Damage can come in all forms including vandalism. If you don’t act immediately, you can be faced with additional expenses to fix that damage. We have compiled a list of tips you can enact when facing such damage.
- Call a professional. These guys know how to remove the graffiti and vandalism that the vandals have caused.
- Typical household cleaning products will not take care of the damage on upholstered furniture, fabrics, and carpets. The professional will be able to take care of that.
- Go through all of your damage and make a detailed list of everything.
- Leave the chemicals and paints to the professionals.
- If you have shards of glass over your furniture and on the floor, use a shop vacuum to clean that up.
- Don’t touch your electrical equipment.
- If your house has been egged, use water in cleaning it off.
- Any debris on the furniture or interior walls needs to be removed. Do not rub the debris off, only scrape or blot the debris off.
If you have found yourself the victim of vandalism, call the police immediately and then the professionals, so your damage won’t stay permanent.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
Sources: Servicemaster
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Who doesn’t want to have more green in their bank account? As the saying goes, “the more the merrier.” We have compiled a list of all the ways you can save buck-o bucks. Check it out:
- Stop your shopping madness! It’s okay if you miss that sale, there will be others. No, you really don’t need that third blue sweater that looks just like the others. Yes, it is possible to go window shopping and leave your green in your bank. Depending on your shopping habits, you can save thousands each year.
- Learn to make your own lattes at home. With all the recipes out there on Allrecipes.com, I bet bottom dollar that you can learn to make your own homemade lattes. Not only is it cheaper, but have your friends over for your lattes and you may have a following. The average latte costs $4.00 and if you get one every day you work, you can see a savings of $18 a week (per month that is $72!).
- Your car is your baby. Okay, maybe that is a bit excessive, but still you need to take care of your car. Oil changes, replace the filters, and rotate your tires will keep your car running without much expense. However, putting off a simple oil change can cause your car to cost thousands of dollars in repairs.
- Take care of YOU! Yes, you! It is no secret that daily exercise, eating right, and giving yourself a little love boosts your immunity, lowers stress, and gives your overall health a good grade. On the flip side, not taking care of yourself can cost you hundreds of dollars in deductibles for your doctor’s visits and medications.
- Easting fast food. Yes, it too belongs with taking care of YOU. The medical expenses for eating fast food on a regular basis can become astronomical, but aside from the health stand point, you can save hundreds of dollars each month by brown bagging it. The average meal costs around $5 which is $20.00 a week. I’ll let you do the rest of the math for the month.
- Quit smoking now! The theme here is take care of yourself! Both long term and short term costs can be huge. Not to mention that the average pack of cigarettes rests about $5.00.
Making these adjustments to your lifestyle will save you hundreds and potentially, thousands of dollars.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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Damage can come in all forms including fire and smoke damage, and water damage. If you don’t act immediately, you can be faced with additional expenses to fix that damage. We have compiled a list of tips you can enact when facing such damage. Today we are going to focus fire and smoke damage.
- Call a professional. Some by-products can cause etching which is irreversible fairly quickly.
- Do not touch anything that has been damaged with your bare hands. Your hands carry oil which can cause additional damage.
- Open up the house and air out any smoke damage, if the outside temperature is warm.
- Do not wash any of the walls that have smoke/fire damage. The wrong cleaning component can cause more damage.
- Clean off your Formica, chrome, porcelain or aluminum fixtures to prevent permanent tarnishing.
- Call a professional to clean up any upholstered furniture and carpets. Don’t clean them yourself.
- Keep away from anything and everything electronic until they have been checked out by and cleared by a professional.
- Replace your air filter on your furnace if you use forced air.
- If your ceiling is wet, do not use any of the fixtures.
- Throw away all food packages that have been opened.
- Any clothing that has been tarnished, send to a professional for cleaning.
- Clean out the refrigerator and keep the doors open, if the electricity is off.
For more information, please feel to contact our office.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
Sources: Servicemaster
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Most employers know that they can be held legally liable for sexual harassment occurring in their workplace. However, many may not know that there’s a way to considerably reduce their exposure to liability. The courts have actually laid out a road map of sorts when it comes to reducing employer risk for sexual harassment liability. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court made it quite clear that laws related to sexual harassment weren’t made in an effort to enable employer vs. employee lawsuits, but rather as a motivation for employers to take reasonable and responsible action in preventing sexual harassment. Employers that have demonstrated this reasonable and responsible action are less likely to be held legally liable for damages. Here are the practices and policies every employer should abide to fulfill their obligation in preventing workplace sexual harassment, thereby reducing their liability risk:
- A comprehensively written policy against sexual harassment should be in place to demonstrate the concern, stance, and dedication to the prevention of sexual harassment on the part of the employer. This policy should clearly define sexual harassment and give examples of what constitutes sexual harassment. After the policy is read, the employee should know that either gender may be victim; either gender may perpetrator; and that sexual harassment is dictated by victim perception, not whether or not the perpetrator intended the behavior as harassing.
- Legal terminology and otherwise obtuse language should be avoided when composing a sexual harassment policy. It should be written in a manner that an average employee would comprehend. In most cases, if the wording is such that a high school senior would have difficulty comprehending it, then it’s too complex. Employers should also be mindful of non-English speaking employees and publish translations accordingly.
- Make sure that the sexual harassment policy identifies which employees or department should be contacted to initiate the complaint process; outlines the complaint and investigation process from start to finish, including any appeal process; and identifies what the penalties are for sexual harassment. Retaliation should also be addressed. It should be clear that retaliation against a complainant will not be tolerated and that retaliation is a form of harassment too.
