Posts Tagged ‘workers compensation’

Free Contractor Insurance Quote

Getting the right Contractor Insurance coverage at the right price isn’t always as straight forward as it should be. If you are a contractor that has employees it can always be tricky on how to include them on your insurance policy. Do you 1099 your employees or are they all W-2 employees? Do they work for other contractors or only you? Do you need to cover them on your Workers Compensation Insurance? These questions can always be difficult to answer and too often they go unanswered until the insurance company does an audit and discovers that you drastically underpaid your insurance premium. Now I always recommend that you include all anticipated payroll whether it’s going to be W-2 or 1099 wages. The reason this is important is because the rate you pay for your Contractor General Liability Insurance is directly related to the amount of payroll you have. This payroll includes any 1099 wages if those 1099 employees do not carry their own Liability or Workers Compensation Insurance. This is where many mistakes are made when the policy is quoted. They might go with the lowest Insurance quote they get when really the payroll used could be half of the other Contractor Insurance quotes they received. So at the end of the year the auditor find those wages and adds it to the policy resulting in a large audit bill (usually due within 30 days). So make sure you accurately communicate your anticipated payroll numbers to your agent when getting your Contractor Insurance quote.

The other line of coverage that often goes overlooked is your Contractor Tools and Equipment. Your business personal property coverage usually will only be covered when it is located at your insured premise. This will cover your tools but most likely it will not extend the coverage to the job site. The most common claim I see for contractors is their tools getting stolen from the job site! So this is important to discuss with your agent. You need to add your Tools and Equipment under a coverage called Inland Marine Coverage. This coverage will usually extend the coverage for your tools anywhere in the world. Also for larger equipment (usually over $500) you can schedule the exact piece of equipment with the year, make and model so the insurance company knows exactly what it is. For all other equipment I always recommend making a list of everything with an actual cash value next to each item and give it to your insurance agent. This will help to ensure you have the right amount of coverage for your equipment.

Getting your Contractor Insurance Quote is an important process. Please make sure you give accurate payroll estimates to your agent as well as a detailed description of everything you will be doing and also don’t forget to properly insure your tools and equipment!

Free Contractor Insurance Quote

Bryan Cranson is the owner of Cranson Insurance Agency specializing in business insurance quotes, workers compensation insurance quotes, health insurance quotes, disability insurance quotes and life insurance quotes in Oakland County, Washtenaw County, Kent County, Cook County and Wayne County, plus the entire states of Michigan, California, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Missouri and New Jersey and New Mexico.

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You may have heard of the new way of paying for your Workers Compensation Insurance; Pay as you go. Now if you are used to the traditional way of paying your premiums, you pay your premium based on an estimated annual payroll that is given to your agent at the beginning of each renewal. You also usually have to pay 20-25% down at every renewal. Oh and let’s not forget those fun Workers Compensation audits that every business owner loves to do every year!

With all of these issues that exist with Workers Compensation Insurance, companies are starting to offer a pay as you go system; let me explain. Instead of paying a down payment when your policy renews, you simply pay a small expense constant (it exists on all Workers Compensation policies) and then only pay insurance premium on the EXACT payroll that you have each pay period. Some companies will require that they also handle the payroll service to make it streamline but more companies are now working with your payroll companies directly. So basically each pay period the payroll for each employee classification is reported to the Insurance Company and then they automatically draft out the exact premium that is owed. At the end of the year there is essentially no audit since there were mini audits every pay period. This type of Workers Compensation has been great for types of business that have seasonal fluctuations in payroll (they don’t pay premium during their slow months) or companies that have grown or downsized (there are no large audit bills or refunds at the end of the year).

It seems in California this has done so well that the State Fund requires their customers to pay their premiums in the pay as you go system. I recently talked to a wholesaler that does pay as you go workers compenstion and he said that they have a 95% retention rate, meaning that when businesses switch to this pay as you go set up they stay with it.

Next time you are renewing or shopping around for your business insurance you may want to ask your agent if they offer pay as you go workers compensation insurance quotes. It could drastically improve your companies cash flow and eliminate a lot of the audit headaches. Of course as always, if you want this quoted from me, don’t hesitate to call. Our agency works with several companies that can offer this for you.

