident. Contact Scurich Insurance today to learn about the D&O coverage solution that’s right for you.
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For the unprepared, workers’ compensation (WC) issues can be both confusing and costly. Fortunately for employers, there are ways to actively engage WC issues to influence their outcomes.
Through management controls and active involvement in the WC process, your organization can effectively influence related costs. To do so you will have to establish a number of your own processes that guide decision making throughout your organization.
By developing a cohesive workers’ compensation process, you can play an active role in reducing related costs.
Areas requiring WC management can be divided into three main categories. These categories include facets that may range from the simple to the complex, but as a whole, address vital issues that can negatively influence WC costs in your company.
Workplace Safety Means Fewer Claims
Simply put, reducing claims reduces costs. Establishing a safety-minded culture throughout every level of your company is essential to keeping workers injury free. However, establishing such a culture isn’t an overnight solution. To be successful, an ongoing commitment to safety must be made. Such a commitment must be supported by management and given the necessary resources to succeed.
Developing comprehensive safety policies for employees builds a firm foundation for your safety culture to grow. Such policies also encourage OSHA compliance, further improving your safety efforts while helping you avoid costly fines.
Mitigate Loss After an Injury
Unfortunately, even with all the right programs in place, it is still possible for accidents to happen. When a workplace incident occurs how you respond can greatly influence the outcome of the claim. Prompt claim reporting is essential to keeping costs down.
It is also important to have a designated injury management coordinator, someone who can supervise open claims and work with both employees and medical personnel to facilitate the timely recovery.
The longer an employee is out of work the more expensive their claim will be. Return-to-work programs that allow injured employees to come back to work at a limited capacity during the recovery process, are one of the most effective tools business owners have to reduce the severity of a claim.
Managing Your Mod
Insurers use what is known as an experience modification factor, or mod, to calculate the premiums you pay for workers’ compensation coverage. By managing your exposures and promoting safety it is possible to manage your mod and decrease your premium rates.
Like a good safety program, controlling your mod is an ongoing process. To reap the benefits of lower premiums you will have to keep in regular contact with your insurance provider to ensure they have the most accurate data to use in their calculations.
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McAfee Report Projects Top Cyber Threats of 2016
The McAfee Labs 2016 Threat Predictions report identifies top threats for the coming year as well as predictions for future cyber threats through 2020. The following is a summary of the report’s findings:
Hardware
Attacks that exploit flaws in both hardware and firmware components are expected to continue; security experts recommend being mindful of this potential avenue of exploitation below the level of the operating system.
Ransomware
Target Agrees to Pay a Nearly $40 Million Settlement
Target has just agreed to settle another huge class-action lawsuit stemming from the retailer’s 2013 data breach. Read on to learn who is getting paid and just how costly that data breach has been for the company.
Target has agreed to pay $39.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from its 2013 data breach. The suit was filed on behalf of card issuers, banks and credit unions that had to give new cards to customers after their data was stolen from the retailer. This is just one of a number of lawsuits that have been filed since the data breach, and Target claims that it’s paid about $290 million in costs related to the breach.
Survey Finds Global Companies Worried About Cyber Threat Detection and Defense
According to EY’s Global Information Security Survey (GISS) 2015, “Creating trust in the digital world,” 88 percent of global organizations believe that their information security architecture doesn’t meet their current security needs. In fact, 36 percent aren’t confident that they even have the ability to detect sophisticated cyber attacks.
When asked about the source of cyber attacks, respondents named criminal syndicates (59 percent), employees (56 percent) and hacktivists (54 percent) as their top concerns. To meet this threat, 69 percent of respondents said that they’d like to increase their cyber security budgets by as much as 50 percent.
Cyber Information Sharing Act Passed as Part of Spending Bill
The Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA), a significant piece of cyber security legislation, was added to the omnibus spending bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama last month. CISA is designed to encourage companies to cooperate with one another and with governmental agencies when disclosing and sharing information about identified cyber security threats, in part, by offering immunity to companies as a result of sharing that information.
Proponents of CISA say that sharing information will allow both the government and the private sector to respond to threats more quickly and efficiently. Critics, however, worry about the privacy of sensitive customer and patient data.
Ransomware attacks will likely become more common and more sophisticated. “Ransomware-as-a-service” is expected to continue growing, which will allow inexperienced cyber criminals access to the ransomware. Additionally, experts predict that ransomware will expand beyond Windows and also start targeting the increasingly popular Mac OSX.
Wearables
Wearable devices are becoming much more popular. While these devices don’t store very sensitive data themselves, they do connect to smartphones via Bluetooth, offering criminals a new potential “back door” into a user’s smartphone. The report suggests that cyber criminals might, for instance, use GPS data gathered from a user’s fitness tracker to create spear-phishing email attacks that the user is more likely to open.
Automobiles
Wired magazine stunned the automotive world in July 2015 when it ran a feature story outlining how a couple of enterprising hackers remotely commandeered a Jeep Cherokee. Experts predict a rise in the number of exploited zero-day vulnerabilities, but even identified threats pose a problem, because some companies cannot issue remote updates to certain car models.
Integrity
Integrity attacks represent a new, and potentially costly, type of cyber attack that most companies have seen in the past. Unlike other cyber attacks in which criminals simply damage or steal data, integrity attacks involve criminals selectively and surgically altering data in communications or transactions in ways that benefit them.
Experts anticipate integrity attacks will heavily affect the financial sector in 2016 as criminals find methods of intercepting and redirecting their targets’ legitimate transactions to their own bank accounts.
The report also mentioned that employees’ home systems, Cloud services and cyber espionage are likely cyber threats in the coming year. Regardless of the source, it’s clear that guarding yourself from cyber attacks involves identifying your exposures and developing strategies to protect yourself from each developing risk. Contact your advisor at Scurich Insurance today to ensure your cyber risks are appropriately covered.
Moody’s to Consider Cyber Attacks in Credit Assessments
Moody’s Investors Service announced recently that cyber attacks are becoming a larger part of the agency’s credit assessment and analysis processes. While Moody’s made it clear that it doesn’t consider cyber risk a principal credit factor, the agency has begun assessing cyber attacks as “event risks.” An event risk is a rare but potentially severe risk, much like a storm or other natural disaster that the company includes in its stress tests as it runs its credit analyses.
The growing number and severity of cyber attacks have made such a move necessary, as companies find themselves sometimes paying hundreds of millions of dollars to counteract the damage of a single data breach. Moody’s has released a report highlighting three important areas for companies to think about when considering the credit impact of a cyber attack:
- The type and importance of the affected asset or business
- The duration of the service disruption
- The scope of the business or assets affected by the cyber attack
For help assessing your cyber liabilities, contact Scurich Insurance today.
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