Tag Archives: auto insurance

Coverage for auto insurance. Auto insurance is necessary for drivers as driving a car is one of the most dangerous normalized tasks in our global contemporary culture. With that risk comes higher premiums than other forms of insurance.

Employers Practice Liability Insurance, General Liability Insurance, Human Services Practice Group Content, Line of Insurance, Loss Control, Transportation Practice Group Content

Adult Day Care Considerations for Your Business

Running an adult daycare seems to be one of the harder gigs. Between keeping employees in check and fully trained and clients safe, it is a hard organization to manage. Our adult daycare inspection considerations list should help you keep insurance claims and deductions down. One less thing to worry about!

Insurance Considerations when Choosing which Adult Daycare Services to Provide

 

When running an adult daycare, you must understand that there are multiple types of insurance to cover you, your employees, your property, and your business. Some that you should consider when deciding on setting up your daycare center are:

  • Professional Liability – Covers your business from the negligence of employees and other defense/legal costs
  • General Liability – Liability for any incident that occurs within your business (slip & fall hazards or a loose handrail)
  • Auto Liability – For your workers who may transport clients/services to and from other locations
  • Abuse and Molestation Coverage – If the worker physically, sexually, mentally, or emotionally abuses a client

 

Adult Daycare: Safety Inspection Checklist 

Adult Daycares are meant to help adults who cannot supervise themselves during the day & may need help with basic care functions. This naturally means that these workers are constantly focusing on keeping patients/clients safe. Worker’s may overlook small issues, like a cracked sidewalk or an unsteady handrailing as their main focus is on the client, not their surroundings. A Supervisor should focus on making sure safety is a priority for employees & that the surrounding areas also well maintained & safe.

Here are just a few things you might want to keep constantly asking/monitoring:

  • Is the loading/unloading area clearly marked?
  • Are there any potholes in the parking lot?
  • Are there cracks in the pavement that needs to be repaired?
  • Do you have wheelchair-accessible ramps & handrails leading up to the main entrance clearly marked?
  • Are these ramps and handrails in good condition?
  • Are the emergency exits clearly marked and free of obstructions?

Safety Tips for Your Adult Daycare Center

 

While having a safety inspection checklist is definitely important, having certain safety parameters in play is just as necessary. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Rigorous, continuous safety training – your employees are dealing with real-life adults that can be unable to perform simple functions without supervision. This means your employees need training to the max. Rigorous training with in-depth expert advice is important. What is also important is that this training never stops and is not just a 3-day course. It is a continuous learning process.
  • Safety Guideline/Handbook – Having a written word on the safety parameters and rules already gives the employees a better idea of how to handle their clients.
  • Mechanical Lifts & Safe Patient Handling
  • Handrails on stairways
  • Handicapped Bathrooms
  • Proper Lighting
  • Large, spacious areas
  • Medical supplies ready for immediate use

 

Adult Day Care Transportation Considerations 

When running an adult daycare, you need to think about how the adults in need of assistance will come to the daycare facility. If their caretakers at home do not have the time or resources to drive them there and back or make trips to various other locations to aid the adult, this is where your daycare service can flex its muscles. Having a transportation wing of your facility will make your daycare more profitable immediately. Offering the transportation of clients from home to daycare and back is the most important, but you can also offer trips to the grocery store, hospital, and sources of entertainment.

 

Before setting any of this up, you might want to think about the potential risks of implementing this transportation system. Who will be driving? Will they be using their own vehicle or a vehicle provided by your organization? Are they a good and safe driver? Do they need a specific type of license to drive an organization owned fleet vehicle? Will their actions cost me thousands of dollars? We suggest following these tips to make sure you have the necessary guidelines set to open up your transportation service.

 

Have a Motor Vehicle Record open for every single driver. Essentially, a MVR is a small summary of the driver’s previous record and any information pertaining to tickets they may have received. This report includes driver’s license info, date of birth, previous driving history, violations, etc.

 

Obtain comprehensive automobile insurance with medical, property, and liability damage included. That means if you/your driver is liable for an accident, you are protected and covered. If your car receives damages or is stolen (your property), you are covered. And if there is a medical injury due to a crash, you are also covered.

 

Contracting a professional driving company may be worthwhile for your company’s success. If you are unsure of your workers serving as part or full-time drivers, hiring professionals is worth it. They are experienced and bring less risk into the equation. Spending more on their services may cost you less in the long-run.

 

Conclusion

To conclude, running a daycare for adults is not easy. There are a lot of risks and potential costs to consider. But taking our adult daycare inspections tips into consideration will help your organization to succeed.

 

Still, need help? Still, have questions? Contact a risk advisor today at 914-357-8444. Or, visit our website here.

 

Other

What is hired and non-owned auto insurance?

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.

Scenario:

Jordan lives in Chicago, a city with great public transportation, so he does not own a car. Once every few months, he borrows his friend Alex’s car to drive to the nearest warehouse club store to stock up on necessities. He tends to buy a lot of stuff, and borrowing Alex’s car instead of trying to take his purchases home on the train is much easier.

While driving back to his apartment after one of his shopping trips, Jordan became distracted, failed to stop at a stop sign and rear-ended the driver in front of him. The other driver suffered damage to her car as well as neck injuries.

Jordan called Alex right away to tell him what happened. This obviously upset Alex, but Jordan told him not to worry—he had just recently purchased a non-owner auto insurance policy.

Jordan had been borrowing his friend’s car so often, he thought it was a good idea to protect himself in case of an accident. Alex was relieved, since the damages Jordan caused in the accident exceeded the limits of Alex’s liability coverage. Jordan’s non-owner policy covered the excess costs.

 

Non-owned automobile liability is a very real issue that many of us face multiple times a year. Metropolitan Risk Advisory can further explain hired non-owned auto insurance coverage to you and help you determine if it is a fitting option for you. Contact us today at (914) 357-8444.

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, 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……..