Painters Work Comp Insurance – Pay As You Go, Saves The Cash Flow

Painting Company Insurance plans should all include a workers compensation policy for your employees and subs, unless of course you work alone and have no employees. And if handled incorrectly, work comp policies can tear a huge hole in your cash flow. For more information on how this can happen, please read my blog on the audit trap. So it is important to understand your cash flow process vis-à-vis your payroll. What if you could time your workers compensation policy to match the slower cash flow and lower payroll times?

In fact you can. With a little understood tool called pay as you go. Now you need to know that not every insurance company that insures painters can or will offer this feature, but if you can find one that does and their price is right, this can be a nice benefit for painters and painting companies.

So how does it work? Well, these plans vary some from company to company, but the very best of them will send you an email or a mail reminder each month. You then log on to their web site and enter your payroll totals for the past month. The web site will then calculate your premium for that month and you can pay your bill on line right then and there with a credit card. What this means for you is that now your workers compensation expense tracks your payroll with only a 30 day delay. And since your revenue from jobs is always running just a bit behind your payroll costs, now your workers compensation expenses will more nearly track your revenue and this means you will have less wild swings in your monthly cash flow.

There are a few things to watch out for here. First of all, there are some payroll service companies out there offering pay as you go workers compensation to go with their payroll service. On the surface this sounds great but there is a problem with this approach. One huge factor in your workers compensation insurance costs is your experience modification factor. And you need to work proactively to protect that mod to keep future costs lower. Companies that specialize in payroll services and sell work comp as a sideline are rarely as good at keeping claims costs low as companies whose prime mission is workers compensation insurance. These dedicated work comp insurance companies by contrast, will often have nurses and case managers on staff to help reduce your overall claims costs. And keeping your claims costs low will keep your rates low over time. To learn more about this read my blog on protecting your experience mod. In addition, if you purchase your workers compensation insurance through a payroll processing company, you will usually have only one choice in terms of the insurance company that handles it. This is stripping you of your free market shopping tool as a way to reduce the overall costs of workers compensation insurance. Instead, consider finding an independent insurance agent who represents many insurance companies, and more importantly, find one who specializes in insuring painting contractors so that you get the expertise that you need for your business.

One last thing to mention here is that the pay as you go feature offered by some companies is often only available to painters whose premium exceeds a certain level, often as high as $5000. There are a few companies out there who can offer this feature at a much lower premium level, but you will need to find an agent who specializes in painters insurance to find them.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we are the Painting Contractor Insurance Specialists. We have companies that can write pay as you go workers compensation policies for painters with annual premiums as low as $1000. If we can help you with any of your painters insurance policy questions, please call us, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us on line at our Painting contractors’ insurance program policy page.

Some of the source material for this article was drawn from other blog articles which can be found at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

Landscapers Insurance Help – How To File A Workers Compensation Claim

Savvy landscaping contractors buy workers compensation insurance as part of their landscapers insurance program. If you don’t and you are paying someone to work for you, whether you consider them a subcontractor or not, then you shouldn’t go a day more without a policy. But assuming you already have a workers compensation policy, how exactly do you file a claim?

Filing a workers compensation claim is easy and simple. You want to do this as soon after the employee injury as possible. In NC the claim form states that you must file the claim within 5 days of the injury. To do so, you must complete a Form 19 claim form and mail, fax, or email it to your insurance company claims department. The Form 19 is a standardized claim form to be used for all workers compensation claims in North Carolina. The reason for this is that the policy and claims payments are all overseen by the NC Industrial Commission.

If you don’t have a form 19 on hand, check your policy as most insurance companies will insert a few blank ones in the policy that they send to you. It’s ok to make copies of this form when you run out. You can also get one in pdf form from the NC Industrial Commission website.

The Form 19 will ask for contact information for you and for your injured employee. They will also need to know the details of the injury, how and when and where it occurred. This information usually comes from the injured employee’s supervisor. Next you will need to fill in the occupation of injured person and information about how many hours they work each week and what their wagers are per hour and per day. This information will help settle the disability portion of the claim.

