Professional Liability Insurance for Online Training

In this often uncertain economic climate one way to help earn additional money and pay down debt is to bank on one of the least tangible but most valuable products you have; your knowledge. With the ease of online training sessions, the popularity of online mentoring, and the immediacy of online classes, this form of remote teaching is becoming very popular.

But when you decide to earn a profit by mentoring, training, or teaching another online, you may be positioning yourself as an expert within the industry or discipline you cover. As an expert you may want to consider the addition of professional liability insurance in order to protect yourself against liabilities that arise from mistakes or misunderstandings.

Why You Need Professional Liability
Training another professional isn’t a task that’s taken on for fun. If you collect money from individuals, you make certain promises about your experience, knowledge and abilities. This positions you as a professional and an expert and could introduce liabilities to your work.

For example, let’s say that one of your mentees or students misunderstands a lesson or you make an error when teaching them because you weren’t aware of a newly passed regulation. Your student or mentee might go on to practice their business in a way that causes one of their client’s damage. They could be sued for those damages and, upon realizing that they learned that particular method or approach from you, they may decide to sue you. Without professional liability insurance, you would be left to pay court costs—even on lawsuits that are not your fault. And if you are found liable, you’d need to pay damages out of your own pocket. With professional liability insurance, your policy would likely pay the damages and costs associated with the liability claim.

Don't allow the ease with which you may begin teaching students online to lull you into a false sense of security. If you exchange money or other property for your knowledge and expertise, then you are running a business and could have commercial liability exposure. Secure the proper liability insurance policy before you begin taking on students and mentees and protect yourself from lawsuits and the resulting financial consequences.

If you aren’t sure what kind of Baton Rouge insurance policies you or your business need, give us a call at (225) 754-5658. We understand the specialized needs of Baton Rouge business owners in many different industries and can help you keep up with the many ways changing technology affects your business risks.

Insurance Considerations for your Children

Your children may not have financial responsibilities and they may still need to be reminded to brush their teeth and clean behind their ears every night, but that doesn’t mean that they have no need for insurance.

From birth until the time they reach financial independence, your children need your help in maintaining appropriate insurance coverage for all their needs.

Health Insurance
There is no time in a person’s life when they should be without health insurance. When bringing your children to the doctor, to the emergency room after an accident, to get shots and regular checkups and attending to every other medical need, the last thing you need to worry about is how you will pay for the treatment. Health insurance is an affordable expense that controls costs and out-of-pocket expenses without sacrificing care.

Life Insurance
It’s difficult to think about life insurance for a child, but it’s practical. But not just for covering the final expenses should the unthinkable occur. By locking in rates as a child and allowing cash values to begin accruing, you create a financial head start for your kids as they move into adulthood.

Learn more about renters and auto insurance is affected by children.  Give us a call at 225-935-8751 for a Baton Rouge insurance quote. We can help you determine what is and isn’t necessary and design policies with premiums you can easily afford.

Excluded Perils - Baton Rouge Home Insurance

Events covered by your homeowner’s insurance plan are referred to as perils within your policy; but not every peril that causes damage to your property is covered. Those that are not covered are called excluded perils and they may include:

• Earth movement: This can include earthquakes, landslides, earth shifts, mudslides and sinkholes. Policies can, however, have special endorsements that provide limited coverage for some of these perils and special policies can be purchased for others. If you live in an area that is prone to any of these events, you may want to work with an agent to ensure that you are properly covered.
• Neglect: It’s up to every homeowner to take the necessary steps to protect their home and to maintain the property to minimize the chance of losses. If your property becomes damaged as a result of neglect, your home insurance policy likely offers no benefits.
• Acts of war: If your home is damaged during activities connected to a civil war, undeclared war, war-like act by the military or military personnel, or rebellion, your home insurance policy likely excludes coverage. It may also exclude coverage for certain nuclear events.
• Intentional loss: The purpose of a home insurance policy is to make a homeowner whole after a loss that they were not expecting and, when possible, took relative care to prevent or minimize damage from. If a homeowner should be found to cause intentional damage to his or her home, the claim would likely be denied.
• Water damage: Your home insurance policy offers no protection against flood damage. Instead, a separate flood insurance policy is required to protect against the damage imposed by rising bodies of water due to runoff, storm surge, etc. It also does not provide coverage for tidal waves, sewer and drain backup, or leaks in the foundation.
• Government action: If, by government action, your property is confiscated or seized, it isn’t likely to be covered by your policy. However, if a neighborhood fire puts your home at risk and you are ordered out as a safety measure, then fire damage may be covered.
• Ordinance or law: After a loss, if local ordinances or laws require upgrades in rebuilding, then these additional expenses may not be covered.

To discuss your home insurance policy’s exclusions or to get a free Baton Rouge home insurance quote, give us a call at 225-935-8751.

Commercial Package Policies – Business Insurance

There are many types of risks that a small business owner might encounter and each requires a separate insurance policy. Buying individual policies for each risk can get confusing. Your agent will be able to offer you commercial package policies to help business owners organize their policies needed to protect their business in one convenient package. These packages may also include discounts to save business owners money as well.

