You’re traveling at 70 miles per hour on a busy highway when you blow a tire. Your car hits an unexpected slick spot and starts to fishtail. Your brakes or steering suddenly lock up.
In these situations, preparedness can literally make the difference between life and death. That means making sure your employees are trained to deal with common driving emergencies by following these guidelines:
A blown tire:
- Hang on to the steering wheel.
- Don’t brake suddenly.
- Ease off the gas and coast until you have control of the car.
- Turn on your hazard lights to warn the drivers around you.
- Steer smoothly.
Skidding or hydroplaning:
- Don’t make any sudden moves, such as braking hard or jerking the wheel.
- Ease off the gas.
- Steer the car’s nose gently in the direction you’d like to go. Make adjustments gradually, as needed, until the vehicle is moving in a straight line.
Failed steering:
- Don’t brake – a sudden change in speed could send the car spinning.
- Ease off the gas.
- Turn on your hazard lights.
- Coast to a stop, using your brakes gently once the car slows on its own.
Your brakes fail:
- Downshift.
- Move to the right, remembering to signal as needed.
- Because the failure might be temporary, keep your foot on the brakes. If you have ABS, apply steady pressure; If you don’t have ABS, pump the brakes.
- Shift into neutral and apply your emergency brake.
- If possible, use friction to slow or stop the vehicle by running it along a curb or something alongside the road.
For more information, feel free to get in touch with us.
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Key personnel tend to be one to two people that your company heavily relies on. These employees can be anyone from a partner to an operations manager or a site foreman. The contribution of these key personnel is essential to run your company. If one of the key personnel dies, where would you find the financial resources to keep your business up and running until you replace them?
The answer is a key person life insurance policy, which your business will receive all or most of the proceeds. This term may also apply to other coverages used for business continuation purposes, including 1) buy-sell or shareholder insurance which will reimburse partners or investors; 2) debt protection; 3) and revenue protection. You can use the policy benefit to replace lost income due to the unavailability of the key person and recruit, develop, and train a replacement.
The policy’s cash value might be available to your business through a withdrawal or loan, if needed. You could also split the premium and death benefit between the firm and the spouse of the key person to ensure that she or he receives replacement for the person’s economic value to the family. These premiums are not tax deductible.
What’s more, this coverage provides a financial asset that enhances the creditworthiness of your company for commercial lending (by ensuring that the business will remain in business if the key person is out of the picture).
When reviewing packages, get quotes on different amounts,anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000. Take into account what your budget allows versus how much the business would need to survive while you’re bringing a new person up to speed.
Our agency stands ready to advise you at any time.
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You need Employment Practices Liability insurance (EPLI) to protect you from lawsuits filed (justly or unjustly) by anyone who you employ, have employed, or even considered employing.
Before you buy this essential coverage, be sure to ask these questions:
- Who is insured? This should include the company as an entity, along with officers, directors, and every type of employee (full-time, part-time, temp, leased, loaned and seasonal). The importance of this becomes clear if you’re ever sued for a sexist slur made by temporary receptionist to a job applicant.
- What claims does the policy cover? You want coverage for every eventuality: monetary damages, all types of legal proceeding from criminal to regulatory, settlements, judgments, lost pay, defense fees and punitive damages.
- How does the policy define “wrongful employment practices” beyond the obvious (sexual harassment and racial discrimination)? Make sure that you have coverage for violations of federal, state, local and common law on employment discrimination;, deprivation of career opportunities; defamation; retaliation, negligent job evaluation, and failure to have an acceptable written employment policy.
- What does the policy exclude? EPLI should include wrongful practices that might have taken place before you bought coverage – so you don’t have to worry about a suit by that disgruntled vice president you fired three years ago for pilfering paperclips.
A word to the wise: use EPLI as a last line of defense. Risk management for your business should include diversity and sensitivity training. The U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission offers a wealth of free training resources, guides, compliance information, and links to free training throughout the nation.
As always, we stand ready to offer you our professional advice, free of charge.
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You’re facing a deadline to complete work under a major contract – when a voltage spike surges through your electrical lines, burning out computers and telephone equipment. How would you pay for replacing or repairing the damaged equipment, taking the steps needed to get back in production, and replacing lost income?
