In today’s “litigation society,” you face lawsuits that could cripple your bottom line – or even put you out of business – based on anything from a fire on your premises to an allegation of libel by a competitor.
Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance provides financial protection against damage or injury caused by something that your business did, or perhaps didn’t do.
Your CGL policy covers a variety of exposures:
- Premises and Operations Legal Liability pays for injuries or property damage on your premises, as well as those that occur outside your place of business.
- Products and Completed Operations Legal Liability covers injury or property damage resulting from someone using your products, or real or alleged faults as a result of work your business has completed.
- Fire Legal Liability pays for injuries and damage from fires for which your business is responsible or that started due to your negligence.
- Personal and Advertising Injury protects your business against litigation alleging libel, slander, or invasion of privacy.
- Host Liquor Legal Liability will pay for lawsuits from hosting a party or special event at which you serve alcohol and intoxicated people cause injuries or property damage.
- Medical Payments covers bills when your customers, suppliers, or visitors suffer bodily injury on your premises, or resulting from your operations offsite.
To learn more about this essential coverage, just give us a call at Scurich Insurance Services today!
Read more
There are often benefits to middle-market companies emulating their larger counterparts’ risk management examples.
“There is a basic risk management process, methodology that has been around for years,” said Patrick Donnelly, co-leader of U.S. broking at Aon Risk Solutions in Chicago. “But only larger companies have been able to make the investment to create the framework to go through those steps.”
Carol Fox, director of strategic and enterprise risk practice for the Risk & Insurance Management Society Inc. in New York, said it’s critical for midsize firms to focus on how they’re embedding risk management in the organization.
Here are 10 risk management lessons middle-market companies should heed in 2014:
1. Business continuity planning
One of the steps many larger companies have taken that middle-market companies could benefit from is business continuity planning.
“In order to have a good business continuity plan, you really need to understand your business — and that’s inside and out,” said Jim Hedrick, area vice president of business continuity planning at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. in Cincinnati. “A middle-market company may not have the bandwidth to do that,” he said.
2. Establishing a crisis plan
Hand in hand with the business continuity process is establishing a crisis management plan. A crisis management plan helps drive decision-making when a crisis occurs and helps ensure that information gets to the right people.
3. Testing the crisis plan
A crisis management plan alone isn’t enough; it needs to be regularly tested. “To me, if you don’t test your plans you might as well not have them,” Mr. Hedrick said. “Not only does it test the validity of the plan, but also it’s a terrific training mechanism.”
Testing the plan also helps identify “who should be in your plan and shouldn’t be in your plan,” he said. “Sometimes you have people in these events who just melt down because they can’t handle the stress.”
4. Managing supply chain risks
While the effort can be challenging, large companies have increasingly recognized the need to identify and address supply chain risks. Middle-market companies that haven’t should do so as well, experts say.
Supply chain risk is “the one exposure that I believe has changed significantly since the credit crisis,” said Mark Moreland, executive vice president for strategic consulting at Lockton Cos. L.L.C. in Kansas City, Mo. In trying to squeeze costs out of their supply chains some companies have taken steps to narrow their supply chains, reduce the number of suppliers and change their risk profile in the process, something that must be addressed, he said.
5. Defining a risk appetite
Mid-market companies should develop a clearly defined risk appetite. “This is the one thing that we are trying to do with all our clients and prospects: establishing a very clear risk appetite,” Mr. Moreland said.
“What may happen in a middle-market organization is they believe, “We know what our risk appetite is because we aren’t that large an organization,’” Ms. Fox said. But middle-market companies can find value in having that conversation, clarifying their risks and specifying how much risk they’re willing to assume and how much insurance to buy.
6. Benchmarking risk management performance
The process of defining a risk appetite also could help middle-market companies recognize how they might differ from companies they’re benchmarking their risk management efforts against.
“It allows them to benchmark on areas that are different from just insurance buying,” RIMS’ Ms. Fox said. “It gives them more data points.”
“Benchmarking is always something that clients are interested in. I think the real challenge is to get benchmarking that you can draw clear conclusions from,” Mr. Moreland said.
“Benchmarking is one of those underrated tools that I think midsize companies can use in understanding their risk,” said Mark Moitoso, executive vice president and general manager national accounts casualty at Liberty Mutual Holding Co. Inc. in Boston. “What’s really nirvana in this is it helps them establish goals.”
7. Using captives to self-insure risks
As middle-market companies become more familiar with their risks and their risk appetites, they may choose to retain more risk or find risk financing alternatives and captives can be a useful tool. Middle-market companies are increasingly embracing alternative risk transfer.