The rules require that you provide a copy of the completed Form 19 to the injured employee or the employee’s representative (read lawyer) at the same time that the Form 19 is submitted to the insurance company. Last of all, you must give your injured employee a blank Form 18 which is a form they can use should they wish to contest the claim settlement. You can obtain blank Form 18 copies the same way you got the form 19, by clicking here, or you may call the NC Industrial Commission at 800-688-8349.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we work hard to help all of our clients become informed insurance consumers. Understanding how to file a workers compensation claim for your landscaping company is important as you will want to move fast in the event of an accident or injury and spending time trying to figure out how to file a claim will only slow you down.

Should you need help with your landscapers insurance policies, from workers compensation to your general liability, commercial auto and equipment insurance, please consider us as we specialize in insuring landscapers of all types and sizes all across North Carolina and South Carolina. We can put our extensive knowledge to work for you with one quick phone call. Call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us online at www.LowRatesForLandscapers.com.

The source information for this article was pulled from articles which can be found in their entirety at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

Teen Driver Insurance – Watch Out For The Bias Against Your 19 year old.

Most parents out there who have a teen driver are well aware of the additional costs on their auto insurance while their child slowly gains experience behind the wheel. In NC these extra charges go on for the first 3 years of driving and then suddenly are dropped completely from your policy. To understand exactly how North Carolina allows the insurance companies to add these inexperienced operator surcharges, click here. Most parents of course think that they are free and clear of these charges once their child reaches the 3 years of driving experience. And for the vast majority of them, this is true. But some companies have a hidden bias against the 19 year old driver and they find other ways to collect extra premium for them. Knowing the tell tale signs of these techniques can help you avoid these extra charges.

First of all, you have to have a clear understanding of the NC auto insurance marketplace and how it works vis-à-vis teen drivers. There are some companies out there that have recognized that they can make money on the teen driver family segment during the 3 year experience period. Why is this true when the risk seems so high? Well, of course they know that this is a time when otherwise stable insurance accounts go shopping due to the additional cost of the teen driver. And the surcharges that the state allows give them the extra cash they need to turn a profit. But these companies are also very shy of a 19 year old driver. They don’t believe, and rightly so I suppose, that on the day the teen has 3 years driving experience that that teen is suddenly as good of a driver as their parents. Yet the rate is the same as they can charge for the parents who may have been driving 20 years or more. For more general information about how auto insurance in NC works, visit the NC Dept of Insurance web site.

So more and more companies are suddenly seeing the newly experienced driver as a huge risk compared to the money that they can charge for that driver. So what do they do? Well the most common technique is to increase your rates, often to those above what is allowed by the NC Rate Bureau. But to do this, they must have your permission. So they will send you a consent to rate letter. If you get one of these, please do not sign it and return it. Call your agent first to understand what you are signing and agreeing to. For more information about consent to rate letters and what they mean for you, please read my blog about consent to rate letters by clicking here.

If you fail to sign and return a consent to rate letter, then the remaining option open to the insurance company would be to cancel your physical damages coverage, ie your comprehensive and collision insurance, and then to cede your policy to the NC Reinsurance Facility. If they do this, then you will see a large increase on your liability insurance rates and you may even see a reduction in coverage to go with it. At the same time you will lose your physical damages protection.

The take away from all of this is that you will do well to keep a close eye on your auto insurance policy rates as your child reaches the 3 year driving experience period to make sure that you are not treated as a sudden high risk from the standpoint of your insurance company.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we help thousands of families with their auto insurance policy and we work hard to help our clients become informed insurance consumers. If we can help you at all with your auto insurance or even your home insurance, your life insurance or your business insurance, please feel free to call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at www.ClinardInsurance.com.

The source information for this article can be found at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

Teen Driver Safety – Summer Months Are High Risk

The Summer months are a high risk time for teen drivers. Parents must be more vigilant during this time to insure the safety of their teen aged drivers. There are several reasons why the Summer months present special challenges for parents of teen drivers.

First of all, many parents tend to raise the curfew times during Summer months. I know I have done this. This is a good thing to do as your child earns your trust and has begun to gain some experience behind the wheel, but as you do this, keep in mind that there are some tipping points where extended curfews may put your child at a greater risk. Try to decide exactly what your teen will be doing with this extra time and determine if the rewards are worth the risks.

