Risk & Business

Image via Wikipedia When was the last time you took a few minutes to perform a quick safety inspection of your workplace? You might be a small business owner and don't have a risk manager on staff so it falls to you to ensure that there are proper safety procedures in place and risk is mitigated for customers and employees alike. After all, a simple slip and fall can have a disastrous effect on either your workers compensation policy, in the case of an employee mishap, or on your general liability policy, should a customer suffer an injury. Take a few minutes to inspect all signs for emergency exits , fire extinguishers and alarms to make sure they are clearly visible/lit in the event of an emergency. Also, look for trip and fall hazards, wiring looking frayed or worn, and make sure you have surge protectors installed. It might not sound like much, but just a few minutes paying attention to safety related details can save you a bunch of premium dollars down the road.

Just a word of caution to make sure that you don't let your policies end up being cancelled due to nonpayment of premium. During these tough times many business owners are choosing to not pay their premiums, which is usually the case when finances are being juggled. The problem with this is that when times turn around and the business owner can afford to pay their premiums they may have "burned some bridges" as far as having the opportunity to go back to their previous company to obtain coverage. If there have been too many incidences of payment problems many insurance companies will opt to not offer the coverage again in the future. Also, when your agent approaches other companies that might be willing, they are asked if the proposed insured has had any pay problems or cancellations due to non payment of premium. Take the long term view when facing financial difficulties and try to work with your agent to cut back as much as feasable in your coverage, allowing you st

Image by Getty Images via Daylife In their dizzying rush to enact more federal legislation in the wake of the financial meltdown, congress has recently introduced a new bill, The National Insurance Consumer Protection Act (NICPA). Congresspersons Melissa Bean of Illinois and Ed Royce of California stated in their introduction of the legislation, "The meltdown of insurance giant AIG and the broad crisis in the nation's financial system serve as proof of the vital need for regulatory reform of the insurance sector. Numerous bipartisan reports on the nation's capital markets have noted that insurance remains the only major segment of the capital markets not subject to federal regulation and reform is needed." While there are pros and cons on both sides of the argument regarding this legislation it just seems that Congress needs to keep their eye on the ball right now. Did the insurance market put us in the mess we're in right now? Although AIG was a maj