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... Your prevention and mitigation plans should address, among other things, e...

...es need to have incident reporting plans and set procedures. No matter what si...

Safety is more than a set of activities focused on accident prevention. It is a way of thinking about how you work, and it should be at the heart of any successful company. Weaving safety into your company's mission, policies and procedures is a great way to demonstrate its importance and ensure its effectiveness across your company. It should be about a shared vision that is expressed by core values and behaviors, where everyone walks the talk. By addressing unsafe acts and conditions before they become accidents, you build your safety culture. Four Steps to a Safety Culture The following four steps can serve as a starting point in driving safety across your business. 1. Evaluate risks. To understand how to create a safer workplace, you must first understand the risks you face every day. Each task and associated risk should be properly evaluated, and safety-based changes should be considered. - Analyze past incidents and near misses. Understand that past incidents can help you identify root causes and identify risks and exposures that threaten the safety of your employees and the success of your business. - Identify the risks before they result in loss. Review your work policies and procedures, buildings and equipment, employee work practices and behaviors and geographic location to determine if there are opportunities to prevent or mitigate loss. And hold people accountable to the practices. 2. Design a plan to keep safe. A good plan is the best place to start, but it is only the beginning. Once you have a plan, you must act to eliminate or minimize risk. - Get commitment. Your management team should be committed to a safety culture from the beginning. - Stay focused. Keep focused on the risks and exposures identified during your evaluation. - Prioritize your efforts. Focus on the risks that pose the greatest threat. You should consider frequency and severity of the loss potential, and/or the opportunity to prevent or mitigate risks. - Identify solutions and resources. Your solutions can vary from implementing engineering controls to creating administrative policies and procedures. These can help create positive changes in safety attitude, commitment and culture. 3. Implement your plan. Implementation entails communication of the plan and its details, training, regularly scheduled practice and drills, and ongoing review. A thorough plan will cover a number of potential risk areas, including buildings and equipment, the environment, employees, customers and vendors. - Communicate and train - the real test of a safety program and culture is not what is written down on paper, but rather how well it actually works. How well your plan works is often dependent on what your employees know and what they do at the time of an incident. 4. Monitor, evaluate and improve your plan. As your business environment changes, so should your safety program. Regularly test your plan to determine if it fits the changing business environment and reflects changing accountabilities. - Monitor the plan and collect feedbackto determine the effectiveness of the plan. - Regularly compare your safety performance against the plan’s expectations. - Make adjustments when necessary. - Recognize success. Be sure to communicate and celebrate your safety successes. At Scurich Insurance Services, our team of risk specialists visit more than one hundred properties every day, and are able to share lessons learned and insights for helping create a safety culture. Start building your safety culture today. Learn more about developing your safety management program.

...ited these benefits of Group Legal plans: Helping employees achieve peace ...ly offered services under Group Legal plans, followed by family matters, home ...

...the effectiveness of the emergency plans that you implement during the inciden...

Here are some featured markets we thought you might be interested in taking advantage of: Contractors General Liability, Property and Casualty Insurance Agents Errors and Omissions (E&O), Garage Service & Repair Insurance, Wind Deductible Buy Back Insurance, Maritime Workers Compensation, Restaurant Insurance, Hard-to-Place Property Insurance, Builders Risk Insured by Zurich

If you held your last fire or emergency evacuation drill more than six months ago, it's time to think about staging another. Careful planning and evaluation can help you get the most out of these exercises, enhancing your employee's chances of a safe evacuation. Bear in mind that unannounced drills give you an idea of how workers might actually react in an emergency situation. On the other hand, announcing drills offer them the opportunity to prepare for and practice specific skill sets they would need. Before a fire emergency arises, workers need to know: How to activate the appropriate alarm system(s). How and when to contact the fire department. What to do before they evacuate—such as shutting down equipment. Their role in the evacuation. For example, they might need to assist disabled co-workers, help contractors or visitors on the premises, bring essential items such as visitor logs that can be used to verify that everyone is out of the building, provide first aid for injured co-workers, or act to prevent or minimize hazardous chemical releases. How to evacuate their work area by at least two routes. The locations of stairwells (workers should not use elevators to evacuate). Places to avoid - such as hazardous materials storage areas. Assembly points outside the building. After the drill, evaluate the exercise to determine which problems need addressing. Ask such questions as:

...Incurred loss retrospective rating plans ("retro) - use a standard premium adj...n loss experience. Large-deductible plans - the organization assumes a subst...

...discovered holes in their response plans after failing to consider the impact ...

