In Florida, workers’ compensation insurance is provided by insurance carriers, but the coverage terms and rates are dictated by the state. The coverage terms are listed under Chapter 440 of the Florida Statutes, which states that businesses need to provide workers’ compensation insurance for their employees if:

• The business is in an industry other than construction and it has four (4) or more employees, full-time or part-time (Corporate officers that have correctly filed exemptions with the state do not count as employees).
• The business is in the construction industry and you have one (1) or more employees (Corporate officers that have correctly filed exemptions with the state or a member of a limited liability company do not count as employees).

For landscapers, this means that if your business installs sod or plants trees, then it is considered to be in the construction industry and you need to carry workers’ compensation insurance if you have 1 or more employees. If your business only does lawn care and other landscape maintenance activities, or if your business trims trees, then you are required by law to provide workers’ compensation insurance when you have 4 or more employees.

I highly recommend that you provide workers’ compensation for your employees even when you are not required to do so by law. There are many advantages for this, but the main one is that by doing so, employees accepting workers’ compensation will waive many of their rights to sue your business for their injury, which often results in much higher costs. This is known as the ‘Great Trade-Off’.

Please keep in mind that BearWise Landscapers has access to over 10 insurance carriers that provide workers’ compensation insurance for Landscapers in Florida. If you need workers compensation insurance or if you currently have workers’ compensation insurance and are interested in obtaining quotes through our program, then we would like the opportunity to give those to you. Please select the ‘Get an Insurance Quote’ link at the top of this page and complete our online form. We look forward to working with your landscaping business.

For all of the companies that either have equipment floater coverage or are considering equipment floater coverage, please review your policy closely. Sometimes insurance companies will EXCLUDE theft from their policies. For most of you, stolen equipment is your biggest exposure, so make sure you are covered for theft.

If you do have a policy covering theft, make sure you review it for a “Disappearance” exclusion and read carefully how they define this exclusion. Certain circumstances could classify stolen equipment under the “Disappearance” exclusion.

Make sure you always analyze your policies closely and examine the exclusions. If you ever have any questions about your policy, please do not hesitate to ask us to review it with you.

Just a friendly reminder from your neighborhood insurance agent.

While attending “The Landscape Show 2008” last week in Orlando, I noticed that there were landscapers and lawn care employees constantly taking care of the Orange County Convention Center. The property looked great, but obviously it took a constant effort to maintain the property at the level they desired. It made me wonder how Disney World maintained such breathtaking green spaces without the presence of employees constantly working around you.

I did some research and discovered that over 600 employees come out every night to keep Disney World looking magical. There are over 4,200 acres of Disney Worlds 25,000 acres that need to be maintained. 2000 acres of grass are mowed three times a week, adding up to 450,000 mowing miles a year! Are there any landscapers or lawn maintenance companies out there ready to take on Disney World as a client?

Here are a couple of links with more astonishing facts about Disney World’s landscape:

National Geographic

Walt Disney World News

In a previous article, I mentioned that I would be attending all three days of the 2008 Landscape Show by FNGLA. I was very impressed with the whole conference and it was a success on many levels. The guest speakers did an incredible job, the exhibition area looked great, and the service was top notch; however, I expect nothing less from the World of Disney.

Besides meeting so many people, I am going to have to say the short classes were my favorite part. This year was packed with speakers that I thought did a fantastic job of entertaining while still providing some very valuable information. The theme from the majority of the speakers seemed to be the current economic stresses facing the industry. I was glad to see the speakers address these trying times and encourage everyone to keep working towards the future. Sure the current outlook is bleak but the speakers made some convincing cases that the future is bright for the “Green Industry”.

One of my personal favorite speakers from the conference was Patrick McWard. He delivered a great speech titled “Radical Attraction. Organic Business Growth the Right Way”. Patrick’s talk was an experience all in itself. He was genuine, engaging, and insightful. At the end of the session, Patrick’s book was flying off the shelf. If you would like to check out Patrick’s book you can purchase it on his website: patmcward.com

If you missed out on the 2008 Landscape Show, or if you are a Florida Gator fan, all I can say is “There’s always next year.”

