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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 ...

The widespread use of smartphones and tablets in the workplace is exposing more and more businesses to liability for sensitive data being compromised if these devices are lost, stolen, or hacked. How can your company protect itself against this threat - and how much authority do you have over an employee's personal device if it's also used for work-related activities? What's more, because these gizmos are small and portable, it's easy to misplace them. (The federal Transportation Safety Administration recently leased a warehouse just to store those misplaced or left behind at airports.) Another emerging risk linked to these devices is a "bring your own" policy that many companies have adopted as a way to save costs by having employees spend their own money on smartphones and tablets that are constantly evolving and updated. This approach raises questions about separating company data from personal information on the device. For example, when an employee leaves, does a business have the authority to wipe the information from his or her smartphone? According to some authorities, if an employee connects a personal device to a company network, the company has inherited responsibility for the data stored on it. To deal with this risk, you need to provide every employee who uses these devices with training, updated annually, on how to respond in case of loss or theft. To minimize potential liability for lawsuits by customers and clients, make sure that the individual responsible for the mishap informs management immediately. The compromised information might include everything from sensitive data (financial or medical) contacts, photos, call history, personal notes - you name it. You can also use insurance to protect yourself against losses from data breaches. A policy will provide Liability coverage that deals with legal costs and third-party expertise (such as forensics firms to analyze a breach and call centers to provide information and public relations. Coverage might also include services such as access to tools to estimate costs, a checklist for your planned response to a data breach, and access to experts who can answer questions and review your company's policies and procedures. For more information, feel free to give us a call.