Aaron Griffith (Center) of Beehive Insurance receives the ‘Agent of the Year’ Award from the Utah Association of Independent Insurance Agents.

Aaron has been involved in the Utah insurance industry for nearly 20 years and has been with Beehive for the past 11. His affinity for hard work, client commitment and a willingness to serve others makes him a standout in our field. We are proud to work alongside Aaron and many other top performing insurance agents in the state.

Beehive has a reputation for hiring the best, most customer oriented insurance agents around. In fact, this is the third time in the last four years that a Beehive Insurance team member has been ranked as the best insurance agent in the state of Utah. Doug Snow, President of Beehive Insurance, received the award in 2011 and Kay Howland received it in 2010.

So what qualifies one as a top insurance agent? These three characteristics top our list. Tell us what you think.

• Trustworthy - At Beehive, we’ve always believed that your insurance agent is a trusted adviser who should offer personalized, expert advice to you, your family or your business. Our agents and their account managers live by the motto, “Our Word is Our Bond”, which to us means, you’ll always get the service and benefits we promise. If you’re looking for an agent, make sure you choose one you know you can trust.
• Provide Unmatched Quality Customer Service - If we’re not working for you, you don’t need an agent. Your insurance agent should be an adviser  friend and be willing to give you the knowledge you need to make the best decisions about your coverage. At Beehive, our producers go above and beyond to make sure that your needs are taken care of, if not, we are not doing our job.
• Experienced - This should be obvious. The extensive details of insurance policies, coverage and benefits are probably not secondhand knowledge. You should be able to rely on your agent to know the ins and outs of every policy available. Your insurance agent is responsible for helping you to get the best coverage and care for your unique needs.  Often, those promising the ‘best deal’ are simply offering you the worst coverage. Find an agent who will give you the information you need to make a choice that provides you with the right coverage, at the right price.

Congrats again to Aaron Griffith, Utah’s 2013 Agent of The Year!

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How does your workplace encourage the reporting of work-related injuries and illnesses? Oftentimes, the policies and procedures created to encourage the reporting of workplace accidents actually prevent management from receiving reports, due largely to incentive programs. The resulting effect can largely impact scrutiny from OSHA as well as increased premiums for Utah workers compensation. If your company offers safety bonuses for accident-free periods, you may need to evaluate the practices taking place on job sites and company property.

The Cons of Safety Bonuses

When employees don’t report these incidents, your company is in violation of OSHA’s Injury and Illness Recordkeeping rule. To encourage incident reporting and protect workers against employer retaliation, OSHA offers whistleblower provisions to protect these activities for employees and cite employers who discourage reporting. There are more than twenty statuses offered by the Whistleblower Protection Program to ensure that employees cannot be fired, demoted, disciplined or denied benefits by reporting accidents.

Research performed by OSHA indicates that even safety incentive programs meant to encourage safe activities can actually result in the opposite effect. While offering rewards to employees is a good motivating factor toward reducing workplace accidents, it also encourages employees to underreport injuries to minimize penalties on rewards.

Programs That Encourage Underreporting

Research by OSHA indicates that the following types of incentive programs should be avoided:

• Offer rewards “substantial enough to cause a reasonable person not to report”
• Penalize an entire team if one worker is injured
• Tie supervisor and management bonuses to injury rates

Furthermore, rather than offering bonuses for low or zero-accident records, your supervisors and managers should instead look to implement more amicable methods of incentives.

Safety Bucks

Many general contractors and subcontractors offer a monthly bonus for departments that have no reported accidents, but this results in many workers not reporting injuries as they don’t want to be held responsible for losing their team’s bonus. As a way of getting around this, many companies now employ the use of “safety bucks” which not only encourages safe practices, but also the reporting of incidents.

These currencies can be printed into different denominations and then distributed to workers when a supervisor or manager witnesses an act of safety being performed. This ensures workers are constantly maintaining safe work practices in the hopes they “might” (as opposed to “will”) be rewarded.

Once a safety dollar is distributed, workers can then purchase prizes during department safety meetings. Prizes can be purchased outright or even bid upon to help build an environment of fun and competition. These rewards can be anything from candy bars to bigger prizes like e-readers or a paid day off.

