Bay Area Insurance Blog

Northern California Property Insurance

goldenbenchmark — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:32:01 +0000

Northern California property insurance can cover many different components of a business. Electronics, files, furniture and product inventory are all protected with a Northern California property insurance policy. Property insurance often makes people think of large objects like buildings and infrastructure. Yet it’s often the smallest physical components of a business that are most critical. Thus the importance of a comprehensive Northern California property insurance policy. With it, your company will be protected from the replacement cost of all of your vital property. As always, regional and local laws can make a difference, so make sure your policy is tailored to your area of operation: San Francisco property insurance, Sacramento property insurance, or Napa property insurance. Cost is always a concern. Fortunately, Northern California property insurance is scalable to the extent of property you want to cover so it can easily be controlled to fit needs and budgets. Northern California property insurance is available to business owners with property to insure. Even those who lease space will want to consider the value of furniture, equipment, inventory and files.

Facets of Commercial Auto Insurance

goldenbenchmark — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:24:27 +0000

There are numerous types of California Business Insurance. Some are optional, some are extraneous. Few are as fundamental as commercial auto coverage. It provides protection for business-owned or leased commercial cars and passenger trucks. Policies typically include collision, damage, and property coverage and personal damage to others. These policies apply to companies of all sizes. With new CSA regulations, this has never been more relevant.

Just as a driver needs auto insurance to operate a personal vehicle, commercial auto insurance is crucial to protecting your business-owned or leased vehicles. If you, or any of your employees, have an accident in your business’s car, you may be liable for bodily injuries, lost wages or any damage caused.

Typical California commercial auto insurance coverage includes:

Bodily Injury - Coverage for damages that involve bodily injury to others for which you become responsible under law.

Property Damage - Coverage for damage to property of others for which you become responsible under law.

Medical Payments – Coverage for reasonable and necessary medical expenses and funeral services for those who are accidentally injured while in your automobile or while getting into or out of your automobile.

Other obtainable coverages:

Comprehensive – Protection for the loss of or damage to your vehicle and its equipment from all causes except collision, subject to the deductible on the policy.

Collision – Protection for the collision damage to your automobile and its equipment, subject to the deductible on the policy.

Uninsured Motorist – Coverage allows you to recover bodily injury damages due to an accident where the other party does not have insurance, and is found legally liable.

Underinsured Motorist – Coverage allows you to recover bodily injury damages due to an accident where the other party is found legally liable and does not have adequate liability limits.

Hired Auto Liability - Covers liability for automobiles hired under contract on behalf of or loaned to the named insured.

Hired Auto Physical Damage – Coverage for an automobile of any type, hired, borrowed or leased on a short term basis for use in the insured’s business.

Employer’s Non-Ownership Liability – Coverage for a private-passenger automobile used in the business of the named insured by any person, or the occasional and infrequent use of a commercial automobile in the business by any of your employees.

There are many aspects to commercial auto insurance, and consulting with a professional is crucial to achieve the optimal results for business owners and employees.

7 Steps to Managing Risk of California Workers Comp

goldenbenchmark — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 06:34:33 +0000

There are 7 key steps to safeguarding employees and managing your risk of California workers comp.

Screen Well Before Hiring
Keep Safety a Priority Through Training Programs
Give Employees More Benefits
Take Care of Your Employees
Investigate Thoroughly
Manage Claims to Closure
Keep your Ex-Mod Low

For more, read the full article!

Business Income & Extra Expense Insurance

goldenbenchmark — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 06:36:35 +0000

Business income and extra expense insurance coverage identifies risks that could disrupt the operation of your business and provides a plan to respond to those risks. If you’re like many California small business owners, you may only think “liability and property damage” when you think about California business insurance. But have you considered the consequences of a major fire, beyond rebuilding and restocking your business? For example, if your business were shut down for months while you rebuilt, where would your customers go? Will they come back when you’re ready for them? Does your insurance cover temporary relocation elsewhere so you can keep your customers?
Consult your insurance professional to create a continuity plan for your business.

Differences between “Occurrence” Policies and “Claims Made” Policies

goldenbenchmark — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:07:38 +0000

Some policies are offered in two forms: occurrence and claims made. The differences are few, yet important A claims made policy has the following attributes:

Covers incidents on or after the policy effective date, so long as they are reported during the policy term.
The policy may retroactively cover incidents occurring before the policy effective date.
The cost of this type of coverage increases incidentally over the first 5 years of the policy, and may continue to increase, depending on the clams made against the insured.