In today’s high-tech electronic world, more and more companies are buying Equipment Breakdown policies (formerly known as Boiler & Machinery insurance) to protect themselves against losses from a variety of mishaps that are sometimes unpredictable and often unavoidable: everything from mechanical failure or electrical short circuits to “arcing” (faulty wiring or motor burnout. The rapid growth of Internet marketing and “just in time” inventory make businesses more dependent than ever on computers – while critical data often exists only on the Internet or online databases that can’t be accessed when equipment breaks down.
Depending on their size and sophistication, some businesses include this coverage in their Property insurance, while other purchase it as an endorsement to the policy.
A comprehensive Equipment Breakdown policy should include:
- Reimbursement for the cost of repairing or replacing damaged equipment (Some policies also cover green construction, disposal and recycling methods)
- Replacement of income lost from downtime (“Business Interruption” or “Service Interruption” coverage)
- Assistance from your insurance carrier, ranging from maintenance guidelines and checklists and crisis planning templates to identifying sources for repairs, unusual parts, or replacement equipment that can be obtained quickly.
Our Business insurance experts would be happy to help you obtain a cost-effective Equipment policy that’s tailored to your needs. Just give us a call.
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Unfortunately, many small businesses ignore business continuity planning – perhaps because this seems so simple that they just don’t need to do it. Here are five basic (and cost-effective) steps you need to take before disaster strikes:
- Define who’s in charge. Because you might be unavailable after a disaster – injured, ill, on vacation, etc. – designate an order of succession to avoid confusion and unclear responsibility during the recovery process.
- Avoid a communication breakdown. Normal communication infrastructure might be disabled after a disaster, so make sure you have alternatives for employees, customers, clients, key suppliers, and subcontractors. At a minimum, have phone numbers (landline and cellular), and e-mail addresses. Don’t rely on outdated, unreliable methods such as phone communication trees. Use a voicemail system supported by a vendor with communication equipment offsite. Don’t forget to consider backup power needs.
- Perform data backups. Be sure to make duplicate copies of data regularly, with one copy at a location that’s easy and inexpensive to access.
- Have a Plan B. if your facility is destroyed or access is denied by civil authorities, can you conduct certain business operations from home or a local hotel? For example, what steps can you take to replace computers and retrieve data?
- Make sure you have enough insurance. In a worst-case disaster scenario (major fire, windstorm, civil disorder, etc.), you might well lose your business assets and face a period of downtime – zero cash flow. Insurance can keep you afloat until you’re back on your feet.
We stand ready to help design a comprehensive, cost effective program that can make your business less risky.
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Misuse of powerful prescription painkillers, whether intentional or accidental, is a rapidly growing threat to employers throughout the nation.
Opioid overdoses caused more than 16,000 deaths in 2010, the latest year for which data is available; and about 12 million people use prescription painkillers for nonmedical reasons. In addition to the human tragedy, opioid addiction creates a significant financial problem for both businesses – in terms of lost productivity – and their insurance companies. Nonmedical use of prescription painkillers costs Health insurers more than $70 billion a year; while narcotics prescriptions account for one-fourth of Workers Comp prescription drug expenses (costs that ultimately come out of employers’ pockets).
Government plays a significant role in dealing with this problem. The federal Department of Health and Human Services regulates Opioid Treatment Programs (OTPs) through the Division of Pharmacologic Therapies. On the state level, for example, California has followed the lead of Washington State by devising treatment guidelines to curb over-prescription and abuse of opioids. These measures include limiting opioid prescriptions to six weeks after surgery or injury and using non-opioid painkillers as a preliminary pain management measure in non-acute cases.
However, these regulatory or legislative efforts can only go so far. No employer can afford to ignore the issue of opioid abuse among its workers – and your Workers Compensation manager is well-positioned to intervene in these cases by implementing a risk management plan that:
- ensures that patients are treated early and effectively;
- monitors and manages opioid prescriptions;
- uses predictive modeling to tag potentially severe claims;
- requires physician peer reviews for opioid prescriptions;
- uses drug testing and screening workers prescribed with drugs;
- provides post-addiction help; and
- phases workers back into their jobs
We stand ready to offer our advice at any time.
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