Safety is an important concern for any company. When incentives designed to encourage safety make employees give pause about reporting incidents, then your company is at risk of examination by government entities. OSHA is in place for the protection of employees, not as an excuse to look good on paper. It’s an excellent habit to regularly examine your incentive programs and recordkeeping procedures to ensure it does not encourage workers to hide information, and more importantly, so it keeps your workers safe.

Aaron Griffith Senior Account Executive Direct Phone: 801-685-6876 agriffith@beehiveinsurance.com

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Ensuring compliance with these insurance requirements will assist your company in continuing to find work, but understanding the risks of these insurance clauses will help you avoid potential insurance claims or lawsuits.

Waivers of Subrogation

Contractors, in another attempt at protecting their own policy limits by shifting claim payment responsibilities to subcontractors, may ask you to provide a waiver of subrogation on your commercial general liability insurance and worker’s compensation policies. Whenever an insurance company pays a claim on behalf of an insured policyholder, the insurer assumes the right to recover all or part of the claim payment from a potentially-responsible third-party.

For example, while on the job a general contractor’s employee drops a wrench from an elevated location, which hits one of your employees. Your worker’s compensation company will pay for the costs incurred by your employee, but will then attempt to “subrogate” or recover the money paid from the general contractor, since their employee was responsible for the claim. But because the general required you (the subcontractor) to provide a waiver of subrogation in favor of the general contractor, your insurance company cannot recover against the general contractor.

In Utah, this waiver only applies to the employer’s right to recover; the insurance company can still choose to subrogate against the negligent third party. However, the waiver is largely meant as a benefit to the general contractor. As the subcontractor, your experience modification factor (EMOD) may become impacted by this as claim experience will be placed upon you, and can’t be offset by contributions from the general contractor.

Evidence of Insurance/Certificates of Insurance

All general contractors will ask you to provide evidence that you’ve complied with the insurance requirements in the contract. The most common display of compliance is providing a Certificate of Insurance. This serves largely as a record keeping practice among general contractors as it gives them the necessary information to know the extent of your coverage.

If there is a claim on the job because of the work done by you or your employees, general contractors want the protection afforded under your policies. If a subcontractor has no insurance coverage, the general will be responsible for claims resulting from your work. The resulting impact of this may be that their premiums increase, even though they weren’t responsible for the losses not covered under their subcontractor’s policies.

Each of these are common strategies used by larger general contractors in an effort to reduce overhead and control expenses. While it may not be an ideal setup for smaller businesses working as subcontractors, it ensures that you’ll continue to find work. Insurance can be a boon from a protection standpoint as well as an income guarantee.

Jace Pearson Senior Account Executive Direct Phone: 801-685-6857 Cell Phone: 801-231-4526 jpearson@beehiveinsurance.com

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Hold Harmless Clauses

Nearly all construction contracts require the subcontractor to “indemnify, defend and hold harmless” the general contractor through the use of hold harmless clauses, also known as indemnification clauses. In Utah, subcontractors are responsible for the general contractor’s negligence through this clause, even when the general contractor is 99% responsible for a resulting liability claim.

Most commercial general liability insurance policies include contractual liability coverage, which provides protection for the subcontractor for liability assumed by virtue of the hold harmless clause. Due to the simple reason hold harmless agreements vary between states, most contract language will require subcontractors to provide an additional insured modification to the subcontractor’s policy as a backup if the hold harmless clause is rendered void.

Additional Insured

Most upper tier contractors will require you to include an amendment to your liability policy that names the upper-tier contractor as an “additional insured” under your policy. In addition to serving as a backup precaution to hold harmless clauses, it also provides a duty to defend you and potentially the general contractor. What this means for you as a subcontractor is that the general contractor would enjoy the benefits of your policy’s coverage before their own policy would take effect.

For example, if you were performing work for a general contractor at a job site and one of your employees started a fire or caused damage to the project, your insurance would cover any subsequent claims. Only when the coverage of your insurance policy is exceeded would the general contractor need to cover additional claims.

This isn’t necessarily the only reason a general contractor would want to be included as an additional insured. The benefits of this clause to contractors are quite numerous, though the most common reasons include the following three:

• Direct rights of action against the other insurer
• Faster and cheaper litigation
• Triggers by liability arising out of or caused by your work

These are just two ways in which general contractors reduce their own insurance costs and save money. While this does additional risk to you as the subcontractor, compliance in these insurance policies helps ensure that you continue to find general contractors willing to work with you. In part two of this segment, I’ll explain waivers of subrogation and evidence of insurance as additional methods through which general contractors place more responsibility on subcontractors.