An occurrence policy covers incidents during the policy effective period, even if the claims regarding an incident are made against the insured after the policy is in force. For this reason, Occurrence Coverage can be expensive.

Bay Area Retirement Plans as Corporate Growth Stimulus

goldenbenchmark — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 06:02:11 +0000

Supremely relevant to a tumultuous economic period, Northern California retirement plans show your employees that you value their future while encouraging responsible saving. The most popular type of employer-sponsored retirement plan is the 401k, which allows employees to save for their retirement by having a certain percentage of their paycheck withheld by their employer and deposited into the company’s plan. Some employers match part or all of their employees’ deposits. Making this kind of investment in human capital can often result in marked impacts on employee retention rates and satisfaction. All Bay Area employers should consider retirement plans and evaluate their usefulness for both retention and as a stimulus to attract new and talented help.

Northern California Professional Liability Insurance

goldenbenchmark — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 06:08:42 +0000

What is PLI? Professional Liability Insurance is a Northern California insurance service that should be carried by any Bay Area professional performing in the service industry, such as a doctor, attorney, or accountant. It’s an insurance policy that will respond to a loss that covers the insured for perceived or real “negligence” and “errors or omissions” that injure their clients. If you are a Bay Area architect or structural engineer working on designing multi-million dollar homes or other structures, you need to have this type of insurance in the event structural defects are detected. Consultants, sub-contractors, and all professionals performing services should consider this type of Northern California insurance.

COBRA & Northern California Health Insurance

goldenbenchmark — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 06:04:33 +0000

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) gives workers and their families who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods of time under certain circumstances such as voluntary or involuntary job loss, reduction in the hours worked, transition between jobs, death, divorce, and other life events. Qualified individuals may be required to pay the entire premium for coverage up to 102 percent of the cost to the plan. Though it may seem expensive, this coverage can often be cheaper than private insurance plans and more comprehensive.

COBRA generally requires that group health plans sponsored by employers with 20 or more employees in the prior year offer employees and their families the opportunity for a temporary extension of health coverage (called continuation coverage) in certain instances where coverage under the plan would otherwise end. COBRA outlines how employees and family members may elect continuation coverage, and can prove a very useful Northern California health insurance resource. It also requires employers and plans to provide notice.

California Workers’ Comp

goldenbenchmark — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 06:35:03 +0000

California, like all states, requires that employers have some form of Workers’ Compensation insurance. It’s the law. It pays for medical care and rehabilitation for employees and principals of companies eligible for coverage, who are injured on the job or contract a work-related illness. Workers’ compensation also covers a portion of an employee’s lost wages, disability benefits. It further provides death benefits for the dependents of employees killed in work-related accidents.

Workers’ compensation covers all of the employees of a business except independent contractors (some states require coverage for independent contractors you hire-check with your insurance professional for resources to determine your situation). Special provisions must be made if employees work out-of-state or out of the country. If the employee dies because of the injury, the insurer pays death benefits to the worker’s dependents.
All Workers Comp rates are based on the classification code of that job class. For example, an administrative assistant or clerical job class code is 8010 and for every $100 of annual payroll paid, Workers Compensation average insurance rate is $2.00 per $100 of payroll (this is an example, rates vary carrier to carrier and year to year). The higher risk occupational classes (like construction workers) and claims rate, the higher the cost. So if your admin assistant is earning $40,000 per year, you will pay $800.00 in annual Workers Comp premiums. There are hundreds of class codes for every type of job occupation. Your insurance professional will ask you for the total annual payroll paid for each job class.

A basic operating cost of conducting business in the United States, Workers’ Compensation is mandatory and helps keep the system running smoothly. The best practice here is to find a reputable source who will keep costs down while maintaining reliable, legally redoubtable coverage.