Bryan Cranson is the owner of Cranson Insurance Agency specializing in business insurance quotes, workers compensation insurance quotes, health insurance quotes, disability insurance quotes and life insurance quotes in Oakland County, Washtenaw County, Kent County, Cook County and Wayne County, plus the entire states of Michigan, California, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Missouri.

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I recently quoted some workers compensation insurance for a business owner in Oakland County Michigan that only had a few employees. After getting the quote back he decided that he wanted to exclude himself from the Workers Compensation benefits. Now this is a very common exclusion to put on, especially in certain industries where the insurance cost can be quite severe.  But you need to be sure you have medical insurance and disability insurance elsewhere so you don’t leave any gaps in coverage.  Since he had medical coverage through his wife’s medical insurance plan at work we began a discussion on whether he would be ok financially if he did not receive an income from the business. He said he would be ok financially if he went without a pay check for 90 days. So we quoted him some disability insurance with a 90 day waiting period (or as the call it in the industry, elimination period). Now the price to get the disability insurance was about 25% of the cost to get the Workers Compensation Insurance AND disability covers him if he got hurt on the job or off the job.

So a couple things to think about when excluding yourself from Workers Compensation Insurance.

• Do you have health insurance coverage?
• Do you have short term or long term disability insurance?
• Is the cost for Workers Compensation greater than the cost of disability insurance?

The best advice is to talk to an independent insurance agent that not only specializes in business insurance but also can help you with your health insurance, disability insurance and life insurance needs.

Bryan Cranson is the owner of Cranson Insurance Agency specializing in business insurance quotes, workers compensation insurance quotes, health insurance quotes, disability insurance quotes and life insurance quotes in Oakland County, Washtenaw County, Kent County, Cook County and Wayne County, plus the entire states of Michigan, California, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Missouri.

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Being a business owner has a lot of responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is getting business insurance quotes. Now this may seem like a simple task, but with the wrong type of insurance coverage you could leave your business exposed to a financial loss. The best way to get the appropriate insurance coverage is talking to an independent insurance agent. An independent insurance agent has the ability to access multiple insurance companies to make sure you have the very best price for the appropriate coverage. Also make sure you are talking to an insurance agency that specializes in business insurance. There are many insurance agencies out there that can do your home and auto insurance but not many that only specialize in offering a business insurance quote.

In evaluating your business insurance needs there are a few things to consider. First you will need property and liability insurance. Liability will cover you in case someone gets hurt at your business by slipping and falling or an accident you cause in the course of your business. Property coverage is for everything the business owns. If you own a building you will need building insurance. For all of the businesses contents you will need business personal property insurance. The last part of this coverage is business income insurance coverage. This will cover you in case of something happening such as a fire that prevents you from operation a business. The lost business income from not being open would be covered under the business income coverage. This is especially important for restaurants. If a restaurant burns down, there will be a lot of time where the business is not operating before the restaurant is rebuilt and therefore a large loss for business income. So if are getting a restaurant insurance quote, make sure you have plenty of business income coverage.

The next thing you will need to consider if you have employees is workers compensation insurance. This will cover the medical bills in case an employee gets hurt on the job. The other part that workers compensation insurance covers is if there is a serious injury that an employee suffers, they may sue the employer and you would have coverage for this under your workers compensation insurance policy. When you get your workers compensation quote make sure you are reporting the payroll as accurate as possible to your insurance agent. At the end of the year you will get an audit to make sure that the workers compensation quote you were given matches up with the actual payroll at the end of the year. You may end up having to pay more or actual get a refund.

The last thing that has been on everyone’s mind is health insurance. When getting health insurance quotes make sure you first evaluate how you will be using the health insurance. Will you or a spouse be having kids? Are you currently on any prescription drugs? Do you have any serious health concerns? With Health Care reform around the corner, access to health care should improve but you will still need to evaluate your options with an informed health insurance agent to discuss your options.

Bryan Cranson, owner of Cranson Insurance Agency in Oakland County and Wayne County, Michigan,  provides business insurance quotes in Michigan, California,  Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Missouri.

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