Category Archives: Commercial Auto

Claims Management, Commercial Auto, Construction Practice Group Content, Food & Beverage Practice Group Content, General Liability Insurance, Human Services Practice Group Content, Interview, Other, Risk Management, Transportation Practice Group Content, Workers Compensation Insurance, Workers Compensation Premium Audits

A Fireside Chat with A Claims Adjuster

Our Claims Advocacy Team got to sit down with a workers’ compensation claims professional who specializes in high exposure claims. They discussed a high exposure claim that wasn’t reported timely to the carrier after the incident occurred.  

 

Please Note: This article has been edited for clarification and to protect the identities of those involved in the interview.

 

We’ve decided to call this interview a “Fireside Chat with a Claims Professional”, please tell me, are you actually in front of a lit fire or a fireplace or at least a match? 

Yeah, I have a nice scented candle lit, some nice ambiance for the room. 

What is your current role in the claims process? 

I oversee about 500 files, not directly managing the day to day activities and tasks to move a claim forward, but looking at it from a strategic standpoint, whether it be return-to-work, a settlement, or the resolution of some litigated matters.  I also assist clients in resolving their existing claims files.

Can you describe what a heavy litigated file/high exposure claim is?

Yeah, high exposure is really like your catastrophic claims. For example, someone who might be a paraplegic, quadriplegic, someone that suffers from a traumatic brain injury, or spinal cord injury. Those are leaning towards your high exposure. 

Heavy litigated are files that are going to essentially set a precedent in future case law and how it can impact lawyers and insurers in the future. 

Is the insured involved in the process at all? Or by the time that the issue reaches your hands is it completely out of the insured hands? 

I feel like most of the time the employers (named insured) are aware that I’m working on their files as a resource. Oftentimes I can be involved in the claims review process to help bridge some of the gaps that may be present, with the knowledge to move that file forward. 

 

However, It depends on the account and the type of policy that’s written because they (the insured) may be hands-off. They may have paid their deductible and then the claim is no longer the named insured’s problem. So they leave the claim up to the carrier going forward. 

 

You mentioned once their deductible is paid they often have a hand-off approach because it is no longer ‘their money’. Does the claim, the amount paid on the claim, and the amount paid from the deductible have an effect on their insurance? 

 

It has an impact on their rating. It affects their E-Mod (Experience Modification factor rating). What this means is when the insured goes out into the market place the following year when they are up for renewal,  that claim may show up. the incurred (paid + reserve) impacts their ability to be written for new insurance and essentially tells them what premium they’ll be paying.

 

From what you just told me, it doesn’t make sense for the insured to take a hands-off approach? Does that sound fair? 

 

I certainly think that they (the insured) should be involved because this directly affects and impacts their future with Mod ratings and what they’re going to pay for in the future. But many people still take the backseat approach. 

 

Though this often depends on the level of comfort they have with their carrier. So while I say it’s a backseat approach. It may seem a little hands-off because they feel confident in their carriers’ ability and what we put forth.  They know that we’re going to mitigate their losses as much as possible to bring it to a resolution. 

 

That’s a great point. I imagine this is true with a long-standing client, a company who’s been insured with you for a long time, they know the team and have the same players handling their claims, and they can kind of step back because they know that your team has their best interest at heart.

 

Seasonal/Winter Claims

 

So you’ve seen it all, as you’ve climbed the ranks in insurance and the claims world. Is there one type of claim you encounter where you just roll your eyes when it comes because it is the most common type of claim? This could be a winter claim, an industry-specific claim. 

 

I call them your classic injuries. The two most common ones that are seasonally driven are your slip and falls. They are the most common denominator in terms of what you see for December, January, February March claim volumes that come in. Slip and Fall will rank really high for what we see. 

 

Aside from that, lifting injuries are common as well. 

 

Are these injuries specific to a particular industry?  Do you only oversee construction, real estate, healthcare or are these claims kind of general and not industry-specific? 

 

I think claims like these are industry-specific. Your transportation carriers/delivery services, you typically see slip and falls from the parking lots or while they’re making a delivery to someones’ home. The same goes for lifting injury, that’s primarily where you see those.

 

 Construction is a fall from heights, that’s typically the most common one.  

 

Then the healthcare we see lifting injuries because your home health aides, they’re typically assisting with a client/patient, having to maybe get them up out of bed. Some of those patients are unable to help themselves get up, and typically these employees have to just lift 150 pounds to 200 pounds by themselves with no assistive device to help them do that. We see a lot of lifting and back injuries & neck injuries from that.