“The big growth is with the middle-market companies,” said Karl Huish, president of the Captive Services Division of Artex Risk Solutions Inc. in Mesa, Ariz. “These businesses are recognizing they have exactly the same sorts of risks that the larger companies have, they’re just smaller in size.”
Middle-market companies are starting to use captives both for risks they didn’t previously insure and in financing large-deductible workers compensation, automobile liability, general liability and property programs. And the larger middle-market companies are often doing that through stand-alone captives, while smaller middle-market firms frequently opt for group captives.
8. Addressing cyber risks
With cyber threats cutting across companies of all sizes, middle-market companies also are increasingly aware of the need to address those risks.
When insurers first introduced cyber risk policies, many buyers questioned their value, recognizing the number of incidents that were occurring but not sure about the extent of potential damage, said Patrick Donnelly, co-leader of U.S. broking at Aon Risk Solutions in Chicago. Now nearly every company is recognizing that they have some sort of exposure.
“That’s extended into the middle markets more in the past 18 months or so,” Mr. Donnelly said.
9. Return-to-work efforts
Middle-market companies can also benefit by following larger companies’ example in adopting return-to-work programs. Such programs can produce significant workers compensation savings while allowing injured workers to participate in modified work assignments while they recover from injuries.
10. Continuing education
Middle market companies always can benefit from following many large company risk managers’ lead in looking for continuing education and networking opportunities through organizations like RIMS.
“It’s not just the courses, the workshops, the online webinars, they can benefit from but the conferences and the networking by belonging to an organization,” Ms. Fox explained.
Content provided by http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20131229/NEWS05/312299996?tags=%7C60%7C299%7C305%7C340%7C342
Read more
Commercial insurance is a must-have for every business. Some businesses have specialty needs for additional commercial insurance that are not covered under the standard policy.
Maybe you have had some changes in your business. You have recently purchased delivery vehicles, you have expanded your business and purchased more property. There are any number of possible changes that have occurred to your business that would require an analysis of your commercial insurance policies.
Your cash flow has changed
You have two forms of payment for your insurance, a regular monthly payment and a deductible that you will need to cover for damages and/or injuries before your provider will start to cover anymore. The monthly payment you can factor into your standard business finances. You will need to be diligent in planning for the unknown.
The more cash you have readily available, you should think about increasing your deductible. Higher deductibles will decrease your monthly premiums, and you will be able to save money. Make sure the deductible will be affordable, just in case.
Lower your deductible so that you can pay as needed if you are short on cash. Contact our office so that we can shop around for the best deal possible and discuss bundling options.
Congratulations! Your business is thriving!
Your business has increased since the last time you sat down with your agent. You’ve hired more people, added a delivery service and more! That means that your insurance will need to change also.
Start with your workers compensation and disability insurance policies. Make sure that your employees are covered, and your policies are up to date.
You’ve added a fleet! You will need to get your vehicles insured under a commercial auto policy.
You are remodeling or moving
Commercial property insurance comprises an important part of your overall insurance needs. If you are expanding or moving, you will need to contact our office to do a review of your new /improved digs and the policies. Please remember that any changes you make, will affect your coverage and costs.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
Read more
Scurich Insurance Services know that there is so many different types of insurance needs that everyone has. Commercial insurance needs are different than personal insurance needs and of course specialties. We also know that running around to different agencies for different needs is inconvenient, that’s why we have such a large array of services that we can provide you with. Look below and see just a few of the insurance needs we can accommodate:
Commercial Insurance
Commercial packages
Business auto
Workers Compensation
Umbrella
Directors & Officers
Professional liability
Employee practices liability
Personal Insurance
Auto
Home
Umbrella
Recreational vehicle
Watercraft
Life & health
Individual medical
Individual life
Group Medical
Group benefits
Read more
Kim House [email protected]
Born in New York, transplanted as a 5 year old to sunny California, Kim grew up in San Jose, attended Piedmont Hills High School, continued her education at San Jose City College and graduated from San Jose State University in 1975. She is married with one college age daughter. Kim has worked for Scurich Insurance for almost 8 years. Some of her passions are walking at the beach, especially Seacliff Beach, biking and swimming. She also enjoys gardening, home improvement (Kim prefers receiving tools instead of jewelry as a gift), stained glass and sewing. She belongs to Holy Eucharist Catholic Church and enjoys serving at the Salvation Army on Monday nights along with many others from Holy Eucharist Church.
Content provided by Scurich Insurance Services
Read more
In today’s “litigation society,” you face lawsuits that could cripple your bottom line – or even put you out of business – based on anything from a fire on your premises to an allegation of libel by a competitor.