Finding out you’re on the hook for huge financial damages — and that your insurance policy won’t cover it — is every business’s worst nightmare. Just ask Metallica (yes, the band!) about the dangers of not knowing exactly what your policy covers – and what it excludes. Thanks to a pandemic-related debacle, the band sought to recoup millions of...
Safe and Sustainable Growth Strategies for Food and Cannabis Delivery Operations
The burgeoning cannabis delivery industry, like the food industry, has seen exponential growth, driven by increasing legalization and consumer demand. Yet, as many delivery business owners know all too well, with growth comes the challenge of effectively scaling operations. Delivery issues—like delays, regulatory compliance missteps, or customer...
Safe Delivery, Safer Business: Mitigating Risks in Food and Cannabis Delivery
Mitigating risks in food and cannabis delivery is not just about adhering to legal standards; it’s about safeguarding the business, its customers, and the broader community from unforeseen disasters. By understanding and addressing the unique challenges food and cannabis delivery drivers face, businesses can proactively ensure the safety of their...
Hidden Hazards: Identifying and Insuring Common Self-Storage Property Exposures
Self-storage facilities may look like typical brick-and-mortar business operations from the outside — but, when it comes to insurance coverage, they’re not. The truth is, with their distinct property exposures, self-storage facilities require a different approach to insurance coverage, one that accounts for their specific vulnerabilities. ...
How to Navigate Slip, Fall, and Injury Risks for Self-Storage Facilities
Self-storage facilities, sometimes perceived as low-risk environments, can unexpectedly become targets for liability issues, particularly in the category of slip, fall, and bodily injury claims. Picture this: An excited college student, arms full of boxes, takes a serious fall while walking down an interior hallway to their rented unit due to a...
Decoding Specialty BOPs: Tailored Insurance to Mitigate Self-Storage Risks
Most business owners understand the importance of having the right general liability (GL) insurance. What they may not know is that their GL policy isn’t all-inclusive and doesn’t provide protection for losses associated with business personal property as well as other critical coverages. A business owner’s policy (BOP) is an effective option for...
The Art of Restoration with Specialty Insurance
When most collectors think of fine arts insurance, they may imagine disasters brought on by major events like fires, floods, and theft. However, the most common perils that threaten unique art collections are far more subtle: a poorly hung painting that falls to the ground or a simple scratch due to improper handling. Unlike the expectations with...
Navigating the Underinsurance Crisis for Small Businesses
Small businesses may not get the same level of media attention as larger Fortune 500 companies, but they’re quietly working away to bolster the economy, provide jobs to millions, and navigate the underinsurance crisis. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees account for 45% of all private sector jobs and keep roughly 56 million Americans...
Nine Tips for Keeping Employees Safe this Winter
While winter officially began on December 21, the onset of cold weather was felt in many areas of the United States much earlier. As we move into what are typically the coldest months of the year, businesses need to be mindful of the safety of their employees — particularly employees who spend some or much of their working day outside. On...
Winter Preparedness is Key as Regulators Warn of Grid Disruptions
According to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)’s 2023-2024 Winter Reliability Assessment, two-thirds of the United States and Canada may be in for a chilly winter season. The report concludes that during peak winter weather conditions, prolonged dips in temperatures will significantly disrupt the electric grid and...
Navigating Middle-Market Pricing Hikes
Lately, middle-market businesses (those that typically pay premiums upward of $75K) are finding it difficult to secure reasonable commercial property and auto insurance. This is pushing many of them to pursue new insurance solutions for the coming year. What’s Driving Middle-Market Property and Auto Prices? In its Q2 2023 Property and...
Behind Locked Doors: Unusual Finds in Self-Storage Units
Abandoned storage units have long held an aura of mystery and intrigue, captivating the public’s imagination through television shows like “Storage Wars” and “Auction Hunters.” And who could forget the scene in the classic horror film “Silence of the Lambs” where Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster, crawls into storage unit #31 in pursuit of...
Seven Cybersecurity Measures That Lower Insurance Premiums
There has been a staggering surge in cybercriminal activities over the past few years, with a global increase of 38% between 2021 and 2022. The financial repercussions of an attack can be crippling, with an average cost of a single data breach reaching $4.45 million. In an effort to cover their losses and keep up with demand, insurers have...
3 Things Claims Adjusters Want Your Clients to Know
The 2023 hurricane season has been punctuated by the damaging winds and rain of Tropical Storm Hilary in California as well as Hurricanes Idalia and Lee and Tropical Storm Ophelia on the Atlantic coastline. And it’s not over yet! Risk management can go a long way toward mitigating incidents of property damage or bodily injury at a commercial...
Benefits of Working with a Program Administrator
While there’s no silver bullet when it comes to complex, specialty insurance placement, the skills of a Program Administrator come close. Program Administrators leverage their market expertise and industry credibility to guide their agency partners and clients through an insurance landscape fraught with rate increases, capacity restrictions, and...
Doing Business in Extreme Heat: Protecting Employees is the Top Priority
The summer of 2023 is already in the record books, and it’s only at the halfway point. An unprecedented heat wave has held the Northern Hemisphere in its grip for weeks, causing a spike in heat-related injuries and fatalities in many parts of the U.S., disrupting operations for businesses that rely on employees to work outdoors, and calling into...
5 Ways to Mitigate Wind and Hail Damage Risks for Your Insureds
Insurance claims for small businesses occur frequently enough; in 2020 alone, 3 out of 4 businesses experienced an event that could have resulted in an insurance claim. With that statistic in mind, it begs the question: “What are the most common claims for businesses?” Recent data indicates that claims resulting from natural disasters rank second...
Cyber security: how to guide your insureds through a data breach
How to Guide Your Insureds Through a Data Breach Whether through sophisticated malware, phishing schemes, or an unsecured website that leads to data leaks, cyber attacks occur frequently enough to warrant due diligence. Cyber attacks affect businesses of every size — from a mom-and-pop shop that takes digital payments to large enterprises that...
Cyber Risks of Using Public Phone-Charging Stations
Your clients’ exposure to cybercrime doesn't end at the office door. Hackers have a variety of ways to access critical business information via phishing, ransomware, and malware. One of the latest trends in cyberattacks involves the use of public phone-charging stations. Although these charging stations are convenient and appear safe, they can...
Can Homeowners Insurance Cover a Storage Unit? What You Should Know About Off-Site Storage
Comedian George Carlin famously said that all we need in life is “a place for our stuff.” More than 11 percent of Americans — nearly 15 million households at last count — turn to local self-storage facilities because they have more stuff than their closets and garages can hold. Renting a self-storage unit is a convenient solution for many of us....