Jace Pearson Senior Account Executive Direct Phone: 801-685-6857 Cell Phone: 801-231-4526 jpearson@beehiveinsurance.com

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Have you ever watched those shows on TV where a team of investigators look through small clues and other random evidence to try and piece together what happened at a crime scene? It’s always amazing how they can connect something as random as a half-eaten potato chip to the bank robbery that happened at the beginning of the show.

Pretty much everything that happens during the course of a day has a series of other events connected with it. This is especially true with workplace accidents. Everything from an employee falling off of a ladder to an auto accident has a chain of events leading up to it. Learning what is in that chain of events can help you figure out how and why the accident happened, and also how to keep similar accidents from happening again in the future. Post-Accident Investigations can be extremely valuable in improving your company’s safety program and preventing future accidents.

So what should you look for after an accident? What questions do you need to ask? Each accident is unique, but here are some questions to help you get started:

• Was Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) used, and was it used properly?
• Did any mechanical or other safeguards malfunction? Were they bypassed?
• Were safety procedures or warnings ignored?
• Was equipment being used improperly, or was it being used to do something it wasn’t specifically designed for?
• Was poor equipment maintenance to blame?
• Did poor housekeeping play a part in the accident?
• Was distraction or fatigue partly to blame?
• Were warning signs of a potential accident ignored or overlooked?
• Has this type of accident happened before? If so, why did it happen again?
• And finally, what can be done to keep this from happening again?

Post-accident investigations can also be valuable when there is a “near miss” – something that could have been accident, but was prevented or narrowly avoided. Near misses usually have a similar chain of events to learn from.

Even companies with the best safety programs are bound to have an accident sometime. One of the best things to do after is to use the accident as a learning opportunity and an opportunity to improve. When it comes to safety, there is always room for improvement.

Adam Snow
Account Executive
801-685-6878 | asnow@beehiveinsurance.com
 

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Many of you might remember a few months back when the NFL took a blind-sided sack because they failed to renew their contract with the NFL Referees
Association before the season started, thus having to hire replacement refs to officiate games. It was a disaster. Due to no fault of their own, the replacement
refs were thrown into a situation where they were suddenly incapable of doing a satisfactory job because they lacked experience in officiating NFL games. They were unclear on the rules. They were not accustomed to the speed of an NFL game, and consequently, calls were missed & yellow flags were incorrectly
tossed in games everywhere.

By the end of the week 3 games, there was such a nationwide uproar over the replacement refs, that it put pressure on the NFL and the NFL Referees Association to quickly come to a contract agreement. In a sight probably never to be seen again, NFL refs were welcomed back with a standing ovation by fans as they entered NFL fields for the week 4 games. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_NFL_referee_lockout)

Do you ever feel like you are working with a replacement insurance agency? Are they inexperienced or not up to the speed of the game? Do they know the rules? Are they a full service agency that offers value added services like access to a network of ancillary business services like BizAssure, HR 360, payroll services, Workers Comp E-MOD analysis, among others?

Beehive customers know full well the value of an experienced agency that is accustomed to the speed of the ever changing insurance world. I recently received a Christmas card from a client thanking me for spending so much time with their company to make sure their insurance needs are always satisfied. It made my day, and that’s the reason why we here at Beehive are in the business.

Beehive has been in business for over 50 years. We take pride in doing things honestly and in the right way because we know the rules of the game. Our network of value added services is unmatched. Once you start working with us you will realize we do things differently. It’s not just about insurance. It’s about recognizing other aspects of your business and how our value added services will help you save money in those areas as well. If you’re not a Beehive client, check us out, it’s the right call. We are confident that we’ll be able to help you improve your insurance situation and we won’t even ask for a standing ovation, just maybe a referral or two.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from all of us here at the HIVE!

Brandon Marchant
Senior Account Executive
801-685-6860 | bmarchant@beehiveinsurance.com
 

Image Credit: © Creatista | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

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It’s hard to believe the holiday season is already upon us. Something that undoubtedly comes along with the holiday season is the annual company party. The holiday party is a time to celebrate with friends and co-workers and to put the day-to-day worries aside, right? That’s true, but it does take some extra planning ahead of time to make sure it’s a fun, worry-free night.

