What’s your company’s “brand?” Whether you’ve had one developed professionally or simply let it happen, experts all agree that you definitely have a brand.
Call it “image” or “reputation,” but it’s there — and it goes far beyond advertising and marketing. At its core lies the emotional connection your products or services make in the minds of your customers or prospects: Either terrific or toxic. The question is whether your brand is enhancing or detracting from your success.
A crucial attribute for any business is trust, based on an ethical approach to every relationship and transaction. Is your brand trusted? Ask your customers and prospects what your brand says to them.
We’d also like to ask what our brand means to you. We want nothing less than to be your trusted advisor. Let our professionals take your concerns about protection and insurance issues off your plate, so that you can focus on building your brand into a valued enhancement to the future of your business.
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Few business owners have happy thoughts when they think of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA). The first thought is usually of red tape and obsolete regulations instead of the possible benefits from taking advantage of the services offered by OSHA to reduce workplace illness, injury, and fatality. There are three very obvious ways in which any effort to mitigate losses from workplace illness, injury, and fatality can help a business:
- It helps to ensure minimal day-to-day work-flow disruption.
- It helps to boost employee morale.
- It helps to manage liability insurance costs, including that of Workers Compensation claims.
OSHA helps in these areas through an array of education, outreach, and compliance assistance programs. For example, OSHA offers a variety of training materials and guidelines that can help workers and employers to understand and comply with safety standards. These may be obtained online, on CD-ROM, and in print. There’s also a 24-hour toll free number that employers can call for assistance on workplace safety issues. For small business owners that need onsite help to identify and correct possible workplace hazards and/or establish health or safety programs, OSHA offers free workplace consultations among its many other services.
Through cooperative programs, like the Alliance Program, OSHA works directly with entities such as educational institutions, businesses, trade organizations, and labor organizations. Certain industries, such as food processing, shipbuilding, and construction, are specifically targeted through OSHA’s Strategic Partnership Program.
The Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) are considered the superstars of the OSHA cooperative programs. One of these programs is called the Star Program. It’s designed for businesses that have shown an exemplary workplace (injury and illness rates below the national average for their industry) through successful and comprehensive health management and safety programs. Businesses in this program will undergo a review and onsite investigation of their health and safety programs, a review of past inspections, an onsite condition assessment, and have their management team and employees interviewed. Incident rates are reviewed yearly and overall reevaluation takes place every three to five years to ensure that Star participants still meet the program requirements. The Merit Program is another voluntary protection program. It’s a stepping stone of sorts to the Star Program and is for those with good health and safety programs. These businesses have areas needing improvement, but demonstrate the potential for excellence.
Involuntary inspections are an even large part of OSHA’s preventative measures. Many are the direct result of a workplace injury or death report or complaint. In fact, of the 37,000 involuntary inspections OSHA conducted in 2002, around 9,000 stemmed from an accident report or complaint. These inspections resulted in almost 80,000 violations and $73 million dollars worth of penalties, $11.8 million of which was from the most serious violation category, the willful violation. The average OSHA fine was $28,000 and the most often inspected industries were manufacturing and construction.
Since its 1971 start, OSHA has proven itself a successful branch of the Department of Labor. Despite heavy employment growth overall, through OSHA inspection, education, outreach, and enforcement, workplace illnesses have decreased by more than 40% and deaths have decreased by more than 50%. Even though many small businesses, especially those not in frequently-targeted industries, aren’t highly concerned with OSHA compliance and regulatory monitoring, OSHA can still be a valuable asset when it comes to occupational safety and health and risk management.
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Can you believe that winter is here already? Time flies. Always has, always will. However, as risk managers, we think that you should slow down for a moment and ask yourself if your risk-protection program has kept pace with the changing times.
Just as your business needs might have changed significantly since your last review, so have the methods of protecting you from risk of loss. New policies have been created, new techniques in risk management developed, and new exposures arisen.
Consider these questions:
- Is your current risk protection program as up-to-date as it needs to be to meet your business needs today?
- What if your business were unable to operate due to extensive damage?
- How much income would you lose during the time it takes to open the doors again?
