Tesla Autopilot Collision Warning Before Accident
Remarkable (watch with audio):
-JK
Commercial Auto Insurance Prices Likely to Keep Rising
Most lines of insurance cycle between soft and hard markets over a number of years, which has a direct impact on the price of insurance. The commercial auto insurance market is currently hardening after many years of a soft market, which has resulted in higher prices for both commercial and personal auto policies.
Between 2011 and 2016, competition between auto insurance carriers created a soft, buyer-friendly market. Since then, however, the high cost of claims and increasing costs of vehicle repairs have contributed to a noticeable transition in the market.
Contact me today. I can provide you with resources to help you understand and save on commercial auto insurance, including this prior post, “California Commercial Auto Insurance – Losses & Costs Rising.”
-JK
What Does Business Insurance Cover?
Business insurance coverage for a commercial operation can include the following and more:
General liability insurance: Covers third party liability claims for injuries to other people.
Professional liability and malpractice insurance: aka Errors & Omissions Insurance (E&O). E&O covers professionals against loss due to negligent professional duty, wrongful acts, and advice and services that lead to another person’s loss or injury.
Product liability insurance: Covers against faulty products and damage, illness, injury or death that may occur from using a faulty product.
Property insurance: Covers loss and damage to your commercial business property due to fires, theft, storms and other causes.
Commercial vehicle insurance: Covers commercial vehicles and drivers for collision, liability, property damage, personal injury and “comprehensive” (now known as “other than collision”).
Workers compensation: Covers your employees if they become ill or injured while working on the job.
Loss of income: Also referred to as Business Income, this covers your business expenses such as rent and employee wages if you can’t operate your business.
Key person insurance: Covers loss of income that may result from the head of the business or other key personnel becoming incapacitated or passing away (also known as key man insurance).
Cyber-crime insurance: Provides protection for risks due to Internet use and online communications.
Each and every business is unique. A food products manufacturer or distributor doesn’t have the same risk exposures as a software developer. As an everyday Joe, you’re expected to know if you need these coverage’s or not for your business. If your head is spinning or you’re feeling overwhelmed, this is why you work with an insurance agent or broker.
Let’s face it, most people really don’t like insurance, they don’t care to read their policies, and they just wish someone else would take care of it for them. I like insurance (don’t judge me), I read policy forms all day long for my clients, and people call me to handle all their business insurance needs so they don’t have to. Pick up the phone and call me today or email me if you have questions about these overage’s and whether your business needs them or not.
-JK
OSHA On-site Consultation Program
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) wants to assist small- and medium-sized businesses with their compliance and safety initiatives through their On-Site Consultation Service. This program offers confidential advice in all states across the country, with priority given to high-hazard work-sites. Consultation services are totally separate from enforcement and do not result in penalties or citations.
Using a free consultation service largely funded by OSHA, employers can find out about potential hazards at their work-sites, improve their occupational safety and health management systems and even qualify for a one-year exemption from routine OSHA inspections. The service is delivered by state governments using well-trained professional staff. Most consultations take place on-site, though limited services away from the work-site are also available. This safety and health consultation program is completely separate from the OSHA inspection effort presently in place. No citations are issued or penalties proposed during the consultation appointment.
Your name, your firm’s name and any information that you provide about your workplace, plus any unsafe or unhealthful working conditions that the consultant uncovers, will not be reported routinely to the OSHA inspection staff. Your only obligation will be to commit the organization to correcting serious job safety and health hazards; a commitment which you are expected to make prior to the actual visit, and carry out in a timely manner.
Getting Started
Since consultation is a voluntary activity, your organization must contact OSHA to request it. The consultant will discuss your specific needs with you and set up a visit date based on the priority assigned to your request, your work schedule and the time needed for the consultant to adequately prepare to serve you. OSHA encourages a complete review of your firm’s safety and health situation; however, you may limit the visit to one or more specific problems.
For more information on the OSHA On-Site Consultation Program, visit HERE
Benefits of On-Site Consultation
Knowledge of your workplace hazards and ways to eliminate them can only improve your own operations and the management of your firm. Your organization will get professional advice and assistance on the correction of workplace hazards and benefit from on-site training and assistance provided by the consultant to you and your employees. The consultant can help you establish or strengthen an employee safety and health program, making safety and health activities routine considerations rather than crisis-oriented responses. This program provides incentives and support to smaller, high-hazard employers to develop, implement and continuously improve effective safety and health programs at their worksite(s). The program recognizes employers who have demonstrated exemplary achievements in workplace safety and health by receiving a comprehensive safety and health consultation visit, correcting all workplace safety and health hazards, adopting and implementing effective safety and health management systems and agreeing to request further consultative visits if major changes in working conditions or processes occur that may introduce new hazards.
-JK
Fire Destroys 96-Foot Christmas Tree Outside Costa Mesa Hotel
Yesterday, A 96-foot-tall Christmas tree went up in flames outside the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel in Costa Mesa. The tree was reportedly a $120,000 Evergreen. Fire investigators don’t know how it started.The flames sent up a large plume of black smoke that could be seen from I-405 Monday morning. Here are a couple videos of the Christmas tree fire:
Here was the tree during the real lighting ceremony a few weeks ago:
Essentially, you can say there were two tree lighting ceremonies this year.
-JK
Developing and Injury Illness Prevention Program
California Senate Bill 198 requires all employers to establish, implement and maintain a written effective Injury and Illness Prevention Program. This program must include the following elements:
- Identify a person or persons with authority and responsibility for implementing the program.