Not every type of commercial insurance is offered in a commercial package policy though. Business owners can create a custom package using any of the following coverage types:

• Property coverage
• General liability
• Employment practices
• Auto
• Inland marine coverage
• Machinery coverage
• Crime coverage
• Boiler coverage
• Farm coverage
• Professional liability coverage

Your individual package may also have declarations, endorsements and conditions specific to you and the needs of your business. For instance:

• Each package will have what is called a common policy declaration spelling out the details of whom and what is covered. It will include the policy holder’s name, coverage dates, a description of the nature of the business covered and the premiums.
• Common policy conditions will spell out the responsibilities and obligations of the primary insured. This ensures that, in the case of a business with multiple owners, one individual owner will be responsible for paying premiums and responding to inquiries. This is also the only individual on the policy with the power to cancel it. In order to do so, he or she must send the request in writing to the insurer. If the primary insured wishes to transfer these responsibilities to another, the request must also be made in writing and must be approved by the insurance company.

With commercial package policies, it’s important to know that your insurer will be permitted to audit your business' books at any time while the policy is in-force and up to three years after it has been canceled.

Call us today at 225-935-8751 for more information about Commercial Package Policies or get a free Baton Rouge business insurance quote.

JG

What is Workers Compensation? - Part 1

Today we present the first Part of an article on Workers Compensation Fraud. Check back soon for Part Two on how to Prevent Workers Compensation Fraud.

Employers everywhere agree that a worker who is injured on the job through no fault of his or her own, has every right to be compensated for those injuries. Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous workers out there who take advantage of these very fair workers compensation laws in order to benefit. Whether they fake an injury (such as a difficult-to-diagnose back injury) or work with a crooked medical service provider to bilk the complicated workers compensation system, workers comp fraudsters are out there, and your company could be a target.

How Workers Comp Fraud Works

Why is workers comp such a tempting target for the less than scrupulous worker or medical professional out there? Simply because most states favor workers when it comes to on-the-job injury and, as a result, have implemented strict laws to protect them. In fact, most states require that employers pay 100% of medical and rehabilitation expenses incurred form work-related injuries, and even that they also pay up to two thirds of the employee’s lost wages while he or she is unable to work. The chance to take a long, paid vacation—or even double dip and work a second job while collecting worker’s compensation—can be too much of a temptation for some people.

Medical service providers have a similar motive for committing workers compensation fraud. For them, falsifying workers comp claims can quickly become a very lucrative cash cow. How do they do it? In the simplest case scenario, they might simply inflate the nature of a real injury when submitting it to the insurance company, costing the company money while the unknowing worker receives normal treatment for his or her injury. In other cases, they might work with an injured employee to exaggerate the severity of the injury.  When this happens, workers get more time off than merited and the doctor submits inflated medical bills to workers compensation insurance providers, netting cash for work they never did. Some so-called medical service providers have taken workers compensation fraud much farther, going so far as to fabricate their credentials, their clinic and the fact that the worker in question was even injured. Some even use cash to recruit workers to fake injuries.

At Bourg Insurance, we believe growing our business is important to our company, but maintaining our strong relationships with our customers is paramount. Call us today for a Baton Rouge Workers Compensation Quote at (225) 490-5678!

How to Make Your Own Personal Property Inventory

If your home and personal property is destroyed by a flood, fire, hurricane or other disaster, it may be more difficult than you think to remember all the items you had in your home before the event. And without an itemized list of the items you lost, you cannot get the recovery you deserve from the insurance company.

One way to avoid this is to make a personal property inventory. You can hire someone to do this for you, but it isn’t difficult to do it yourself.

1. Go room by room: Don’t just try to think about each of the items in your rooms while you are sitting in one place. Instead, go into one room and focus on that space completely while you are in it. Do not start another room until you finish the one that you are in.
2. List every item: As you look around the room, write a comprehensive list of every item in the room as you look at it. This is really the only way to ensure that you make note of every item you own.
3. Add descriptions and serial numbers: Once you’ve gone through every room of your home and classified each of your possessions, go back to the room you began the process in and start noting any distinguishing facts, serial numbers and descriptions next to each of the items you have listed. You should do this after you create the basic list of items because the process can take a while. If you try to do this all at once then you may actually suffer an insurable incident before you even have your basic list complete...

Continue reading "How to Make Your Own Personal Property Inventory" or contact us at (225) 490-5678 to learn more about Baton Rouge home insurance.

Tips to Save Money on Your Business Auto Insurance

Business auto insurance is a must-have for anyone using a vehicle for commercial use. But just because you have to have it, that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to find a way to spend less on your business insurance policy. Here are some tips that could help you save money on your business auto insurance policy without sacrificing your coverage.

• Higher deductibles: It is no secret that with higher deductibles, your premiums will be lower. It is important that you review your budget annually and set deductibles that you can afford to pay. As your revenues increase, it is possible that your deductibles can too. But make sure that you don’t get too aggressive with your deductibles and that you can afford those you set. Otherwise, you could be placing yourself up for more financial damage than an expensive premium would create.
• Lower your limits: Keep track of the value of your fleet and lower your limits accordingly so that you can keep your business auto insurance policy affordable. Your vehicles lose value every year and, if they are driven often, may lose value at a faster rate than a normal automobile. There is no point in having a high limit if your cars aren’t worth that much, unless you are looking for replacement value instead of actual value. When it comes to medical and bodily injury coverage, be sure not to lower your limits too aggressively since these costs tend to increase over the year rather than decrease.
• Review your coverage annually: When you simply renew the same insurance policy every year without reviewing it, you could be missing changes that have happened in your business and that should be reflected in your policy. For example, it is possible that you have too much insurance on company cars that have lost value over the years or, maybe you are covered for incidents that you and your drivers have little risk in encountering. It is important to review all these factors every year so you can stay on top of inefficiencies and streamline both your policy and your premium.
 

Continue reading "Tips to Save Money on Your Business Auto Insurance" or contact us at (225) 490-5678 to learn more about Baton Rouge business auto insurance.