During these tight economic times, every expense can impact the bottom line of your business. When was the last time that you reviewed your insurance premiums to cut costs? As an insurance agent specializing in the needs of landscaping businesses, there are four standard coverages I recommend to all landscapers that have at least one employee:

• 1. General Liability – pays losses arising from real or alleged bodily injury, property damage, or personal injury on business premises or arising from business operations.
• 2. Commercial Auto – pays losses for damage to company vehicles and trailers as well as injury and property damage to others as a result of vehicle liability and is typically required by state governments.
• 3. Equipment Floater – provides protection for tools and equipment from a number of exposures such as theft.
• 4. Workers’ Compensation – covers the cost of medical expenses and disability payments to employees that are injured at work, and it is required by state governments.

These coverages can be written on four separate policies, or the first three can be combined into one package policy that usually allows a premium reduction. With insurance, it is important to understand that each state has its own insurance department, so there is some regulation variety that affects these coverages across the country. This is most evident with workers’ compensation, and you should find out how your state’s statutes impact this coverage for your business.

Your premium for each of these coverages begins with the rating basis. Each coverage is rated differently. General liability insurance can be rated based on revenue, payroll, or number of employees. Commercial auto insurance is based on the value of the vehicles, drivers and their driving records, radius of operations, and a few other things. Equipment floater insurance is based on the value of the equipment and workers’ compensation insurance is based on payroll. Take a look at your current insurance policies and ask your insurance agent if they have carriers that can rate you based on another rating basis and what premium level those quotes had.

On all of these coverages, there are opportunities to receive discounts for safety measures that your business takes to prevent claims. Be sure to have these in writing and communicate them to your insurance agent. Your agent can relay this to the underwriter at your insurance carrier, and many of them have the authority to manually add discounts to your premium for safety procedures. Some states, like Florida, also have a safety discount included in their workers compensation statutes. Examples of procedures that often impact an underwriters’ decision to add a discount include a written safety manual for employees, strict enforcement of rules in equipment manuals, routine maintenance of equipment, theft prevention procedures for storing equipment, drug free workplace testing, and many others.

Previous claims also impact your current premium. The impact differs by type of coverage and the rating technique and formula used by the individual insurance carriers. Don’t hesitate to ask what impact your previous claims have on your current insurance premiums.

If you have any specific questions regarding insurance premiums paid by your lawn care, tree trimming, sprinkler repair, or landscape installation business, please feel free to ask our insurance agents or request a comparative insurance quote from BearWise Landscapers.

The Agent Articles section of BearWiseLandscapers.com allows our insurance agents to provide practical information for landscapers. These agents can also obtain quotes and establish a custom insurance program for your landscaping business through our access to a variety of insurance carriers. This agent article is filed under (1) Insurance, and you can follow comments to it through the RSS 2.0 feed. Feel free to leave your own response below: