Ohio Builders Risk Insurance
Ohio Business Income Insurance
Ohio Crime Insurance
Ohio Employee Benefits Liability Insurance
Ohio Employer's Liability Insurance
Ohio Employment Practices Liability Insurance
Ohio Inland Marine & Contractors Equipment Insurance

 

Ohio Builders Risk Insurance
Builders risk insurance is a form or Property Insurance that protects your property while in the course of construction.  There are many types of builders risk coverages available.  Some policies provide a blanket limit for all projects under construction.  Others provide a specified limit for each project and require you to report the progress of these jobs on a monthly basis.  In addition to coverage for the building under construction, there are often additional coverages provided in the builders risk policy:

• Property to be used in the new building but is temporally stored at off-site locations
• Property in transit to the construction site

Tip. The limit used on the builders risk policy is the maximum amount of coverage you have available.  When you start a new job, consult with your professional agent to make sure your limit of coverage is adequate.

Ohio Business Income Insurance
It's been estimated that over 25% of business fail to reopen after a major loss because they neglected to insure the income vital to their continued operations.  In fact, many businesses are unaware that insurance is available to protect their income in the event of a covered loss.  This type of insurance is referred to as business income coverage.

Business income coverage protects against the loss of income a business suffers when a covered loss causes damage to the insured premises.  The loss doesn't have to cause the business to shutdown entirely.  Even a covered loss that causes the business to slowdown can be covered with business income coverage.

Tip. The business income form follows the property policy which means in order for coverage to respond to your loss of business income, the loss must be covered on your property policy.  Make sure you review your business income loss exposures with your professional agent so you have the protection you need.

When reviewing the different options for your business, you should know there are two primary business income forms available:

Business Income with Extra Expense: Many times after a loss occurs, businesses incur numerous extra expenses to return their operations to normal.  With this form, these additional expenses (cost to rent a temporary facility until your building is repaired) can be covered.

Business Income without Extra Expense: With this form, no extra expense coverage is provided.

Many businesses know they need to cover their property with insurance to replace physical property. But most fail to see the significance of their business coming to a halt after a loss. Fortunately, insurance is available to answer the need for income funds.

Tip. Every business should consider some form of loss of income insurance. Discuss this with your agent! It may be the most overlooked form of protection that you can't afford to ignore.

Ohio Crime Insurance
Crime is a simple word for a multitude of dishonest acts. Crimes range from a simple street robbery to a safe burglary to a kidnapping. These definitions may help our look at crime insurance:

• Burglary-entering and leaving a premises with no legal right
• Robbery-taking property from a person by threat of physical or mental harm
• Theft-a catch-all category including the terms above
• Extortion-surrender of property by threat to of physical or mental harm to a person or related third party
• Embezzlement-theft of others' property in your care

Before you buy crime insurance, review the coverage in your existing property insurance policies. Is your property insurance policy on a named peril basis? Or is it on an "everything iscovered except" basis? It makes a difference! If it's a named peril, your need for separate crime insurance is likely to be important.

Crime insurance covers a broad range of activity:

• robbery
• burglary
• theft
• disappearance and destruction
• fraud
• forgery
• embezzlement.

The available insurance coverage is divided into a number of areas. These cover only specific types of crimes. Make sure you and your agent consider your particular exposures to crime. Some businesses need coverage for outside sign theft. Other businesses require coverage for safe burglary. Others require only employee dishonesty coverage.

Some crime coverage may be available in other insurance policies. For example, kidnapping can be part of a Directors and Officers policy.

Ohio Employee Benefits Liability Insurance
With employers competing to attract the best talent and highly skilled employees, providing a competitive retirement plan has arguably become as important as the salary and benefit package offered.  You would think employees receiving an employer match as incentive to save for retirement would be grateful... and most are, but when problems arise with the administration of your benefit plan, lawsuits are likely to follow.

Fortunately, Employee Benefits Liability coverage is available to protect you for errors or omissions in the administration of your employee benefit program.  Coverage is also available if you fail to advise employees of your benefit program.  This coverage is inexpensive and is easily added to your commercial general liability policy.

Ohio Employer's Liability Insurance
When situations arise where an employee sustains an on-the-job injury or occupational disease that happens to fall outside the workers' compensation statue, employees have successfully sued their employer.  Since workers' compensation does not protect the business owner from suits brought by employees, Employer's Liability coverage (also known as Stop Gap coverage) can be used to protect the insured.

