Janitorial
Services Risk Management
Tailored
protection for janitorial businesses in one portfolio.
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What if a
patron slipped and fell on a wet floor? A
customer sued you for an error you made? An
employee stole funds? A thief stole your equipment?
A product you used injured someone?
Unfortunately,
today's janitorial business owner faces big risks
every day. And while it's impossible to eliminate
risks, it's possible to manage their financial
impact on you by employing proven techniques for
risk management.
In this
section, you'll find a general overview of three
ways to help reduce your business risks as well as
tips on how to help control property losses,
lawsuits, product liability claims, technology
exposures, vehicle losses, and workplace accidents.
"All the coverage you need in one policy" |
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Insurance & Risk Management Highlights
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Ways To Manage Your Risk |
Accidents. Surprises.
Losses. They all come with the territory of owning your
own business. But there's no reason you have to be a
"victim" of these unexpected losses, not if you take
advantage of three key ways to help manage your risks.
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Protect Yourself From Lawsuits |
Take a close look at the safety and
maintenance of your facilities, as well as the practices of your
employees and contracted workers. |
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Product Liability Claims |
You may be liable for injuries caused
by your product from the moment it hits shelves until long after it has
been purchased. And your "product" may include a lot more than you
realize, |
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Protect Your Property |
Unless property and equipment are
maintained properly and insured adequately, they can be at significant
risk for loss and damage. |
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Protect Your Vehicles |
From company cars to
service vans, your business's motor vehicles represent many types of
risk in one place |
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Protect Your Workforce |
There are a lot of
potential hazards your employees can encounter in the course of working
for your business, from slippery floors and heavy lifting to
undetectable chemicals and repetitive stress. To ensure that your
employees remain healthy and productive, you need to be aware of these
hazards and guard against them. |
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Why You Need Workers Compensation |
As soon as you hire your
first employee, you need the protection of workers' compensation
insurance. Not only do many state laws require it, but the financial
security of your business may depend on it. |
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OSHA - Department of Labor
Cleaning Industry Hazards & Solutions |
OSHA references that can be used to assist cleaning industry employers
and employees in recognizing potential hazards in the workplace and
provide examples of possible solutions. |
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Oregon Health & Science University
Janitors - Occupational Hazards |
Oregon's source for
occupational safety and health information on the web |
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Ways To Manage Your Risk
1. You can finance risk
The first and most common approach to risk
management involves purchasing adequate insurance to
transfer responsibility for losses to your insurer.
2. You can transfer risk
Where appropriate, you will want to shift the
responsibility for risk to other parties; lessors,
vendors, subcontractors, competitors and even your
customers. Here are some tips on how to attempt to
transfer some of your business risk to others.
- Lease business property and equipment.
Depending on the leasing arrangement, your property
and liability risks may be assumed by the lessor.
- Use "just in time" delivery. If
your business permits, and deliveries are not very
time sensitive, a risk management technique that
might prove useful would be to require vendors to
store merchandise and materials at their sites until
you need them.
- Transfer risk to your customer.
Your insurance agent and lawyer can discuss ways to
share or transfer liability to your customer
Also, pay careful attention to your warranties to
make sure they are designed to protect you.
- Consider "hold harmless" agreements.
A "hold harmless" agreement is a risk management
tool that is designed to shift legal and financial
risk from you to another party. Consult your agent
and lawyer for advice regarding these types of
agreements.
- Don't try to be all things to all
people. Let your competitors take the
chances on potentially dangerous projects or
ventures.
3. You can control risk
Of course, there are some things you can't prevent
like storms, power failures or accidents. But there are
ways to address the likelihood something will occur, or
the impact it will have on your business after it
occurs.
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Protect Yourself From Lawsuits
A man
walking through a lobby slips and falls on a wet floor,
injuring himself. An employee loses the building keys to
the offices of you largest client. The wrong cleaning
product is used damaging a customers property.
A job candidate sues your business for hiring
discrimination, even though the employee who interviewed
her is no longer with your company.
These are
all classified as liability exposures, incidents in
which a party not associated with your operation claims
to have suffered an injury or loss to self or property.
A significant way to help control liability losses is to
take a close look at the safety and maintenance of your
facilities, as well as the practices of your employees
and contracted workers.