- More often than not, an employer isn’t held liable because of the actual harassment, but rather because they failed to have or apprise their employees of the complaint procedure or failed to respond when the complaint procedure was utilized. So, never write a complaint off or disregard it. Each and every complaint should be viewed as a serious matter and investigated with a process that’s consistent and that’s reasonable for all involved.
- Although many employers feel that their policy is adequate, the best policy in the world is useless if an employee can claim that they’ve never laid eyes on it. Therefore, orientation of new employees should include a signature that the new employee has received, read, and understood the sexual harassment policy.
- Of course, there must be ongoing exposure to the policy for employees to realize that their employer is actually serious about sexual harassment and the enforcement of consequences. Sources of exposure may include periodic sexual harassment summaries through brochures or educational pamphlets, newsletter articles, in-service training, and employee meetings.
- It’s also crucial that any employee in a supervisory position be trained not only to enforce the sexual harassment policy, but as someone that could be a harasser themselves. Often, especially in medium to larger businesses, the employer will not be the one to first receive a complaint. Yet, employers are strictly liable if supervisors engage in subordinate harassment or fail to enforce the harassment policy. Keep in mind that many people engage in behaviors that are overlooked by individuals they come across in their personal life and thereby feel that the same behaviors will be overlooked at work too.
The most often used excuse when an employee is accused of sexual harassment is that they weren’t the only employee that has acted in such a way. Sadly, although the above statement in no way excuses the behavior, it’s often true. And, it’s this type of environment that tolerates or overlooks sexual harassment that substantially increases the liability risk of the employer. Simply having a policy will not hold weight in court. It must be comprehensive and there must be employee exposure and employer enforcement. These steps require a time and resource commitment for the policy to be applied in a manner that will reduce sexual harassment liability risks for employers and reduce the frequency of sexual harassment incidences for employees.
Contact our office for more information.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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Beaches are an inexpensive way to get away (well if you stay local) and have some R&R. You can bring your entire family (yes, even a family reunion), break out the barbecue and let the kids go wild in the water.
Here are a few tips to make your trip to the beach more enjoyable.
- Protect the skin. Grab the sunscreen, that cute little umbrella, and relax knowing that you and your family are protected by the sun’s harsh rays.
- Pack the camera. Film and click away your fun filled beach day.
- Tidal pools anyone? These are fun ways to get up close and personal with some really cool creatures from the sea.
- The world is your sandbox. Well, at least for the day. Bring your shovel and pail and have some sandcastle fun with the kids.
- Go fly a kite. Literally.
- Bring the volleyball or badminton set and play a couple of games.
- Collect the seashells. These are great souvenirs and don’t cost anything. When you clean them you can add them to your fish tank or even make shell jewelry.
This summer have a blast at the beach!
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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Pollution and environmental exposure risks on site and during transfer and disposal, such as toxic mold, the disposal of contaminated soil, and broken pipelines releasing toxic materials, are major construction concerns. When such incidents happen, a contractor’s reputation and livelihood can be irreversibly impacted.
Contractors Pollution Liability (CPL) is a type of insurance designed to protect contractors against the liability issues and financial losses that result from such environmental incidents. This insurance covers an array of environmental and pollution risks that are common to construction projects and is considered an appropriate coverage whether a firm is a trade contractor, such as those specializing in paving or HVAC; a general contractor; remediation contractor; or a contractor doing specialized work, such as tank installation or drilling. Contractors Pollution Liability insurance is available to cover areas like pollution incidences that result in bodily injury, third-party property damage, or remediation costs. Comprehensive policies can even be customized to provide pollution risk coverage to an entire project, which would include off-site transportation and all contractors involved in the project. Most Contractors Pollution Liability policies are written on a claims-made basis. This basis limits the insurer’s risk for unknown future liabilities since it means the policy only pays claims occurring and being filed during the period covered by the policy.
Clearly, Contractors Pollution Liability insurance can provide invaluable protection against environmental-related financial losses. That said, such a policy doesn’t prevent environmental incidents from occurring in the first place. To help prevent environmental incidences and protect hard-earned reputations, contractors should additionally adopt effective environmental risk management practices.
Creating an environmental risk profile will be one of the most important factors when taking steps toward risk management. This allows the firm to identify possible loss exposures and risk areas by thoroughly reviewing their administrative control documents. While some firms opt to conduct the profile in-house, many prefer the expertise and outsider’s perspective offered by a professional environmental consultant. In any event, documents related to the following areas should be reviewed during the development of an environmental risk profile:
- Contractors Pollution Liability policies
- Standard client agreements
- All mold prevention programs
- All environmental management programs
- Subcontractor’s environmental/mold management/prevention systems
- Language of subcontractor agreements
- Environmental data searches of job sites
- Hazard communication programs
- Quality assurance programs
- Internal health and safety programs, incident response protocols, and training protocols
- Trends, history, corrective measures, and employee communications related to environmental losses
- Environmental assessments for all leased and owned properties
Once the above documentation is assessed, the firm can identify strategies to reduce, if not eliminate, their exposures to environmental risks. Combining risk management with a Contractors Pollution Liability policy can help contractors reduce their risk, but still be covered in case the unexpected happens.
Contact our office for more information.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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Damage can come in all forms including vandalism. If you don’t act immediately, you can be faced with additional expenses to fix that damage. We have compiled a list of tips you can enact when facing such damage.