 

It sounds like our essential workforce, especially during COVID times are the ones getting injured the most.

Yes. I can agree with that. 

Most Expensive Claim That You Personally Have Seen 

 

What is the most expensive claim you’ve seen? For clarification when I say the most expensive claim it can be a specific body part that is a high dollar amount.

It depends on how high you’re looking to go. I’ve seen some claims that are multi-million dollars.

 

What was that? A multimillion-dollar claim? What was that Injury? 

 

Without disclosing too much detail, one employee rode in the back of a pickup truck of another employee, as they departed the employer’s location and a severe injury was sustained. It’s a multimillion-dollar claim because this employee needs 24/7 care and will need to live in a facility probably for the rest of their life. 

 

That’s tragic and I don’t think many insureds think about claims on that level. Maybe large corporations, like the transportation organizations we discussed earlier (UPS, FedEx, DHL.) Those companies have a large workforce at a national level, so maybe they’re more familiar with those. But smaller commercial clients, don’t see or even think that this could even happen, and now they’re looking at a multimillion-dollar loss that they didn’t budget for when running their business. 

 

Absolutely, and when we start to look at what happened and gather the facts around the event we start to ask questions like “What is your policy about having employees on site after work?” and if there is any surveillance footage of the location and what was actually happening. 

Having that information and the punch cards to show when they came in and when exactly they left.  in a lot of states, there are a number of “coming and going” rules that would either support the acceptance of or denial of that accident/injury, being considered within the course and scope of employment.

 

This ties into my next question, from your side of things I’m sure it’s frustrating when these claims, and you see that more could have been done from the insured standpoint. How can the client help in the claims process so it doesn’t get to your level? At least so they do everything they possibly can to help your team out, to help the adjuster out before it gets to you and it becomes a multimillion-dollar claim.

 

What we see very often, and in the example, we just talked about this claim wasn’t reported to us until several months after the accident happened.

 

Wow. 

 

It is so important to get it to us, even if they are not sure if it would be covered under Workers’ Comp. Oftentimes they (the insured) might think it’s covered under liability or if it’s a motor vehicle accident they strictly put it in as an auto claim. 

 

My advice would be to file that incident report, that first report of injury as soon as the incident happens. Let the carrier investigate it and be sure to really partner with the carrier to ensure that you’re getting them the information that they’re requesting. Preserving any evidence is crucial as well. 

 

So if you have surveillance footage be sure to take that and send it over right away. Witness statements are critical.  When you speak to someone right after an event happens the event is going to be right fresh in their head.  As opposed to trying to track someone down a few months from now, or even a week from now, their recollection of the event might vary. These witnesses might have also spoken to other employees about things being said around the workplace and you risk getting a skewed version of what actually occurred. 

 

Even include the profile for the employee: what’s going on? Oftentimes you’ll see they’ve run out of vacation time and now they’ve filed this claim. Then, we learn from other employees that this person was just taking a vacation. So all that information about what’s going on in this employee’s life and other things they’re aware of like disability claims that were previously filed for this employee in conjunction with just responding to the investigation as soon as it happens is pivotal.

 

I gather that a lot of times in an instance where this doesn’t happen, the insured is afraid of the repercussions and the carrier is going to penalize them. However, you don’t get penalized for doing the right thing, which is if you know something happened, report it. This way the carrier can work with you and guide you and do the investigation early on instead of 4 months out. 

 

So circling back to the example you gave us. What happened in the time it took for that event to hit your desk? 

 

In this situation, it was a case of “Everything that can go wrong, did go wrong.” The insured originally never put it through to workers’ comp. Why? 1. They were trying to pay for anything out of pocket to avoid having the claim show up on their claim history. Secondly, they heard this employee had passed away. The employer didn’t realize that the employee had survived the accident. 

 

Once we finally did receive the claim, the employees that participated in the internal investigation before it reached the carrier were no longer available for comment. 

 

This sounds interesting.

 

I’m not sure if that answered your question, but I’m not sure if this approach helped anybody because the state where this incident occurred is a state that requires you to get prior authorizations, and the employee already incurred several million dollars worth of care before this claim even reached us. There was no direction and we couldn’t negotiate the rates with the home healthcare. At this point, we’re trying to go backwards to try to project what could occur in the future. 

 

What a mess. 

 

This approach doesn’t work well from the financial standpoint either because it doesn’t help the injured worker and then the carrier is trying to quickly piece together to make a decision before the state’s deadline for when you have to file a decision. There is a lot of scrambling. 