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Products
& Completed Operations Liability Claims
You could be liable for injuries property damage caused by your
products and services from the moment they are provided until long after
a job has been completed. And your "service or product" may include a
lot more than you realize, such as:
- the physical product
- any advertising claims made
- following instructions for use
- bodily injury or property damage resulting from a product or
service
- storage or products
- labels, warnings and other on–product messages
Because you can be held legally responsible for so many aspects of
your products and service, it's important for your company to work with
your agent and lawyer to consider a risk management strategy. That
strategy will generally rely on an organized way of documenting,
investigating and following up on customer complaints about your
services and products, no matter how trivial they appear. Essential
elements of good product loss prevention include:
- thoughtful design
- thorough testing
- accurate and easy–to–use recordkeeping
- realistic assessment of the hazard potential
- customer education and information
- product marking and identification
- a comprehensive recall and remediation plan
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Protect Your Property
Fire,
Theft, Vandalism, Water damage. These are just a
few of the incidents that can do damage to your
property, one of your business's most valuable assets.
Unless property and equipment are maintained properly
and insured adequately, they can be at significant risk
for loss and damage.
Some tips:
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Review your property insurance policy with your
insurance agent to make sure you understand what is
and is not covered.
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If your policy has "blanket" coverage for a number
of different properties, make sure that all
properties that should be insured are actually
listed on the property policy. Even with
blanket coverage, property not listed on the policy
may not be covered.
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Be sure that your property is insured to replacement
value. Improvements or changes in building costs
should be reflected in your insurance coverage. So
periodically review and update your property values
and adjust the coverage accordingly.
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Protect Your Vehicles
From company cars to service vans, your
business's motor vehicles represent many types of risk in one place such
as loss of goods, loss of sales, liability to persons and injury to your
employees. No wonder your vehicle premium can account for a large
portion of your overall commercial insurance cost. However, risk
management can be used to help reduce motor vehicle liabilities, by
simply:
- verifying driving records of
potential employees.
- monitoring employee driving
records.
- keeping your drivers properly
trained.
- monitor usage of vehicles entrusted to employees
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Protect Your Workforce
There are a lot of
potential hazards your employees can encounter in the course of working
for your business, from slippery floors and heavy lifting to
undetectable chemicals and repetitive stress. To ensure that your
employees remain healthy and productive, you need to be aware of these
hazards and guard against them. Risk management in this context
means careful monitoring and attention to detail by management,
supervisors and workers. Special measures can then be taken to help
reduce and even eliminate workers' compensation risk.
Researching and
evaluating any manual processes in your business can pay off by lowering
the possibility of injury as well as by increasing the efficiency of the
operation. Often, ergonomics programs focus on:
- job redesign
- reduction of loads
- getting things off the floor
- improving workstations
- job rotation
- new equipment
- automation
- encouraging employees to move and stretch to relieve tired
muscles
Of course, risk management does not always mean risk elimination;
workplace injuries can—and will—still happen. When a worker is
injured:
- work with your medical provider to bring employees back to
work as soon as possible
- identify alternate or modified work to accommodate the injury
while it is healing; and
- maintain communications with the injured worker so he or she
can continue to identify with the workplace.
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Why You Need Workers
Compensation
As soon as you hire your
first employee, you need the protection of workers' compensation
insurance. Not only do many state laws require it, but the financial
security of your business may depend on it.
What Workers' Compensation Insurance Is
In general, workers' compensation represents a
compromise between employers and employees regarding
employment–related injuries or illnesses. In
short, employees relinquish their right to sue employers
if they suffer some job–related injury or illness.
But in return, employers agree to provide state–mandated
benefits if employees suffer some job–related injury or
illness. And to ensure employees have the money to
pay these mandated benefits, most states require that
employers demonstrate that they have the financial
ability to pay any claims that may arise.
Typically this financial ability is demonstrated through
the purchase of workers' compensation insurance.
Laws regarding workers' compensation insurance vary by
state, so check with your insurance agent or broker to
find out exactly what you need and how it's purchased.
How Workers' Compensation Insurance Works
Most workers' compensation insurance policies actually
provide two types of coverage:
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Workers' Compensation Coverage.
This type of insurance provides benefits for injured
workers as required by state law regardless of who
is at fault for the job-related injury or illness.
In other words, whatever benefits your state
requires, your workers' compensation policy would
provide.
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Employers' Liability Coverage.
This additional coverage protects employers if they
are sued for damages arising from employment–related
accidents or diseases. However, to collect benefits
provided by employer's liability coverage, the
employee, as well as anyone else not covered by
workers' compensation laws (i.e., spouses and
dependents), would have to prove that the employer
was legally responsible for the employee's injury or
disease.
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Claims Service: 24
hours, 7 days a week toll-free Claim Action Hotline puts you in
immediate contact with a claim service representative, enabling you to
report claims quickly and efficiently. Prompt reporting helps mitigate
the risk of injury or damage and expedites claim handling.
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In a rush?
Call 800.874.9191 for an immediate quote. |
Endorsed by the International
Janitorial Cleaning Services Association
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