Employment practices liability insurance, which is known as EPLI, is an important coverage for any business with employers, or that is about to hire employees to have because it covers claims related to employment. EPLI policies will cover employees who are both full time and part time, seasonal employees, independent contractors, any former employee of any type as well as potential employees. Employment-related lawsuits are expensive, with defense costs that can be high, and judgments are often over $100,000. These claims are excluded by General Liability policies so a company without this coverage will need to pay these costs out of pocket. Security guard businesses, both large and small, have an exposure to being sued by an employee or a former employee. EPLI coverage used to only be purchased by larger companies but as lawsuits are becoming more commonplace, small companies are finding themselves fighting claims in court and costs add up to defend claims of this nature. Frederick Yohn of MarketStance stated that out of all the companies with 500 employees or more, at least 1/3 carry EPLI insurance. He also stated that for companies with less than 50 employees, less than 4% have coverage. Carriers are seeing a trend in the increase of EPLI claims. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported 2,118 more claims in 2016 than had been reported in 2015. The EPLI market has an expected growth of $2.7 billion by the year 2019. One of the reasons could very well be the increased media coverage of discrimination lawsuits, and a bigger awareness of these types of claims in general. This is bringing an often overlooked coverage to the spotlight. Because of this, more and more companies are purchasing this important coverage. What is Covered by EPLI?  EPLI covers a variety of types of claims that related to the relationship between an employee and the employer. EPLI covers claims that allege there has been an instance of discrimination (religion, color, nationality, age, sex, and race). In 2016 and 2015, the EEOC reported that the top five categories or discrimination claims were retaliation, race, disability, sex, and age. Retaliation claims comprised 46% of the total number of discrimination claims.  That is a staggering number. Other types of EPLI claims include sexual harassment, negligent or malicious evaluation, wrongful termination, wrongful discipline (which is usually closely tied to discrimination), failure to promote, violation of leave laws, breach of employment contract, failure to hire, emotional distress, hostile work environment or willful deprivation of a career opportunity. What about Wage and Hour Laws? Wage and hour laws are another aspect of EPLI claims but not every policy covers them. Wage and hour laws are complicated because of the variety of local, state and federal laws. There are five types of wage and hour claims. The five types are: misclassifying employees (exempt or non-exempt from overtime pay), overtime wages, extra time off, meal breaks, independent contractors vs employees. Security guards are usually paid an hourly wage and depending on how your company schedules shifts and overtime, these claims can be costly to your company to defend unless your EPLI policy covers these claims. Ensuring that you have wage and hour law coverage is necessary for security guard business owners as claims of these types are on the rise. Third Party Claims  For security guards, who are often stationed at various locations and deal with a wide variety of people, third-party claims coverage is important. With a third party claim, the claim or lawsuit comes from somebody who is not an employee, such a client or customer, or somebody else at a client site (such as a customer of the client).  It is easy for somebody to say something without malice, but have it taken the wrong way and it can trigger a lawsuit. With so many employees off-site at other locations, and with a high degree of interaction with the customers of clients, third-party coverage is necessary to have on any EPLI policy for security guard businesses. Another type of third-party claim that is gaining traction is website accessibility lawsuits. These are lawsuits that allege that the ADA requirements for physical locations can be applied to a company’s website. By claiming that a website is not accessible to a disabled person, they can claim that they are being discriminated against. While the number of claims is low, they are being seen more and more, with companies such as Bed, Bath and Beyond and Ace Hardware being named in lawsuits. To prevent this type of claim, companies can provide audible captions on pictures and consider providing audible text for the website content. This is a type of claim that is being watched carefully. How can we Prevent EPLI Claims? One of the best ways to prevent claims is to have clearly written policies in the employee manual regarding discrimination, harassment, and conduct. Employees should sign a copy and return it to their employer. The managing director of MarketStance, Frederick Yohn, has said that when it comes to having written policies regarding discrimination and sexual harassment, only 41% of the companies with over 1,000 employees had a plan or procedures in place. Even a small company needs to have an employee manual that addresses this issue. Your company should have written procedures and guidelines for hiring, promotion, performance reviews, discipline and termination that all managers, supervisors, and owners must consistently follow. Each job position should have a written description of the exact job duties and expectations about the job. This is important for security guard companies because there is a physical aspect of the job. Job postings should clearly list what the physical requirements are. For preventing wage and hour claims, there are a few steps that you can take such as: Have a written policy regarding overtime hours and getting approval prior to working overtime Comply with all local, state and federal wage laws and rest/meal periods Keep employee records including their classification and duties and a written description of their duties that is consistent to their classification Preventing claims by having clearly defined job roles and descriptions, following written procedures for discipline, hiring, and termination and documenting everything are all necessary for minimizing the chances of having an EPLI claim. Security companies need to stay protected and their policy should include coverage for third-party claims and wage and hour law claims as well.