 

This sounds so stressful. The insured may be able to self-pay but those accidents need to be very minor. Even if the insured does self-pay there are still forms that need to be filled out and the insured is required to keep them on hand but it sounds like in this instance it was a major accident, to begin with. 

 

Thank you so much for sharing. This touches on what a lot of clients are asking and are worried about. At the end of the day, they all want the best insurance rates and the best insurance coverage, but the only way to achieve that is cooperation and reporting things timely when an employee is injured. 

 

It sounds like in this instance the insured didn’t try to reach out to the injured employee because they didn’t know if he was still alive.

 

There was no contact made. In fact, it was asked for us to not contact the family until we (the carrier) had the full scope of what was going on because at that point we didn’t want to contact the family and give them unrealistic expectations of what would be covered.  The insured definitely learned a lesson on what not to do next time. 

 

Something as simple as reaching out to the employee who was injured, or reaching out to the family if you can’t get the employee,  and they’re not showing up to work is a big step and a huge help to the claims team and to the employer as well. They should know where their employees are. 

 

I find it very important for the employer to be engaged in this process. Whether they are a short-term or a long-term employee. Following up and showing that area of concern, asking them when they might return to work. It makes that employee feel valued. It could also result in a quicker return to work.

 

A great point you’ve touched on. 

 

The employer/employee relationship  

 

I ran into an issue where I was trying to encourage one of my clients to reach out to an employee that had gone MIA for a little bit. Their response was they didn’t want to because they were afraid that the employee would consider it harassment and the employer’s view was “this employee is out on workers’ comp. We have no right to speak to them.”

 

I think a lot of insureds feel this way:  once the employee is out on workers’ comp they’re not allowed to speak to the employee. But, what you’re telling me is this is not truly the case. 

 

To my knowledge, there is no employment law that prevents the employer from checking in on their employees. Disability does that to check in with their employees to check-in and see how they’re progressing and how they’re healing. The employer may not be able to ask directly “When are you returning to work” but they can ask how they’re progressing. 

 

Depending upon the relationship between the employer and the employee, the employee may be forthcoming with more information. 

 

A lot of times these folks are just home and don’t have many other people to talk with. A lot of them are isolated, working-class individuals. So their family, friends, and everyone else is at work, so they’re longing for social interaction. The employer reaching out shows the employee that they’re concerned about their wellbeing and the employee can be eager to come back.

 

It sounds like this is just the kind thing to do. 

I don’t know of any law that stops someone from doing that so we encourage reaching out to the employee. 

I wasn’t meaning this from any legal standpoint. I just meant a lot of employers are like “Well they’re out on workers’ comp. We’re not talking to them”. They’re still your employees.

Especially when some of these employees have been with the company for 15+ years. How do you let this accident happen and not show empathy or concern for how the employee is doing? I think from the carrier side of this we’re in situations where we can’t have direct contact with the employee because they’re attorney represented. Therefore the employer is our outlet to keep us updated.

 

Oftentimes they (injured workers) go to a doctor’s appointment and they give their employer a call with an update: “I just went to my  Dr.’s appointment and I’m going to be out for another 4 weeks. I need to go to physical therapy and then go back to the Dr.’s.” 

 

As a carrier, it takes us a longer route to get this information because we have to call the provider to get information, and sometimes it takes two weeks plus to get the office notes, depending on how long it takes the physician’s office to have their notes dictated. 

 

It’s often helpful to the carrier if the employer maintains that relationship with the employee. It can help get that person back to work sooner, which benefits the claim. 

 

You’re detailing a really important dynamic which we try to communicate to our clients, and it’s nice to hear the same from you, another claims expert. It’s a group effort and the insured is a key player in how these claims can end up. It starts with keeping in contact. Once the adjuster loses contact with the claimant due to attorney representation it sounds like the employer is the key person to maintain that contact and relay important information to you guys. 

 

I think that this is something a lot of people often overlook because it’s not common knowledge.

 

Exactly what I was saying. 

 

This has given us a lot to think about, to share with our clients. Is there anything else that I didn’t touch on that you were hoping to talk about? Any inside scoops.

 

You know, I gave an example of a catastrophic claim and there are other claims out there. What I think is always a challenge for employers is the accident description itself. Sometimes that’s where they start scratching their head. The employer starts asking themselves “Do I report this? Do I not report this? Should I be taking a hands-on approach? Do I let the claims team just handle it?”