- Or would your choice be to reopen as quickly as possible at another location? Bear in mind that the “hurry up” expense of making the move, installing the necessary equipment, and notifying your clients would prove a painful unplanned burden.
Let’s schedule a time for a review. Our professional staff stands ready to work with you. Regardless of your firm’s situation, it’s important to get a comprehensive risk review of your business as it is today, not as it was years ago.
Call us. We’re here to help.
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For years, Owner-Controlled Insurance Programs (OCIPs) were only found on large, single-site projects. Every day, more contractors are being required to work under these types of arrangements, either on smaller projects or “rolling” OCIPs that cover multiple projects. This requires contractors to identify and deal with the variety of complex issues that these programs raise.
Don’t go it alone. Our Construction Insurance professionals stand ready to help. If you’d like to do some research on your own, the Insurance Risk Management Institute (IRMI) provides a wealth of solid safety guidelines that are updated frequently. Originally created as a resource for contractor risk management information, IRMI publishes one of the best and most extensive libraries of insurance expertise in the nation and is widely used by insurance agents and risk managers in all types of businesses.
“A Contractor’s Guide to OCIPs,” available on the Construction Business Owner Web site, offers valuable guidelines on the benefits and risks of these programs, together with tips on making the most from them, and dealing with such issues as loss costs, separating Construction Insurance costs from bids, and estimating labor expenses.
Check out the guide. Then give us a call on how to apply its principles to your business. When it comes to your protection, don’t let “owner controlled” mean “out of control.
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The growth rate of the rental equipment industry in the U.S. is skyrocketing by 24% a year, as more and more companies use the tax and other financial advantages of renting over purchasing. Renting also allows businesses to get the exact machine they need when they need it at a low cost, rather than spending a lot more to buy a device that would spend most of the time gathering dust.
On the downside, if using a piece of equipment that you have rented causes damage or results in legal liability, you could be out thousands of dollars – unless you carry Rental Equipment insurance.
This policy often costs less than similar coverage offered under your Business Owners Policy or standard Commercial Property insurance. Rental Equipment insurance gives you what you need, when you need it: you can match the length of coverage to the term of the rental, rather than that of your Property policy, allowing you to save money. In most cases, it also offers lower (or zero deductibles) than standard policies.
The policy includes both Property coverage that protects the equipment from damage and Liability insurance to protect the renter from legal claims based on the use of the equipment. It also streamlines the process of providing the Certificate of Insurance that rental companies usually require before releasing their machines.
To learn more about how Rental Equipment coverage can help you protect your business – and save money – just get in touch with the insurance professionals at our agency.
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The widespread use of smartphones and tablets in the workplace is exposing more and more businesses to liability for sensitive data being compromised if these devices are lost, stolen, or hacked. How can your company protect itself against this threat – and how much authority do you have over an employee’s personal device if it’s also used for work-related activities?
What’s more, because these gizmos are small and portable, it’s easy to misplace them. (The federal Transportation Safety Administration recently leased a warehouse just to store those misplaced or left behind at airports.)
Another emerging risk linked to these devices is a “bring your own” policy that many companies have adopted as a way to save costs by having employees spend their own money on smartphones and tablets that are constantly evolving and updated. This approach raises questions about separating company data from personal information on the device. For example, when an employee leaves, does a business have the authority to wipe the information from his or her smartphone? According to some authorities, if an employee connects a personal device to a company network, the company has inherited responsibility for the data stored on it.
To deal with this risk, you need to provide every employee who uses these devices with training, updated annually, on how to respond in case of loss or theft. To minimize potential liability for lawsuits by customers and clients, make sure that the individual responsible for the mishap informs management immediately. The compromised information might include everything from sensitive data (financial or medical) contacts, photos, call history, personal notes – you name it.
You can also use insurance to protect yourself against losses from data breaches. A policy will provide Liability coverage that deals with legal costs and third-party expertise (such as forensics firms to analyze a breach and call centers to provide information and public relations. Coverage might also include services such as access to tools to estimate costs, a checklist for your planned response to a data breach, and access to experts who can answer questions and review your company’s policies and procedures.
For more information, feel free to give us a call.
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