- A system for ensuring that employees comply with safe and healthy work practices, including recognition of employees who follow safe and healthful practices, training and retraining, and disciplinary actions for unsafe actions.
- A system for communicating with employees on matters relating to occupational safety and health. It should include provisions for meetings, training programs, posting written communications, anonymous notification about hazards without reprisal, and labor/management safety and health committees.
- Procedures for identifying and evaluating workplace hazards, including scheduled periodic inspections to identify unsafe conditions and work practices and a system to correct them.
- Procedures for conducting accident investigations.
- Maintenance of records of safety inspections and safety and health training for each employee. These records must be kept for a minimum of one year.
An Injury and Illness Prevention Program development guideline is available from Cal OSHA which provides more detailed information on the elements of the IIPP which are required (See Links ):
California Code of Regulations, Title 8, Section 3203. Injury and Illness Prevention Program.
Cal-OSHA Guide to Developing your Injury and Illness Prevention Program
Cal-OSHA Injury and Illness Prevention Program Online eTool
If this feels way too overwhelming for you, let me know. Give me a call or send me an email and I can work with you on developing an Injury and Illness Prevention Program for your business.
-JK
Insurance For Condo Homeowners Association in Harbor City
Effective 8/9, I finalized insurance for this Condo Homeowners Association in Harbor City. This is an 18-unit, 25,850 total square feet dual building property. Coverage’s include Commercial Property insurance for the structures, General Liability, and Director’s & Officer’s Liability to help protect the association board. The expiring policy didn’t include the D&O. I was able to add this coverage and still save premium dollars compared to the renewal terms the association received from the incumbent broker.
-JK
Boy Saves Father From Foul Ball
During Sunday’s baseball game at AT&T Park in San Francisco (7/12/15), a 10-year-old boy saved his dad from taking a foul ball in the side of the head off the bat of Brandon Crawford.
I’m going to drop a little metaphor here. Pretend I am the kid in this video and YOUR company/business is the Dad.
It’s what I do for a living. Save your business from potential disaster 😉
-JK
8 Key Components of a Business Safety Program
A safe work environment does not happen by accident. A company’s management team must be fully engaged in creating, planning, implementing, communicating and making sure safety programs work and are designed to fit the business. Most importantly, employees have to understand their role in making their workplace safer.
Your company’s safety program should incorporate the following 8 key components:
- Demonstrate management involvement – Management must lead by example. A visible demonstration that you embrace a safety culture is imperative to its success. Provide the essential time, budget and resources to create and support a safety program.
- Communicate your safety plan clearly – Your safety plan must be published and available to all employees. Reminders and updates should be timely and effective. Allow employees to contribute their suggestions to making the workplace safer.
- Get everyone involved – A safety program is likely to be more effective when employees at all levels are involved. Standardized policies should outline responsibilities and accountability for all employees. Safety goals can become part of job descriptions and employee reviews. Safety committees can help ensure that safety practices are understood and reinforced throughout the company. Positive reinforcement of safe behaviors can be an effective way to help build the desired culture.
- Train your employees to work safely – Safety training should begin from the moment an employee is hired. Ongoing training is also essential to creating a safety culture.
- Review, revise, improve – A safety program should be dynamic, especially since most business environments continue to evolve. An effective safety program should be flexible enough to adjust to changes. Regularly review, evaluate and identify risks that could affect safety, and make the changes necessary to keep your workplace safe.
- Create safety standards – Each department should set safety standards through a Job Safety Analysis (JSA) to make sure every task is done correctly and safely. Recognize good safety performance, and cite and correct unsafe practices.
- Investigate every incident and accident thoroughly – Properly trained staff with experience in investigation, analysis and evidence collection should conduct an accident analysis as soon as possible after an incident. Report the claim within 24 hours to help ensure prompt response and injury management.
- Manage every injury – Even with the best safety program, an employee injury can still occur. Planning helps you to react immediately when an employee is injured on the job. Learn about five strategies that can help you put employees on the road back to productivity.
Initiating a comprehensive program can seem daunting, but I can help businesses like yours take the necessary steps to begin creating a safety culture. Insurance is only one piece of the puzzle. Effective risk management and loss prevention efforts go a long way to keeping insurance premiums down and other costs of doing business.
-JK
Source: Travelers Insurance
Top 5 Most Targeted Industries For Cyber Attacks
According to IBM’s 2014 Cyber Security Intelligence Index, over 75 percent of the cyber attacks the company monitored in 2013 targeted the following five industries:
1. Finance and insurance (23.8 percent)
2. Manufacturing (21.7 percent)
3. Information and communication (18.6 percent)
4. Retail and wholesale (6.2 percent)
5. Health and social services (5.8 percent)
Every day, more than 1 million people become victims of cyber crime. Cyber criminals look for the weak spots and then attack, no matter how large or small the organization. Cyber attacks can result directly from deliberate actions of hackers, or attacks can be unintentionally facilitated by employees—for example, if they click on a malicious link.
Check out these 3 reasons why hackers love your small business:
https://twitter.com/kfjudge/status/533310281959477248
-JK
About Me
I grew up in Fullerton, CA and graduated from Servite High School in Anaheim. I have my Bachelors degree from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. I currently live in Tustin, CA.
Please contact me if you need help with any of the following lines of insurance for your business:
-Cyber / Data Breach
-Commercial Property
-Commercial General Liability
-Products Liability
-Workers Compensation
-Commercial Auto
-Umbrella/Excess Liability
-Errors & Omissions/ Professional Liability
-Employment Practices Liability
-Directors & Officers
-Life & Disability Insurance
Jimmy Kinmartin, CPCU 