 

The employer may not want to reach out during the investigation period, because the employee may start asking questions that they don’t have the answers to. 

 

Right. 

 

I’ve seen all sorts of things, and the issue is that there are various grey areas in claims that can affect whether or not the claim will be accepted by the carrier. 

 

You mentioned some of the more common areas of claims and can some of those be prevented? 100% Yes, but some will inevitably happen. The other side of this is the quicker we can get these resolved, and the greater involvement we can have earlier on, the more likely we will help the injured employee return to work sooner. The more we can do to prevent these accidents from occurring, the safer the staff is and the better things can be. 

 

Risk Management 101. Preach! Thank you so much for your time. Our fireside, Vanity Fair-esque interview. This was a lot of fun! I may be reaching back out to you for a summer edition of this!  

 

Claims management is an integral part of your insurance purchasing process. If you have any questions or need help with claims management within your organization contact one of our Metropolitan Risk Risk Advisors for information on our available programs. 

Commercial Auto, Construction Practice Group Content, Food & Beverage Practice Group Content, Human Services Practice Group Content, Line of Insurance, Practice Groups, Risk Management, Transportation Practice Group Content

Hired & Non-Owned Liability Coverage

As businesses of all sizes and industries are reevaluating how they plan on doing business moving forward, many small businesses have shifted from physical retail locations to online and home delivery services. This is to keep up with customer demand and social distancing guidelines. With this shift in the way businesses are run, they also face new risks. A smaller business may not be able to afford to hire a fleet of vehicles for their employees to drive and may rely on their employees to deliver goods using a vehicle not provided by the company. A hired and non-owned auto policy is one way these organizations can better protect themselves for the auto-exposure.

For example, hospitals and pharmacies may now rely on nurses to do more routine care through home care. This may be instead of outpatient treatment and offer home delivery of pharmacy items and prescriptions. To save money, these businesses may rely on their staff members to drive their own vehicles around the state. 

Restaurants & Insurance

The restaurant industry is another industry affected by these new lifestyle changes. Restaurants who were previously dine-in only are now offering the service of having orders available for take-out and may forgo using UberEats and Grubhub in favor of using their own staff as delivery drivers to keep more of their profits in house. 

If you have a sales team that is always on the road you have exposure. Do you have attorneys that go to court or accountants that go and see clients? How about estimators that go to look at new work, or safety personnel, inspectors that go from job to job? 

We encourage you to think about how you execute your day to day business to assess whether you have exposure. Of note, the commute to and from work is NOT an exposure. If they stop off to execute a task for the business, then go to work. This drive turns into an exposure because it’s no longer a commute. 

These are a few examples where Hired/Owned Auto Liability insurance might be of use to fund a potential liability exposure. 

 

Learn More: Auto Exposure in Home Healthcare Organizations

What is Hired & Non-Owned Automobile Liability?

If you do not own a car but frequently borrow other people’s cars, rent cars or use a car-sharing service, non-owner auto insurance offers you coverage if you cause an accident. Non-owned automobile liability can be extremely severe in many cases.

This type of insurance covers you for damage you cause to someone else’s car in an accident. It also covers liability for injuries to the occupants of the other car or to pedestrians.

You should also consider the coverage if you do not currently own a car but will in the future. Having continuous insurance coverage will help keep your premiums low when you purchase a policy for a new car.

 

Why does my business need this Liability Policy?

Many personal auto policies have exclusions on them regarding driving for businesses. This means the loss that occurs is the responsibility of the business and not the driver.  

If your business is putting drivers on the road during business hours, you are still responsible for their actions. This means that if your driver is in a car accident while driving from one client to another your business would fund the loss and pay the insurance claims before their personal auto coverage. 

Pairing your Hired & Non-Owned Auto Liability Policy with a strong safe driver’s agreement 

Insurance is important, but it is a trailer for all risk management processes. Having a safe driver policy that all of your employees must adhere to is one way to help manage the risks that come with employees driving their own vehicles for work. 

DOWNLOAD: A Sample of A Safe Driver’s Agreement

A safe driver’s agreement is an agreement all of your employees should sign stating that they will practice safe driving behavior while driving on company time. This agreement includes discipline for drivers who get tickets or have points on their licenses and can include safe driver incentives for their employees. Safe driver incentives can be a great way to help motivate your employees to be better drivers. 