Employer's Liability coverage does not allow for an employee to recover twice for the same injury or occupational disease. It may appear, for example, an employee can collect damages from a third party and also collect workers' compensation under his employer's policy. Not so, as a provision is made to correct a double recovery situation.

Employer's Liability protection is limited to injuries or occupational disease during employment just like workers' comp. However, Employer's Liability coverage exists to protect the employer against those claims that do not fall under the workers' compensation statue.

Ohio Employment Practices Liability Insurance
As the number of employment practices claims have increased, so have efforts to find coverage for employment-related claims under existing policies. This included the Commercial General Liability Policy. These efforts were not very successful. The insurance industry's answer was to develop employment practices liability insurance (EPLI). New insurance coverage often encourages more claims. In contrast, EPLI has reduced the number of charges made against employers. This is due to an awareness of employment-related problems and the efforts to control them.

Insurance companies have tried combination policies before. Insurers joined EPLI to Directors and Officers Liability policies. But this did not become the common approach to employment practices insurance. The trend went to separate policies. This included Employment-Related Practices Liability coverage from ISO. This can be used with your firm's Comprehensive General Liability policy. Endorsements have been offered to add EPLI to certain Business Owners Policies.

If there is a coverage trend today, it leans towards a management liability policy. This includes:

• Directors and officers coverage
• professional liability
• EPLI

Today you'll either have the ISO coverage form or a separate EPLI policy.

Just What Are Employment-Related Practices?

EPLI covers the following:

• acts of wrongful termination
• demotion
• negative evaluation
• discrimination based on factors such as sex, race, and religion.

These risks are usually preventable through management risk control efforts. Insurance companies offer risk management help. They can train management and employees to prevent poor employment practices.

Tip. Compare EPLI policies for inclusion of the employment practices you want covered by insurance. In today's market, the available EPLI policies vary widely in the covered practices.

An EPLI policy probably will exclude:

• civil or criminal fines
• fraud
• malicious acts or omissions
• Workers Compensation situations, and
• Americans with Disability Act problems (often).

If ADA problems are covered, the costs of creating proper conditions for the disabled won't be covered.

Unusual Features of EPLI

Defense costs may or may not be covered by EPLI. The ISO coverage form provides for a Co-Payment feature. This requires the insured to pay a percentage share of defense costs. You can find this feature on the Declaration page. In some policies, the defense costs are included in the policy dollar limits. This reduces the dollars available for claim payments.

Tip. Defense costs can accumulate quickly. Consider how your policy covers them.

A deductible is a common EPLI feature. Deductibles, co-payments and similar devices encourage employers to work on loss prevention.

Another area of concern is "who is insured." The firm's covered, no question. But the stockholders or the general employees? Not as likely. The Directors and Officers policy may cover stockholders. Non-supervisor or manager types are on their own if sued. However, it is possible to cover stockholders and general employees. How? Use an endorsement.

You already know that EPLI policies are "claims made" policies. So pay careful attention to the extended reporting period allowed for reporting claims. A short period can be built in an EPLI policy. You also have the opportunity to buy a longer time period for reporting.

Ohio Inland Marine & Contractors Equipment Insurance
The standard Commercial Property Insurance policy provides coverage for your equipment, but here's the catch, it's covered only while it's on your premises.  For many businesses, this is perfectly fine.  However, certain types of businesses, such as contractors, routinely have equipment, machinery and tools off their premises.  In order to protect these types of items that are regularly off your premises, you need an inland marine policy (also known as a contractor's equipment policy or floater).

The inland marine policy can also be used to cover property while it's in transit.  Generally, property covered under this type of policy has much broader protection as compared to coverage under the standard property form.  While an inland marine policy is often thought of as coverage for contractor's equipment, there are numerous types of inland marine policies designed to protect against specific types of loss exposures:

• Cargo Insurance: Used to cover property in transit
• Equipment Floater: Protects equipment that is routinely moved from place to place
• Fine Arts Floater: Used to cover works of art
• Installation Floater: Protects property that has not yet been installed by a contractor; this policy is often used in conjunction with a builders risk policy.
• Jewelers Block: Used to protect the jewelry inventory of business in the jewelry business

Tip. With so many inland marine policy forms available, it's vitally important you discuss the exposures unique to your business with your experienced agent so the correct form is used.