One of the most difficult aspects of starting a new business is accurately projecting expenses. At BearWise Landscapers, we want to assist new landscaping ventures and provide you with the information you need to make appropriate business decisions regarding insurance.

For a new landscaping business with one owner and no employees, we recommend that the business carries three insurance coverages: general liability, commercial auto, and an equipment floater.

1. General Liability: This policy provides protection to your business from many types of lawsuits. We recommend that you obtain limits of $1,000,000 for each occurrence and $2,000,000 for the policy period. For lawn maintenance companies, your premium for this coverage will be around 450 dollars for the year and if you install landscapes, your premium will be slightly higher at around 650 dollars. Depending on your business model and other variables, we have several insurance carriers that might be able to offer lower premiums.

2. Commercial Auto: This policy provides protection for your vehicles and the liability arising out of their use. It is important to move the vehicles you use for your business to a commercial auto policy instead of a personal auto policy. We recommend a limit on this coverage to be $1,000,000 combined single limit, and for new landscapers wishing to save money, we recommend that you should not go below $500,000 combined single limit. For a landscaper with one driver, one truck worth around 10,000 dollars, and one trailer worth around 5,000 dollars, the premium will range depending on your radius of operations and driving record. If you have no points on your license, you are looking at a premium in the ballpark of 1,500 dollars to 3,000 dollars depending on all those variables. We have many insurance carriers we use for these policies, but have been very pleased with Progressive Auto’s rates and service for landscapers with under 5 vehicles.

3. Equipment Floater: This policy provides protection for your equipment against a variety of exposures with the highest threat being theft. Lawn mowing equipment and landscape installation equipment can be very expensive for a new business and you want to make sure this equipment is protected. For a new landscaper with 10,000 to 20,000 worth of equipment, you can expect a premium on this coverage in the range of 150 dollars to 400 dollars. We often package this coverage in with the general liability insurance policy, but we can also write it by itself through a few insurance carriers.

With these three insurance coverages, your new landscaping business will have the protection it needs to avoid the losses that would otherwise end your landscaping career. For more information or to receive final quotes when you launch your new business, please contact us or complete the online quote request form. We enjoy working with new landscapers and look forward to being your insurance advisor as your business grows over time.

Tomorrow is the first day of “The Landscape Show” put on annually by the Florida Nursery, Growers & Landscape Association.  I will be attending all three days and I am excited to hear what is new in the “Green Industry”.  I am going to attend some classes and hopefully learn a little more about what you all are dealing with in the industry.  However, most of my time will be spent hanging around in the demonstration area meeting everyone.  Most likely you will find me around the Progressive Auto booth.  Please come find me and introduce yourself.  I am looking forward to getting to know you all better.  Hope to see you all tomorrow!

I would like to commend Project Evergreen for their development and support of a nationwide program called GreenCare for Troops. The program is designed to assist families who have men or women deployed overseas serving our country. GreenCare for Troops is made up of volunteers who maintain the lawns of military families while they are off serving our country. Currently GreenCare for Troops has over 1,400 volunteers and has served over 6,500 military families around the nation.

I would like to encourage everyone to look up this program and consider volunteering. For more information go to www.projectevergreen.com/gcft/

It is our duty to serve those who are serving our country. BearWise Landscapers and Black Bear Insurance Agency want to thank all the men and women who are currently serving our country or have served it in the past. We greatly appreciate your dedication and sacrifice.

I run into landscapers all the time who have their work truck under their personal auto policy. Please understand that if you get into an accident while performing business your insurance carrier can and probably will deny coverage for the incident. Work vehicles are NOT covered under personal auto policies unless the policy carries a business endorsement. The problem is many insurance companies do not offer a business use endorsement and the companies that do, have a list of qualifications and limitations on the coverage provided under a business use endorsement.