 

If your organization lacks a hired and non-owned auto policy you are leaving yourself exposed to the risk of having to fund the entirety of a loss if a loss occurs. If your business is now looking to purchase a hired and non-owned insurance policy, contact a Risk Advisor at 914-357-8444 for more information on how.

 

 

Commercial Auto, Human Services Practice Group Content, Risk Management, Vlogs

Auto Exposure in Home Healthcare Organizations

Many Human Services and Healthcare organizations rely on their staff to visit client homes, facilities, and provide transportation for clients.  A strong set of controls paired with the appropriate insurance coverage can significantly lower an organization’s cost of risk as it relates to auto exposure. Setting up the right controls is largely what will determine an organization’s cost of risk. Insurance coverage is the simplest part.

 

Prevention of scenarios with the right systems in place:

 

Scenario 1: A Non Profit checks Motor Vehicle Reports (MVRs) upon hire and even annually. An employee transporting clients causes a severe accident with another vehicle. Since the last MVR run was clean, they are found to have a suspended license. This is due to repeated reckless driving and speeding violations.

Coverage Response: The carrier pushes back citing it is the employer’s responsibility to know the status of the driver’s record and take preventative action.  The claim is denied by the carrier. Then, the Non Profit assumes full responsibility for the cost of the injured claimant in the other vehicle, the injured clients, and the physical damage to the vehicles. The damages

Preventative Solution: There are vendors who can provide Automated MVR updates any time there is an event on a driver record, allowing the employer to take immediate action.  Tie the Automated MVR update system to MVR grading criteria and a Progressive Discipline Policy within a well-defined Drivers Agreement. This is to hold drivers accountable and encourage safe driving.

Scenario 2: A Home Health Care Agency declines Hired and Non Owned Auto Coverage and does not require employees to maintain a minimum personal auto limit.  The Agency’s driving exposure includes personal vehicle use:

  • Nurse Supervisors driving to client homes & facilities
  • Aides running errands and providing transportation for clients to Dr.’s appointments

An Aide maintains the statutory minimum insurance requirement, transports a client and causes an accident with another vehicle.  The aide totals the other vehicle. The other driver and the client sustain injuries and sue the aide for $100,000 each.

Coverage Response: The statutory limit provides a maximum of $50,000 bodily injury liability to all persons and $10,000 to property, meaning the Agency is responsible for $75,000 to both the other driver and the client as well as value of the vehicle less the $10,000 from the aide’s policy. As Hired and Non Owned Auto isn’t in place, this is uninsured loss the Agency would pay out of pocket.

Preventative Solution: The Agency should require a minimum limit for personal auto coverage to form a Primary Layer before the business insurance needs to respond.  We recommend a $300,000 limit. Further, proof of coverage and payment should be collected annually. Purchase Hired and non owned auto with a $1,000,000 CSL AND included in an Umbrella.

 

Commercial Auto, Commercial Property, Construction Practice Group Content, Directors & Officers, Food & Beverage Practice Group Content, General Liability Insurance, Human Services Practice Group Content, Line of Insurance, Transportation Practice Group Content, Vlogs, Workers Compensation Insurance, Workers Compensation Premium Audits

Commercial Insurance 101: An Introduction to Insurance

Commercial Insurance is one of those things that every company has but not every company understands. In some cases, a person is chosen to be put in charge of the insurance buying process and this person is usually an HR person who has a very little understanding of what goes into the insurance buying process.

 

To recap the video, commercial insurance is essentially when a person, business, or group of people transfer a risk that could cost money in damages to an insurance carrier. To transfer the risk, the business will pay a flat fee – a premium – that changes in cost every year based on the previous year’s claims. There are also difference types of insurance as well, including workers compensation for worker injuries on the job. There is also auto liability, general liability, property damages, and others.

 

The one part of insurance many do not understand is: Why do carriers agree to this? The damages may be 10x the insurance premium. It turns out that out of the hundreds of millions of premium policies carriers write every year, they will lose money on only a very small fraction of them. When insureds (those buying insurance) pool their risk into a small group of carriers, many of them pay for a premium. However, much of the time it turns out that their were no damages or claims to need compensation. That does not mean they should not pay for insurance the next year. Insurance is for the protection against the unpredictable. A driver with a perfectly clean record can skid on ice one day. Those damages can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Learn about the different types of commercial insurance and the role it plays inside of your business. This is just a starting point to learn some of the basics of commercial insurance.

 

Still have questions? Call one of our risk advisors today at 914-357-8444. Or, visit our website here.