Another reason that Summer is so dangerous is that teens now have more and more nights to do things without school in the morning forcing them to come home earlier. Over time this opportunity can lead to some dangerous behavior from teen drivers.

Even during the day the danger for teen drivers is increase during Summer. This is because teens have more time to drive around without specific purpose. While it is great for them to log more hours behind the wheel and gain experience, it is best done if they are driving for a purpose besides time wasting.

I highly recommend that each parent consider getting a GPS device installed in their teen driver’s car to help them with the temptations that driving brings on. You can find out more about these devices by visiting www.teensurance.com.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we help thousands of families with their auto insurance all across North Carolina. We work hard to help our customers become informed insurance consumers and we want all of you with teen drivers to have the tools that you need to help keep your teen drivers safe. Please visit our teen driver web site or call us, toll free at 877-687-7557 for more help with your auto insurance, home insurance, business insurance, or life insurance.

This article was pulled from source information which can be found in its entirety at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

You Might Be Due A Refund On Your NC Auto Insurance Policy – And That’s Not Necessarily A Good Thing

The NC Insurance Department has finally come to an agreement with the Insurance Companies selling auto insurance in NC to settle their differences on the 2008 rate changes that applied to auto insurance and motorcycle insurance policies. There are a few things you should know about who will get a refund and when those checks will be mailed.

First of all, this refund affects all auto and motorcycle insurance in NC with policy terms from January 1, 2009 to October 31,2009. In most cases, checks will be issued only if your refund due plus interest is greater than $5.00. You should receive an explanatory memo with your refund check. If you are due a check for more than one policy term, then most companies will combine all of those into one check. Companies will be mailing out checks between either the May1 – July 31 time window or the November 2010 and January 2011 time window. The timing here will depend on whether that company was writing 6 month auto policies, or 1 year auto policies or both. Interest will be added to the checks through October 31, 2010. The total amount of the refunds will be more than $50 million.

These refunds are the result of a dispute between the N.C. Department of Insurance and the N.C. Rate Bureau (NCRB) over rates ordered in 2008. During the appeals process, the NCRB implemented an interim 9.4 percent rate increase that went into effect on Jan.1, 2009. In cases where insurance companies charged policyholders more than the rates determined by the 2009 settlement, insurance companies are required by statute to refund the difference between the rates charged and the settled rates, with interest.

The 2009 auto settlement did away with the NCRB's implemented 9.4 percent 2008 rate increase and denied their 2009 request for an additional 1.4 percent rate increase and included an additional 0.5 percent decrease. Under the settlement, the NCRB may not file changes to auto rates until 2011, which means that the maximum allowable auto rates are locked in until Oct. 1, 2011 at the earliest.

While you may get a refund, my take on it is that most of our companies were charging much below the maximum NC rate allowed at the time and so a refund indicates that at that time you were viewed as a high risk to the insurance company and charged a higher rate. If you get a refund check, then the next thing you should do is contact your agent to see if you are still considered a high risk due to either your driving record, your credit or some other factor. This check, while fun to get really indicates that your insurance company is charging you their highest rate and perhaps you should take some time to shop for less expensive car insurance.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we work hard to help all of our clients become informed insurance consumers. If we can help you with your auto insurance, home insurance, life insurance or even your business insurance, please call us toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at www.ClinardInsurance.com.

The source information for this article can be found in other articles at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

NC Negligence Laws May Change And The Result Will Be Higher Car Insurance Rates

The NC House is now considering a tort reform bill that could dramatically increase the amount you spend on your auto insurance policy as well as on your home insurance policy and business insurance policies. The reason this bill is so bad for your insurance rates is that it aims to change our current law of contributory negligence to one of comparative fault.

So what does this mean? Well, with our current laws, if you contribute in any way to the accident that causes damages, then you cannot recover these damages from the other party. Comparative fault permits a plaintiff to recover from a defendant if his negligence does not exceed that of the defendant. Now, if we adopt comparative negligence as our state law, then as you can imagine, more claims are going to have to be handled by the court systems because now we have to determine who had the most fault in any accident or event as opposed to saying both parties were somewhat at fault so everyone settles their own claim with their own insurance company. And as you can imagine, having all of these claims settled by our court system will slow down the claims and increase the costs of the claims. And you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that those costs are going to be passed down to the consumer.