A commercial business auto policy is always the best way to cover your work vehicles. Through commercial business auto policies you can receive higher limits to increase the coverage and protection for your business. The cost difference between commercial auto policies and personal policies may surprise you. In some cases commercial auto policies are less expensive and still include higher coverage limits.

If you currently have a work vehicle on a personal auto policy, please go to www.BearWiseQuotes.com/landscapersto receive a free commercial business auto quote.

Make sure you are covered and your business is protected.

BearWise Landscapers is a division of Black Bear Insurance Agency. We are very excited to launch this new insurance service for landscapers. In this agent article, I would like to briefly explain why BearWise Landscapers was created and the goal we have for this service.

As an independent insurance agency, Black Bear has the ability to provide insurance quotes to businesses from a number of different insurance carriers. Insurance agents typically provide insurance to all types of businesses and their primary sales method is through referrals and relationships they develop. While this has been successful, we feel it restricts the agent from becoming an expert in a certain group of clients that have similar characteristics. We feel that if the insurance agent picked an industry of businesses and specialized in providing insurance services to those businesses, then there would be potential to provide many value-added services.

With this thought process, our agency created the BearWise brand to identify our divisions of insurance agents that specialize in the insurance products needed by businesses in a select industry. As a business owner, we wanted to communicate to you that BearWise agents are different than your typical insurance agent and that these agents are specialists in their particular industry. With BearWise Landscapers, Chris Oakley (and the other agents that will be added to this division of our agency) only works with businesses that maintain lawns and gardens, install landscapes, trim trees, and any combination of these operations.

The goal of BearWise is to not only have insurance agents that specialize in providing insurance products to businesses within a select industry, but also to continually add valuable services to these businesses. In other words, our goal is to continually look for ways to assist landscapers with their insurance related business decisions. The primary way we decided to reach this goal is through freely providing loads of insurance related information to landscapers on our website and through our agents. Over time we look to provide more value-added services and as these additional services are made available to clients of BearWise Landscapers, they will be listed on the services section of the website. Feel free to contact us if you have ideas of helpful insurance related services we can provide to your landscaping business.

We look forward to providing quality insurance products and services to landscaping businesses for many years to come. We appreciate you taking the time to visit our website and we hope you find it to be a helpful tool to understanding the insurance needs of your business. Feel free to contact Chris Oakley with any questions you may have. Also, keep in mind that if you enjoy the services of BearWise Landscapers, the greatest compliment you can give is to refer another landscaping business to look over our website. Thank you.

Welcome to BearWise Landscapers!!!

Let me be the first to say we are so glad you discovered BearWise Landscapers and we hope that this website will prove to be a valuable asset to you and your company.

When we started kicking around the idea of providing a service targeting a specific industry; for some reason landscaping kept popping up everywhere we looked. The more we researched the landscaping industry, the more we liked the opportunity to do something that we felt had not been done before in the insurance business. I have always been passionate about the landscaping industry and we feel like it is an industry overlooked and under serviced in Florida. We understand the value that the landscaping industry adds to Florida and the positive impact it has on the Florida economy. We want to partner with the landscaping community and serve you all as you continue to grow and serve Florida.

Our goal at BearWise Landscapers is to better inform landscapers on the insurance issues that impact your businesses and to minimize the exposures that put your businesses at risk. We also have spent considerable time building relationships with our insurance carriers and sharing the vision we have for BearWise Landscapers. These relationships allow us to be very efficient and extremely cost effective in the insurance quotes we deliver to you. This saves you time, saves you money and provides you a peace of mind knowing your business is protected at the end of the day.

I would like to extend a big “thank you” to all the insurance companies that believe in BearWise Landscapers and have bent over backwards to help us release this service to the public. We truly appreciate the continual support and the constant flow of ideas being provided by you all.

Once again, welcome to BearWise Landscapers! Please feel free to call or email with any questions you may have. We are here to serve you.