 

Commercial Auto, HR Challenges, Human Services Practice Group Content

Driver Safety Policy Options For Home Healthcare Agencies

Do you run a home health care agency where employees use their own car? If so, it is essential that you have a specifically designed implemented driver safety policy. Home health care agency employees often find themselves pressed for time. It would be understandable for an employee to feel obligated to drive a little recklessly to make it to their job in time. On top of this, one of your employees may be traveling with a customer, further increasing your liability.  
 
According to the Labor Department, the leading cause of work-related fatalities involved vehicular accidents. 23% of all work-related deaths were due to vehicular accidents to be exact. This number leads to an estimated $250 billion dollars of expenses handed on to employers. These expenses are not to cover the cost of the auto accident itself(and all the injuries that may incur), but workers compensation costs as well as increased insurance premiums. 

Home Healthcare Driver Safety Tips

 

  • Have an MVR reporting system. This is where employees’ driver’s license is run automatically to identify candidates or employees with unsafe driving records. Any time an employee commits a driving infraction you will know right away. By hiring safer drivers, you reduce a large chunk of your risk associated with your business.
    • Some agencies run a yearly report and think this is enough, but drivers can get in trouble a week after the report is done. This happens more often than you think! CLICK HERE for more info on an MVR Reporting Service.
  • Make sure your employee handbook states that employees who will be driving their own vehicles must have purchased at least $500,000 worth of auto liability insurance.
    • This way, if an employee gets into an accident, it is his/her policy that is first in line. If your employees are only carrying the minimum amount of insurance, you can be responsible for the remaining amount of damage. Make sure to check your employees’ auto liability coverage on a yearly basis to avoid being liable. 
  • Make sure to have hired and non-owned auto liability insurance. This will protect your business from liability when you or your employees are driving their own vehicles for work-related purposes.
 
Before working for Metropolitan Risk, I worked for a pool maintenance/cleaning company. My duties often consisted of driving from house to house to clean pools and check up on heaters and filters. While I was able to avoid getting into any accidents, a co-worker of mine was not as lucky. After getting into an accident on the open road, our employer was completely liable for the charges. Had he not neglected to take any insurance precautions earlier, he would have saved a lot of money. Don’t cut corners with your business, it will catch up to you in the long run. 
 

Click Here to Contact Us

 
Make sure to follow these steps to keep your risk and your costs as low as possible. If you have any further questions and wish to speak to an advisor, give us a call now at (914) 357-8444!
Commercial Auto, Transportation Practice Group Content

First Responder Risk Management Basics

Here are some basics as it relates to first responder drivers. Although we know much of this instinctually. Formalizing some basic risk management techniques for those who drive an ambulance or ambulette can help low your insurance costs. Further keeping these basics top of mind for your employees who operate the vehicle help keep them focused.

Why is this Important?

Emergency vehicle drivers are an essential component in saving the lives of others, as they are responsible for driving the truck that carries all equipment and personnel needed to assist those in need. First responder safety is important because if drivers cannot successfully get the vehicle to an emergency scene, personnel cannot help civilians and/or protect property.

In order to deliver both personnel and equipment, drivers must always have safety at top of mind. In addition, emergency vehicle drivers must use a high standard of care for the general public who are also using the road by trying to reduce the risk of injury to others.

Here’s another good reason. Standardizing risk management procedures like this saves you money on your insurance program. If you need help figuring this important component out CLICK HERE to speak to a Risk Advisor to get a quote on Ambulance Insurance Program or Ambuellete Insurance Program.

Standardize Your Vehicle Inspections :   

Before entering the vehicle and starting it up, walk around the entire truck to make sure that all equipment is secured, all compartment doors are securely shut and all obstructions are safely moved out of the way. We suggest the inspection should not be random but standardized through a checklist that driver is required to complete at the beginning of every shift; no exceptions. Example of items that you might include on your checklist.

  • Inspect all four sides and the top of the vehicle.
  • Verify clearance on the right and rear of the vehicle with the person riding in the officer position. This check should be done before moving in both emergency and non-emergency situations.        
  • Verify all lights are in working order.
  • Verify all blinkers and hazards are in working order.
  • If your vehicle is equipped with sirens, verify they work.
  • Tire Pressure @ proper level?
  • Tire tread at acceptable measurement.
  • Under carriage satisfactory, nothing loose or dragging?
  • Check “dummy lights”
  • Brakes in working order?
  • Windows clear, un obstructed or damaged?
  • Door locks functional; Doors is working order.
  • Once in the vehicle, wear your safety belt.

