Has Your Commercial Insurance Agent Ever Discussed These Points With You?

YOU PAY THE BILL — 6 POINTS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT COMMERCIAL INSURANCE

• Ensuring that your workers compensation is free of gaps and covered under your umbrella.

  • The employer’s liability section of your worker’s compensation policy lists specific limits of coverage. Many agents do not take the time to explain what these limits mean and what they need to be in order to qualify for additional coverage through your umbrella policy. Our team at Tyrol makes sure to always explain employer’s liability and the importance of scheduling this under your umbrella to secure the additional coverage.

• Informing you about the numerous coverage advantages of commercial auto policies. 

  • When structuring your commercial insurance package it is helpful to think of it as building a wall around all of your assets. Proper limits will act as the primary protective mechanisms to ensure you will not have to shell out your hard earned dollars for lawyers and big settlements. While many company have solid walls for their general liability, workers compensation, product liability and others, we often find the auto “wall” to be lacking. Commercial autos are tax write-offs for the company and there are numerous endorsements that ONLY commercial auto policies can have (the 4 most important are here) and personal policies cannot. Personal auto policies also exclude various business-related activities. Bottom line: your State Farm personal policy is leaving your business exposed.

• The NEED for all businesses to pursue Employment Practices Liability Coverage.

  • This is by far the scariest line of coverage to all insurance carriers. The reason for this is that they know how high the likelihood of claims is. When we explain this area of insurance to customers, people proceed to invest in about 90% of cases. Here are some staggering statistics pertaining to the dangers of this type of coverage. Additionally, the myriad of federal employment laws that most all business owners are forced to comply with can be overwhelming. And in a legal arena, if you are found to be out of compliance it is essentially an automatic forfeiture of the case. Knowing all of the aforementioned dangers, we discuss this with each and every account we quote and your agent should be talking about it too!

• Common policy exclusions

  • There are a multitude of items that are regularly excluded on almost every insurance policy. Insurance companies try to make their policies generally “one size fits all”  so that they can provide the same product to numerous businesses without much change. It is up to your agent to ensure that the policy you have is customized to meet the specific needs of your company. Insurance companies are always looking for loopholes to avoid paying claims. If you have a pharma-related company, they may try to exclude the use of certain chemicals. If you own a large building, they may put in a warranty that voids coverage if your burglar alarm is not working at the time of the loss. If your product is used in various industries, the company may exclude some of them.  It is your agent’s responsibility to go through your coverage with a fine toothed comb and ensure that the carrier does not try to sneak any of these exclusions into your policy.

• What is best effective date for YOU

  • Maybe there is a certain time of year when your business is really busy and you do not have the time to deal with your commercial insurance renewal and audit.  Maybe there is a point in the year where your business slows down and you do not have the cash flow to make down payments and potential audit payments.  Your effective date is your choice!  You pay the bills….you decide.  We recently met with a small landscaper whose coverage came up in July. He let us know how frustrating it was to have to find a way to make time for his agent during the busiest time of his corporate year.  This cost him dollars from the jobs he had to forgoe and more dollars from the fact that he was never really able to shop his insurance with other agents to find the best price and coverage.  Long story short, we ended up switching his effective date to February and saved him $10,000 along the way.

• How to maximize credits from underwriters

  • There are a staggering number of credits that insurance underwriters can apply to your account. To give an idea, in most cases it would be well within an underwriter’s power to increase or decrease your insurance premium by 50%!!  Knowing the vast influence an underwriter can have over what you actually pay, it makes sense to provide your agent lots of leverage to bargain on your behalf. Any safety information (manuals, awards, procedures, doctor panels, etc.) that you can provide to your agent will ultimately amount in dollars going back in your pocket.  Many agents overlook the 5% Pennsylvania Safety Credit for workers compensation because it requires an application and it is only 5%.  This is a horrible approach. We have seen countless incidents where we sign people up for the credit and that 5% turns into 30% through increased credits from underwriters. Your agent should be making you aware of all the ways you can save and all the credits that are available.