Contractors working with chemicals should understand the importance of informing people and property owners about what is taking place and what preventive measures they can take to avoid damage.

For example, a contractor who pressure washes a building with a bleach-water mix should warn people whose cars may be parked in the “spray zone.” Signs informing the public of the work should be posted, and property owners should be warned to cover plants, keep pets indoors, or take any other precautions that may prevent the chemical from causing harm.

When working with dangerous chemicals, there is often the possibility of damage to a person or property. Careful attention should be paid to loss prevention as well as to the contractor’s commercial general liability insurance. Working with chemicals can complicate liability coverage since such work might be excluded from the policy’s insured risks. A thorough review of your liability coverage should be conducted before performing any job in which a potentially harmful chemical is used.

If you have any concerns about coverage for your use of chemicals, consult your liability policy or give our service team a call.

Expanding Your Liability Coverage

It is difficult to estimate the maximum potential losses due to bodily injury or property damage occurring as a result of your work. While many contractors are required to carry commercial general liability (CGL) insurance to help cover this exposure, standard policy limits are often not sufficient to pay completely for catastrophic losses.

Consider a contractor required to carry a CGL with a policy limit of $2,000,000. Exhausting this amount in a single accident would not be difficult if the accident were to cause injuries to numerous persons and extensive damage to property.

One way to protect against such excessive losses is to purchase a commercial umbrella policy. This policy protects against liabilities and losses after the primary insurance benefits have been exhausted. An umbrella may extend over the CGL, the business auto policy, other forms of coverage, or all of the above. Umbrella insurance may also cover losses that are not insured by any other policy.

Evaluate your risks and give us a call if you would like more information about increasing your protection through an umbrella policy.

Construction managers deal with workers of all ages. Unfortunately, a one-size-fits-all management style may not be ideal when your ranks include members of three different generations that each generally favor a different style of learning and interaction.

Consider the following: Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964; Generation X’ers were born between 1965 and 1977; and Millennials were born after 1977. It is possible that all three of the above are represented on the same site. How you manage workers has a proven impact on employee morale, productivity, quality of work, and safety from injury. This is particularly important when it comes to safety training.

It would be wise to consult a professional employee training service in person or on the Internet to inform yourself about the different learning styles if you are unfamiliar with them. Additionally, talk to your employees of all ages and discover what is important to them. Target your safety, mechanical and overall training to fit their needs so you make the most effective impact.

Keep in mind the different needs for follow-up and the different styles of interaction. You will probably find that the younger generations need more in the way of attention and rewards, while the older generation might consider too much oversight or follow-up to be invasive. It’s important to tailor your management style to your employees to promote the safest work environment possible.

For those in the construction industry, widespread damage from a storm can result in booming demand for services. Unfortunately, contractors caught in the path of the storm frequently suffer so much damage to their tools and vehicles that they can’t respond or take advantage of the boost in business.

The good news is that business income policies will cover the loss of net income and continuing expenses from suspended operations due to direct damage to covered property resulting from a covered cause of loss. In essence, the damage to the vehicles and equipment will certainly lead to a suspension of operations, and the contractor should be able to collect lost income and expenses under his business income policy.

The potentially bad news is that a typical business income policy will not allow the policyholder to benefit from a loss. Basically, the policy will limit the amount of lost income to that which would normally have been earned by the contractor had the cause of loss not occurred, without adjustment for possible changes in that income had the loss occurred but not affected the insured.

For example, following a hurricane, construction services are in high demand, so if the contractor had not been damaged, their potential income would have increased substantially. Yet the business income policy will not typically pay for that additional increase beyond what the contractor would normally have earned if no hurricane had occurred.

Know your policy, and take precautionary measures, such as establishing lines of credit and securing safe storage that can be used to minimize your losses from storms.

Thank you for your referrals.

Insurance requirements for buildings under construction differ significantly from those for completed buildings. Increased theft exposure, the lack of ability to secure incomplete buildings from certain weather conditions, and determining the party responsible for insuring the job site are just a few issues that must be considered when obtaining insurance.

In most cases, a builders risk policy will cover costs such as materials while in transit, debris removal, losses due to ordinances and laws, and damage to the building after its completion but before occupancy. Some policies may also cover loss of income and extra expenses resulting from damage to covered property. Losses to contractors’ equipment and tools are usually excluded.

The key is to be certain the builders risk coverage is tailored to those losses for which the purchaser of the policy is responsible. In most cases, the builders risk coverage is obtained by the owner or builder for all parties involved in the project. The decision of who is to purchase coverage is usually determined contractually.