Responding to Emergencies :

When responding to an emergency follow company policy :

  • Turn on all audible and visual warning devices. 
  • Recognize that warning device are only a request for the right-of-way as opposed to a guarantee that you have the rule of the road.
  • Be aware of how close you are to other vehicles and pedestrians, and make sure to allow a safe following distance. Specifically, allow one second of response time. 
  • No drinking beverages or eating food in route. Obvious I know…yet….
  • Cell phones away.
  • Stay focused and remain calm. There are a lot of lives at stake as you maneuver your thousand pounds plus vehicle through a challenging environment.
  • Limit distractions, conversations e.t.c. focus on the mission at hand.

Non-emergency Response Situations :

When responding to a non-emergency, follow all normal motor vehicle regulations without using your audible or visible devices.

End of Shift : 

There should be a checklist similar to the beginning of shift where you can record your observations of the performance of the vehicle. Further there should a mechanism in place corporately whereby any issues get logged in to a list or system and are reviewed constantly for execution until closed. Remember it’s not s system until you close the loop.

First responders also need to take precautions in hose loading, vehicle rollovers,  backing up and intersections. If you want to know more details about how one should take these precautions, PRESS HERE for more information or contact a Risk Advisor today!

 

Commercial Auto, Construction Practice Group Content, Transportation Practice Group Content

Drive Other Car Coverage Helps to Bridge Auto Policy Gap

If you provide company vehicles to your employees and these employees don’t have their own personal automobile insurance policy, a potential gap in coverage exists. To adequately cover commercial automobile liability, a drive other car endorsement is specifically intended to bridge this commercial auto liability insurance coverage gap, therefore keeping you safe.

Drive Other Car Coverage

Drive Other Car Coverage Basics:

So, what does Drive Other Car Coverage mean? If you have employees that you provide with company-owned vehicles, they often do not have an additional automobile and therefore do not carry a personal automobile policy.

If an employee doesn’t carry a personal policy and drives a vehicle borrowed from a party separate from the company, drive-other-car coverage affords them liability protection should an accident occur. As a result, you can lend out your car without the unwanted anxiety.

Your business automobile policy endorses your drive-other-car coverage. This provides coverage only for scheduled individuals.

How Does This Differ From Hired/Non-owned Coverage?

Some key differences between hired non-owned coverage and drive-other-car coverage:

  •        Hired Automobile coverage provides for vehicles that are leased, rented, hired or borrowed by the insured or its employees for business purposes.
  •        Hired non-owned coverage to employers when an employee uses their own personal vehicle for business purposes.

I have a commercial auto liability claim. Does that mean Coverage Applies to Me?

To show how drive-other-car coverage applies, consider the following situations:

  •         A salesperson rents a car for personal use on vacation and damages another vehicle.  Is he or she covered?
  •         A business owner has all the vehicles titled in the company’s name. The owner’s family travels out of town on vacation and rents a car. They opt not to purchase coverage and an accident ensues.  Is he or she covered?
  •         An executive borrows a friend’s minivan to move and is involved in an accident. Is he or she covered?

In all of these circumstances, the business automobile policy provides no coverage. This is because the accident did not involve the “covered auto,” or company-owned vehicle. A drive-other-car endorsement closes the exposure loop in these instances.

Minimize Your Commercial Auto Liability Exposure:

Consider these commercial auto insurance tips and tricks to help minimize your exposure:

  •         Require all of your employees who are either issued or that will drive company vehicles to have personal automobile policies. You do this by first inserting language into your company’s employee hand book.
  •         Notify Metropolitan Risk Advisory of any employees and family members that do not have personal automobile policies. We suggest you do an audit at least once a year and keep the results on file just in case. Make it a requirement that if an employee cancels their personal auto insurance coverage they must notify HR in writing. You can’t manage what you don’t know!
  •         Review the coverage provided on the endorsement so that you have a clear understanding of what is included as coverage differs greatly by insurance carrier. Coverage can include liability, medical payments, uninsured motorist and physical damage coverage. Review the endorsement to ensure that all employees and/or family members that do not have personal automobile policies are scheduled on the endorsement.
  •         Notify the carrier of any individuals not shown on the schedule that should be. Always do this in writing so you have written proof of the request. This means time and date stamped via email.

Especially relevant, continue planning properly as one of the trickier elements of insurance is commercial auto insurance coverage. A Risk Advisor who understands your business can help you understand drive-other-car coverage. This knowledge helps you and endorse your business automobile policy to reduce your exposure to loss.