Here are some of the findings by the IFNC (Insurance Federation of NC) regarding this bill.

It is estimated that this change in the law will increase auto insurance premiums by 3% to 16% right away. The long term increases in costs could dwarf these numbers.

81% of voters surveyed said that they are opposed to any legislation that increases their taxes or their household expenses.

69% of those polled said the trial attorneys would benefit if the law were changed.

$150 million annually will come out of consumers’ pockets if rates rise just 5% on auto insurance alone. But this change will increase the costs of all policies that have a liability insurance element. This includes homeowners insurance and business insurance policies.

A substantial majority of voters believe that under our current system our courts are open and fair for those who have been hurt in an accident or injured on the job.

Actuarial studies show that states with comparative fault systems have higher auto insurance rates than state that use contributory negligence.

Let’s face it, there are two industries that will make more money of this change goes through. One is trial attorneys and the other is insurance agents. That’s right, I would personally stand to gain from this decision but I still think it is the wrong decision and I urge you to take action to stop it. The appropriate step for you to take to oppose this legislation is to write to your State Senator and ask him or her to vote NO on House Bill 813. For more information or sample letters to send or email to your State Senator, visit Home | Insurance Federation of North Carolina.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we want all of our clients to be informed insurance consumers. We want you to have the information you need to make wise decisions about how to protect your assets. If we can help you with your auto insurance, your home insurance, or even your business insurance or your life insurance, please call us toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us on line at ClinardInsurance.com.

The source information for this article was drawn from information which can be found at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

Garage Insurance – Body Shops and Spray Booths

The automobile body repair business is changing quickly. This industry has seen rather slow and evolved changes over the past 30 years or so but recently the pace of change has accelerated. These changes are shrinking your marketplace of clients as well as constricting how you perform your work. Staying ahead of these changes should give you a strong edge over your competition and help to insure that you remain in business for years to come.

One of the biggest systemic changes to affect body repair shop owners is the shrinking customer base. For instance, the high expense of replacing air bags in wrecked cars, combined with the greater availability of less expensive vehicles means that many wrecked cars are now considered a total loss by the insurance companies and as such are not repaired.

In addition, there are changes taking place in the auto body repair industry that drive the way that you operate. There are both environmental and safety issues that will force body shop owners to invest in new equipment and spray booths. Each step forward requires that you carefully evaluate the costs of improvements against future income.

Recent changes to the International Fire Code and the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) codes that the vast majority of states and local jurisdictions use now mandate that spray paint booths and mixing rooms have automatic fire suppression systems. This has been a substantial change, resulting in greater protection of spray painting operations, but it increases the cost of the spray booth system. Existing manufactured booths can often be retrofitted with automatic suppression systems, but even that expense can be high. These systems fall squarely in the realm of life safety of those who must work in and around the spray painting operations, where explosive fires are rare but very severe.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made a new rule, National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) (Subpart HHHHHH), that mandates by January 10, 2011, those that engage in spray applications to motor vehicles must comply. These standards also mandate a spray booth that contains and filters the emissions from spray operations, as well as spray guns that comply and training to the operators of the equipment. The point of this regulation is to protect the environment, but it does mandate the use of an approved spray paint booth. A summary of these regulations may be found on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/area/paint_stripb.pdf and http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/area/autobodybs.doc.

All of these choices will also drive your insurance costs. If you take the time to keep your spray booth up to date and protect both your environment and your employees, then you will be able to qualify for body shop insurance programs that will offer you the best rates and wider protection. Over time, these changes will begin to pay for themselves in reduced insurance costs.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we want all of our clients to be informed insurance consumers. We specialize in helping automotive repair and body shops all across North Carolina and South Carolina with their insurance needs. If you need help with your garage insurance, your workers compensation insurance or any other insurance needs for your auto repair or body shop, please call us, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at NC Garage Insurance Helper.

The source information for this article was pulled from information which can be found at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.