For the most part, company parties are a once or twice a year event. Since they
are infrequent, sometimes safety and liability issues get overlooked in the planning. So here are some tips to help plan for some of those safety and liability issues, and to help make sure it’s a safe and fun party:

Alcohol Issues

• Limit the number of drinks each employee can have
• Hold the event at an off-site location with professional bartenders
• Provide plenty of food and other drink options
• Stop serving alcohol well before the end of the event
• Provide alternate transportation for employees to prevent drinking and driving

Workers Compensation and Safety Issues

• Pay attention to lighting, special decorations, cords, and other things that might cause slips and falls
• Have an emergency plan in case an employee is injured or needs medical attention
• Pay attention to potential storms and make sure all sidewalks and parking lots are clear

Harassment and Discrimination Issues

• Prior to the event, let employees knows the standards to which they will be held
• Make sure the party is not tied to any specific religious tradition
• Avoid activities or inappropriate music that could lead to physical contact, unwanted social pressure or inappropriate conversation
• Document and investigate all complaints and treat every complaint seriously

The holiday season is meant for celebration and being prepared is the key. Talk to your Beehive agent about making sure your risks are covered so you can truly celebrate and not worry about the risks involved.

Tyson Perkes
Account Executive
801-685-6860 | tperkes@beehiveinsurance.com
 

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SALT LAKE CITY, UT – At the yearly Festival of Trees event, you’ve likely seen the enormous and extravagant backyard playhouses being auctioned. Just like with the Christmas trees, quilts, and many other items donated to this event, the playhouses have a story. One such story comes from the father-daughter team
of John Sparks and Jennifer John.

Jennifer first found an interest in the Festival of Trees shortly after she gave birth
to a stillborn daughter. She visited the event and felt that she too should donate
to the Primary Children’s Medical Center. For several years, she donated trees
as part of her healing process in remembrance of her daughter’s memory.

In 2004, Jennifer and her husband had finished building their new house and moved into it shortly after the Festival of Trees. The day after the event, she got the call that the individual who had purchased her tree was donating it back to them. Jennifer had written off having Christmas decorations as everything was still in boxes, and the impact of what she’d been doing each year for the festival held an even more significant influence over her.

After that, Jennifer joined the committee for the Festival of Trees and then later formed her own local committee down in Springville. She and her father teamed up to begin constructing backyard playhouses to donate to the Festival of Trees. John Sparks, then 72 at the time, had worked previously as a teacher during the school year and in construction during the summer.

John tapped into his construction experience to embrace this cause with his daughter Jennifer. Together, they put together the materials donated from local businesses to create playhouses that have averaged $10,000 in donations at the Festival of Trees. Each playhouse is 8’x12’ in size and takes an average of two months to fully construct.

Since Jennifer and John first began constructing playhouses for the Festival of Trees in 2007, Sunroc Building Materials and W.W. Clyde & Co. (sister companies of Beehive Insurance) have donated both materials and time to helping with their project. For the first playhouse, Sunroc Building Materials donated 100 percent of the materials needed for the playhouse. In subsequent years, they now donate lumber materials at a lower price. Each year, W.W. Clyde & Co. assists by donating their time on the holiday weekend to bring in a front-end loader and fork lifts to load the playhouse onto a DG Concrete truck for transport to the South Towne Exposition Center.

Jennifer and John wish to give special thanks to the following donors for the materials and time they’ve given over the years to further the work of Primary Children’s Hospital (in alphabetical order):

• DG Concrete
• Ives Woodturning
• Jones Paint and Glass
• Lonestar Builders
• Roofers Supply of Lindon
• Set in Stone Tile
• Shepherd’s Carpets and Furniture
• Sunroc Building Materials, with a special mention of Janalee Long
• Turnkey Interiors
• W.W. Clyde & Co., with a special mention of Bob Taylor

Festival of Trees
The Festival of Trees was first started more than 40 years ago to help raise funds for the Primary Children’s Medical Center. The event serves as an opportunity for families who have benefitted from the unique and specialized services of the hospital to say thanks and donate their time and services. The event caters to the selling of handmade articles, candies and baked goods, wreaths and door decorations, centerpieces, gingerbread houses, backyard playhouses, and Christmas trees which can be purchased in a silent bid auction. And, the best part of it all is that everything is donated to the event and all funding goes to the hospital. In 2011, the Festival of Trees raised more than $1,600,000 for Primary Children’s Medical Center.