Still have questions? Still want more information? Call us today at (914) 357-8444 to ensure that your automobile coverage adequately meets your needs. Or, you could also visit our website here. We are here to help!

Commercial Auto, Construction Practice Group Content, Food & Beverage Practice Group Content, Human Services Practice Group Content, Loss Control, Risk Management, Transportation Practice Group Content

How to Identify & Correct High Risk Drivers – An Intro to Best Practice Fleet Safety

If your organization relies on drivers as an integral part of day-to-day operations, you are probably aware of the extremely high risk that you are carrying. After all, motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of workplace fatalities. While safety innovations continue to play a role in improving accident prevention and outcomes, fleet and safety managers must raise the bar when it comes to improving driver behavior. With litigation judgments and settlements often surpassing a million dollars, it simply makes good financial sense for companies to be more proactive on the fleet-safety front. But more importantly, each time you collect data, identify unsafe behaviors, and take time out to coach drivers and provide proper training, you could also be saving a life.

Motivated to improve your fleet safety, productivity, and efficiency? Here’s how:

Continue reading How to Identify & Correct High Risk Drivers – An Intro to Best Practice Fleet Safety →

Commercial Auto, Other

Hot Tips On Covering Your Employee’s Business Auto Insurance Liability Exposure

Confused about auto insurance liability exposure? One of our most often asked questions is ;”We don’t own any auto’s , but our employees regularly drive on company business their own cars, how do we protect ourselves and our employees in the event of an accident? Ah, great question grasshopper  as I try to be succinct here.

 

If your companies has no auto’s registered to it, but has sales or consultants driving on company business you are correct both the business and the employee have significant liability exposures. In the event of a bad accident whereby severe injuries and property damage are sustained, both the employee and the business stand a high degree of probability of being sued.

 

Here is how the claim process would follow:

 

1) The liability , and the insurance follows the vehicle first. Thus in the example above the first pool of capital that would respond would be the employees car insurance policy. That policy would not just respond for the employee , but also the business that the employee was driving for. That’s the good news, the bad news is the limits available maybe be too thin to respond fully for both parties.

 

( As an example if the employee is only carrying $100,000 of liability coverage per 1 incident, then that is the full amount available for lawsuit. If the suit is for $ 1 million dollars , the company and employee are short $900,000 that’s the bad news.

 

2) If you had a risk advisor then in all probability that risk advisor would have suggested purchasing Hired/Non Owned Auto coverage that would respond for exactly that scenario. This policy would then drop down for the company , and perhaps the employee contingent on the endorsements and wording, solving for the $900,000 gap in coverage limits .

 

3) If your risk advisor was really on their game you would have an umbrella policy that would boost the coverage limit available over the initial base policy limit of $ 1 million dollars to what ever the coverage limit purchased on the umbrella , thus providing a more substantial buffer of insurance dollars to respond to a very bad loss.

 

HOT TIPS:

1) Now that you know your employees auto policy is the first line of defense , insist in your employee handbook / manual that certain employees ( By Class), as company policy must maintain a minimum limit of liability insurance ( you set the amount) . We suggest somewhere between $300 k & $500 k single limit.

2) To point # 1, insist that those employees also carry a minimum $ 1 Mill of umbrella coverage that would sit over their personal auto of $300 or $500 k single limit.

3) HR , CFO , or whoever is in charge of employee admin should require proof of coverage consistent with items #1 & #2, each year. Compliance to point # 1 & # 2 is critical. If you get push back from the employee offer to contribute some money towards the increased insurance requirements. $250 per annum per employee if very fair and pays for most of the increased coverage requirements.

4) Call a Risk Advisor and purchase a Hired / Non Owned Automobile policy in the name of your company, include the DBA if there is one. Minimum limit their is $ 1mill. It can usually be added to your other insurance policies for a nominal amount.

5) Coordiante with your companies umbrella carrier that the Hired / Non Owned Auto policy is now a scheduled insurance policy eligible for umbrella coverage within the umbrella contract. Yes, you must connect the dots here or there will be no coverage in the event of a claim even though you have both policies in force. This is a common mistake.

6) LIKE US on Facebook because we just saved your company from going out of business if you ever had an employee car accident!! LOL

Seriously, the most dangerous thing each and every one of us do each day is get behind the wheel of a 3000 lb fort on wheels , hurtling at ungodly speeds . It takes so little to change yours, and someones else’s lives irreparably. Just saying……..