All states require employers have some form of Workers’ Compensation insurance. It’s the law. It pays for medical care and rehabilitation for employees and principals of companies eligible for coverage, who are injured on the job or contract a work-related illness. Workers’ compensation also covers a portion of an employee’s lost wages, disability benefits. It also provides death benefits for the dependents of employees killed in work-related accidents.
Workers’ compensation covers all of the employees of a business except independent contractors (some states require coverage for independent contractors you hire-check with your insurance professional for resources to determine your situation). Special provisions must be made if employees work out-of-state or out of the country. If the employee dies because of the injury, the insurer pays death benefits to the worker’s dependents.
All Workers Comp rates are based on the classification code of that job class. For example, an administrative assistant or clerical job class code is 8010 and for every $100 of annual payroll paid, Workers Compensation average insurance rate is $2.00 per $100 of payroll (this is an example, rates vary carrier to carrier and year to year). The higher risk occupational classes (like construction workers) and claims rate, the higher the cost. So if your admin assistant is earning $40,000 per year, you will pay $800.00 in annual Workers Comp premiums. There are hundreds of class codes for every type of job occupation. Your insurance professional will ask you for the total annual payroll paid for each job class.

About Experience Modification: The experience mod is the part of your Workers Compensation insurance premium that you, the employer can help control. It is a ratio of your actual losses to losses that are to be expected in an operation of your size payroll and your employment classifications.

If you are a new business owner just starting out, your Workers Compensation modification factor will be 1.00. If you have been in business for at least one year or more, and you have had claims (losses) for Workers Compensation then your company pays a higher rate. If your losses are above “average” (1.00) your mod will be greater than 1.00. If your losses are below average, your mod will be below 1.00. For example, modification factors as low as .90 are not uncommon in the banking industry. Your business’s experience mod is multiplied by your premium to generate a surcharge (mods over 1.00) or a credit (mods under 1.00). So for example, if your mod is .85 you are saving 15% on your premium. Conversely, if your mod is 1.15 you’re paying an extra 15%.

California Business Insurance – Types of Insurance Important To Small Businesses, Part 2

goldenbenchmark — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 06:00:55 +0000

Some insurance agents will combine property and liability insurance together, namely “property and casualty” or “P&C” insurance. These types of policies are often packaged together for commercial businesses and create the best choice for California business insurance as they can optimize coverage while minimizing premiums.

Now that we’ve identified the basics of business property and liability insurance, let’s review a few other aspects of commercial insurance:

Commercial Auto Insurance: Business using vehicles or any licensed form of transportation need some type of commercial auto policy. California Commercial auto insurance policies protect businesses against property damage and loss to vehicles and damage caused to others by those vehicles.
Workers Compensation Insurance: Workers’ compensation (also known as workers’ comp, workman’s comp and work comp) is a form of insurance providing for medical care and compensation for employees who are injured in the course of employment. This is typically provided in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee’s right to sue his or her employer for negligence. Workers compensation is undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts with many steps being taken to prevent injuries from occurring, and using forensic social media data mining to determine if claims are fraudulent.
Business Interruption Insurance: Business interruption insurance covers many types of businesses against loss of cash flow and profit of caused by the interruption of operations by a covered loss. This could be as simple as the destruction of property causing your business to temporarily close, to an act of nature preventing you from opening your doors.
Health Insurance: Today most businesses must offer health insurance. With the advent of PPACA, health insurance is more complex than ever and your business needs ensure compliance with these new regulations.
Life and Disability Insurance: Key Employee Life and disability insurance protect businesses against the death or disability of key employees. This can include large businesses and small, corporations, partnerships and even sole proprietors.
Specialty Lines: Whether you have a restaurant, car dealership or sound studio, or if you’re a plumber, high tech consultant, actor or opera singer, it is possible your business needs are unique and you many require specialty line coverage. Insuring your wind pipes as a singer is much different than insuring your pipe inventory as a plumber, but both are important to their respective business.

California business must consider the regional differences which can adversely impact their businesses including earthquakes, fire, flood and pollution, which can be particularly problematic when compared to other areas of the country. Further, healthcare and workers compensation insurance will have regulations and rates specific to California. When considering the multitude of coverage and options for a California business, it’s best to meet with a local, licenses California insurance agent or broker to ensure specific needs are addressed.

Author Bio

Wes Ensign is a licensed California Insurance Agent and Vice President of Golden Benchmark Insurance Services. Golden Benchmark is a full service insurance agency based in Fremont, California and has been in business for 25 years. They work with top rated insurance carriers for California Property Casualty, California Employee Benefits, California agribusiness insurance, general business insurance, California workers compensation, group health insurance, and of course, all types of personal insurance. http://www.goldenbenchmark.com or go to our blog: http://bayareainsurance.wordpress.com/