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From an insurance and risk management standpoint, what snow and ice contractors cannot do enough of is document, document, and document. This unexpected, yet critical contractor tool In this highly litigious society we are living in it has never been more important to keep track of all the information you can. Recently insurance carriers have moved to much stricter guidelines when underwriting potential businesses.  They now require certain documentation, such as logbooks. Lack of documentation will cause insurance carriers to offer higher premiums or decline coverage altogether. Proper documentation will

Accidents happen. No matter how careful you are. No matter how many safety meetings you have. No matter how many safety modules you make your employees watch, accidents can and will happen. This is the reason you have workers’ compensation insurance. This insurance pays an employee’s wages and medical bills if they are injured at work. Work comp is a great benefit, but it’s not perfect. There are things you, as an employer, can do to get the most out of your workers’ compensation coverage.

When An Injury Occurs

When an employee

According to the United States Census Bureau half of all businesses are owned by baby boomers. This means that the owners are between the ages of 53 to 71. The Census Bureau also states that the average age of retirement in the United States is 63 years old. This means that half of all business owners are at the average age of retirement or less than a decade away from it.  If you find yourself in this category are you actively planning an exit strategy?

Successful business owners spend decades building

Having an upbeat positive work environment can save you money on your insurance. You may be asking yourself “what does insurance have to do with the moral of my company?” The answer is A LOT.

Often times when I walk into the office of a new prospect I can get a pretty good idea of what their claims history is going to be. Are the people upbeat and smiling or do they look like it’s the last place on earth they want to be? Office culture has a lot to do

According to a recent study, the average person checks their cell phone 100 times a day. While there is a time and a place for cell phones,  job site cell phone use can be extremely dangerous.

If you’re distracted for just a second while operating a power tool, working on a roof or driving a forklift, you can injure yourself or a co-worker. You can also face civil or criminal liability for damages you cause by operating a motorized vehicle while using a cell phone.

It isn’t only operators of machinery who

Two words that no contractor likes to hear together, “slip and fall.” From an insurance agent’s perspective these words can also be understandably painful. Our industry events cover this topic so regularly we can all understand the fear. There are seminars on how to prevent slip and falls, seminars on how to fight slip and falls, seminars on how to create contracts to not be held liable for slip and falls, and the list goes on. So are slip and falls truly as dangerous an issue as everyone is making

With the winter winding down chances are that you had one or more insurance claims arise. Maybe it was a slip and fall, or a plow truck accidentally hitting a curb or maybe it was one of your employees getting injured on the job. This is why you have insurance. But how are these new claims viewed by your insurance carrier? How will they affect your premium?

When an insurance claim gets processed the carrier will attach a reserve amount to it. A reserve is the amount of money the insurance

Do you know and understand your business and its operations? Of course you do. Does your insurance company know and understand your business and its operations? That depends on you and your insurance agent.  A powerful tool to help you educate the insurance marketplace is a risk assessment.  A risk assessment is a series of questions that pertain to a variety of areas of risk in your business. Businesses typically only go through a risk assessment when they start the business or when they change insurance carriers. However, some businesses

The NFL post season has ended but the Snow and Ice Management post season is right around the corner. Many companies are hoping for that “Super Bowl” of storms to dump a foot or more of the white fluffy stuff to end the year strong. What you do in the months following your last event can greatly impact your organization the following year.  Many businesses that perform snow and ice management also perform other services during the other 3 seasons. If you, like many others, jump right into landscaping or