Sunroc Building Materials
Since 1938, Sunroc Building Materials has been providing quality building and construction materials to contractors, builders and homeowners throughout the Intermountain West. Sunroc, a daughter company of Clyde Companies, Inc., is the one-stop solution for virtually all construction needs from nails and screws to hand tools and ladders to windows and custom doors.

W.W. Clyde & Co.
W.W. Clyde & Co. was founded in 1926 by Wilford W. Clyde. Still locally-owned and operated by Clyde Companies, Inc., the company now has more than 250 employees and completes heavy transportation construction projects and water treatment plants throughout the Intermountain West each year, including environmental reclamation and building highways, bridges, dams, airports, mines, and golf courses.

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Last fall I was planning to replace two of the four tires on my SUV that were not quite adequate for winter driving. Since we started off with a relatively mild winter,
I kept putting it off, thinking it made more sense to wait until winter really got started.

You can probably see where this is going, possibly because you have dealt with similar personal or business decisions. As you may have guessed, I had a bit of an accident. Fortunately no one was hurt and nothing was damaged, aside from my own car. My ego also took a bit of a bruising.

The cost of the two new tires in the fall was about the same two months later, but the cost of repairing the additional damage to my car was significantly greater. My out of pocket costs were greater than my deductible and the possible negative impact a claim would have had on my driving record. I was forced to self-insure my accident, an accident which I did not plan for and that could have been avoided.

By way of definition, what we “self-insure” has to do with the immediate cost we face in terms of a deductible, retention or out of pocket expense, to rectify our involvement in an incident.

Insurance really is about managing exposure and risk. The exposures we are concerned with should be covered by insurance, while exposures we are willing to risk, must be self-insured. Sometimes it’s better to insure what we can’t afford to self-unsure.

It’s utopia to think that we can all achieve that perfect balance of having the exact insurance we are going to need and the exact rainy day fund to handle all of our unexpected expenses. However, a little extra planning with your Agent or Risk Manager can go a long way toward planning a proactive risk management strategy you can really afford.

Corey Ford
Account Executive
801-685-6860 | cford@beehiveinsurance.com
 

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For those of you who know me well enough I am considered somewhat of a “clean freak”. I have three wonderful kids (ages 13, 11, & 6) who at times tend to be a bit messy. I get it, kids will be kids right? In an effort to reduce some of the messiness, one of the rules at our house is that food stays in the kitchen, unless mom or dad can be around to supervise what food is being taken out of the kitchen and where it is going.

A few nights ago I went downstairs to watch a football game and noticed numerous grey spots all over a section of our tan colored couch. The spots had to have been there for a while because I had not been around the couch for a few days. After an unsuccessful attempt to completely remove the stains I went to find out who broke the rule.

It turns out that my 11 year old had enjoyed some heavily buttered popcorn on the couch a few nights before, and as kids will be kids, she got a bit messy with it. She was aware of the stains, but didn’t want to tell me because she knew she had broken a rule and thought I would be upset about the stains. I explained to her that aside from breaking the rule it would have been better for her to tell me about the stains when she first spilled the popcorn, because then I would have been able to remove the stains better. I could see the light go on in her head when she realized this would have been a lot easier situation to deal with if she had told me about it when it happened.

Just like this simple example, one of the top mistakes made when filing a claim is not doing so in a timely manner. The sooner the insurance company knows about a claim the better they will be able to respond to it. Take pictures, write down notes, and get any information you can while it’s still fresh on your mind. Even if you think you might not file the claim, it’s still a good idea to gather any pertinent information.

Another advantage of reporting claims in a timely manner is that it can help keep the total cost of the claim down. Numerous studies have shown that claim costs increase significantly the longer you wait to report a claim.

Accidents happen – that’s just the way life goes. But whether it’s spots on a couch or an accident at work, taking care of accidents right away is always easier than waiting and finding out that it’s harder to deal with later.

Brandon Marchant
Senior Account Executive
801-685-6860 | bmarchant@beehiveinsurance.com
 

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