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Small Business

Bright ideas: Holiday lighting safety tips

2015 holiday lights decoration safetyDecorating is an essential part of the holiday season in many homes across the country. Unfortunately, those decorations can increase your chances of a fire. Nearly 400 home fires a year are caused by holiday lights and decorations, according to the U.S. Fire Administration, resulting in more than $25 million in property damage. By following a few simple steps, you can keep your home and family safe all season long.

Maintain holiday lights. Inspect holiday lights each year for frayed wires, broken sockets or other signs of wear. Test each light string before hanging it on a tree or other flammable surface. Only use lights approved by a nationally recognized testing laboratory, such as Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL).Read More »Bright ideas: Holiday lighting safety tips

Be Aware! Garbage Trucks Can Be Dangerous

What time is the garbage pick up on your street? It is super early in front of the office here and I always wonder whether the workers are alert enough to work. Yesterday, San Francisco garbage truck struck and killed a worker.  We used to hear such news about policemen and firemen… but garbage truck crew? And this is not the first time.  Condolences to friends and family and a reminder to all the employers to keep your Workers Compensation Insurance policy up to date. Our agents would be happy to speak with you and consult you workers compensation coverage… Read More »Be Aware! Garbage Trucks Can Be Dangerous

Swimming Pool Safety and Maintenance Tips

Swimming pool safety and maintenance tipsProtect your friends and family as you beat the heat.

Warmer weather means more outdoor activities for the whole family, including cooling off in the pool. We want to help you make sure that you, your family and guests are safe. Here are a few tips that can help you stay safe while you have fun:

Always supervise swimmers and have life-saving equipment nearby:

  • Maintain secure fencing and a locked entrance around the pool and deck area to prevent access when adequate supervision is not available. Install self-closing and self-latching gates.
  • Make sure no one swims alone. Never leave a child unattended in the water or pool area, and make sure less experienced swimmers are always accompanied by a swimmer who has water life-saving skills.
  • Equip your door, gate or pool with an audible alarm to alert you if someone enters the pool area or falls into the pool while it is unattended.
  • Diving should be prohibited unless a specific area of the pool is designated for safe diving. Water depth and diving-restricted areas should be clearly marked.
  • Make sure there is adequate life-saving equipment in the pool area, including life preservers and a rope with life-saving rings, a reaching pole or rescue hook.

Regularly maintain your pool during the season to keep swimmers and sun-bathers safe:Read More »Swimming Pool Safety and Maintenance Tips

Report: New Emerging Risks

Report New Emerging RisksSwiss Re has released a report – ”New emerging risk insights,” which is based on the reinsurer’s SONAR process, described as a “unique tool which uses Swiss Re’s internal risk management expertise to observe and evaluate new and emerging risks.”

Some of the other emerging risks examined in the SONAR report includes the following:

  • Cloud computing security
  • Contagious emerging market crisis
  • Eurozone crisis leading to deflation
  • Short-termism of macro-policy measures
  • Air pollution as mortality driver
  • Concussion crisis in sports
  • Democratisation of genetic testing
  • Digital slander
  • E-cigarettes
  • Financial consumer protection regulation
  • From closed to open business models
  • Food and water safety: trade-offs with growthRead More »Report: New Emerging Risks

Small Business: Getting Started with Start-ups

By Laura Mazzuca Toops, April 1, 2014, PropertyCasualty360.com

In a sign that the U.S. economy is finally on the (gradual) upswing, the entrepreneurial rate in the U.S. is now higher than it was at the height of the dot com bubble of 15 years ago, according to the Kaufman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity (KIEA) — which currently lists more than 20 million non-employer businesses, with more starting every day. As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, non-employer businesses have no paid employees, have annual receipts of at least $1,000 and are subject to federal income taxes. These new businesses can range from part-time consultants to billion-dollar start-ups backed by big private-equity money.Read More »Small Business: Getting Started with Start-ups

Product Recall Insurance Explained

Product Recall Insurance Explained

Product Recall Insurance

Product Recall History and Overview

The coverage has been around since the 80’s  of  XX’s Century. The first type of product recall insurance was called malicious product tampering, which only responded to malicious incidents. The limits were $3 million, with six-figure premiums. That’s the way it was for a couple of years. Slowly the book of business grew which allowed larger capacity and to sell higher limits of insurance as well as to expand the coverage. Because it’s catastrophic insurance in nature, when losses occurred, they are generally major. Businesses are not concerned with the smaller losses they can handle financially in-house. What they are looking for is protection from the large losses. So today, it’s financially plausible for small companies as well. When coverage first came out, because of the price tags and the minimum deductibles required, it was accessible only to large, multinational food companies. But now almost every insurer has a strategy to go after smaller businesses. Products Recall is designed to help the insurance manage the crisis of such an occurrence and help protect against product degradation and third party lawsuits.

Most Commercial General Liability policies do not provide coverage for the cost to recall products. Stand alone Product Recall insurance fills this gap because it provides coverage to the cost to recall, withdraw and dispose of the insured’s products and it also can cover loss of income and the extra expenses incurred when a product has to be withdrawn from the marketplace.
Recalls can happen because of mislabeling, malicious tampering, accidental contamination or for a variety of other reasons. Now due to new legislation. the FDA can mandate insured’s conduct recalls in some cases.

Coverage Parameters

Products Recall offers insurance protection in the event of a recall of an insured’s product. This protection includes coverage for the insured’s product recall expenses and liability to third parties kidnapping; bodily injury extortion; property extortion; product contamination extortion; trade secret/computer virus extortion; wrongful detention and hijacking.

Endorsements available to extend coverage include:

Read More »Product Recall Insurance Explained