Florida Landscaping Tour

This post is going to begin a series in which we tour the state of Florida and give links and information about the lawn care, landscaping, irrigation, and tree trimming businesses that are located in various cities and regions of the state.

Florida is a great state and it has a thriving landscape industry with businesses of all sizes and expertise. We are going to start our tour in the panhandle and this link to the Florida Landscaping Topic will keep you up to date on all the posts that have been made. I will upload a map on that page as well.

I will have the ability to go back and edit all of these posts. So, if you know of any businesses that are located in the area and provide landscaping services, please use this contact form to send me information about the company with their address, phone number, and website, so that I can add them to our list of service providers for that Florida region.

I hope you enjoy this tour around Florida and find the landscaping links helpful.

View Florida Landscaping Businesses in a larger map

Florida Freeze Causes Damage to Landscapes

In the same March issue of Turf Magazine, where I wrote an article about protecting landscape equipment with equipment floater insurance, I saw an interesting article by Carol Brzozowski on the recent Florida freeze. The article discussed how the freeze in Florida offered business opportunities to a number of landscaping businesses throughout the state. Here is a link to the full article and below are some quotes that I found interesting:

When Florida experienced a sustained cold snap earlier this year, it sent temperatures dipping into the freeze zone, even in the southern part of the state. Citrus and other agricultural crops were threatened, as were the lush landscapes of many residential and commercial properties. The unexpected weather presented a challenge for turf, landscaping and irrigation specialists, including Judy Benson, owner of Clearwater PSI, a water and turf management company in Longwood, Florida.

Frozen backflow devices presented one of the biggest challenges for her clients.

“There were a huge number of systems that no longer had the backflow prevention working,” says Benson. “In some instances, that made it a very immediate concern, especially those that rely on a single meter, meaning their irrigation water was also tied to the same line with their residential water. We wiped out the manufacturers of their parts, as well as their complete units.”

Many property owners wanted their landscapes renovated or fixed immediately, but Benson says she is a “conscientious contractor” who does not want to put a bandage over the problem only to have the landscape damaged by another freeze in subsequent weeks.

While the freeze has presented many opportunities for contractors to help with landscape renovations, “it’s starting to become a very tight supply and demand market,” Benson says.
She says client service calls as a result of the freeze have created an opportunity to educate them on impending codes and statutes.

Palm Tree after Florida Freeze

“There is an opportunity at this point to speak with property owners to see if they will renovate their irrigation and landscape to meet these new codes and statutes,” says Benson.

“It takes a little more planning and a longer amount of time to speak with property owners to give them good information that they feel comfortable with in order to get them to take hold of the idea,” Benson adds. “Some are readily interested in it, others just want their landscape set back more to what they had earlier.”

Benson says the balance comes in looking at the whole picture. Current statutes, what’s good for the environment and working with property owners to give them the aesthetics they’re interested in achieving.

She also favors using technology to the greatest extent possible in servicing clients. She has an e-mail alert system for those signed up for her company’s newsletters. When an extreme weather event occurs, “We can send out weather alerts to try to get a head start on freezes and exceptional weather patterns,” Benson says.

“We’re utilizing all of our tools to help property owners prevent some damages that are avoidable just by bringing it to their attention,” she says.

Turf Magazine - March 2010

NOTE: This article about equipment floater insurance was published in the March issue of Turf Magazine.

Protecting Your Landscape Equipment
An introduction to equipment floater insurance

Lawn care and landscape businesses have unique insurance needs that are not encountered by other types of businesses. In the landscaping industry, tractors and other pieces of equipment are some of your largest assets. This equipment travels to the properties of multiple clients each day and, therefore, has a higher risk of not only theft, but other causes of loss and damage.

These facts are common knowledge to many landscapers, but a large percentage do not realize the insurance implications. A typical property insurance policy will only cover your equipment while it is in your office building or other place of storage. A commercial auto policy may cover damage to your trailers, but it will not protect your equipment while on the trailer. To protect this equipment with insurance, a policy needs to be written and rated to cover valuable items while away from the premises of a building.

Equipment floater insurance is specifically designed to cover your landscape equipment and tools while located anywhere in the broad coverage territory. It is a type of inland marine insurance, and that general term may be used on your policy documents. Virtually any type of mobile articles, tools, machinery and equipment (other than motor vehicles designed for highway use) can be insured under an equipment floater.

In order to allow the flexibility to meet the individual coverage needs of insured businesses, there is not a specific contract wording used by every insurance carrier in their policy documents. This is different than insurance like standardized general liability, which will have the same policy documents and unendorsed contract terms regardless of the insurance carrier. When purchasing equipment floater insurance, it is important to ask questions and understand the insurance coverages that are offered.

The good news for landscapers is that the price of equipment floater insurance is a good value, with annual premium rates ranging from 1 to 4 percent of the total value of the insured equipment. Some insurance carriers also provide discounts when this coverage is packaged into one insurance policy with general liability or commercial auto coverage. Other premium discounts may be available for safe storage techniques, theft deterrent systems, claims history and equipment maintenance procedures.

Equipment floater insurance typically has a substantially lower premium rate for scheduled equipment than the blanket coverage that applies to all other equipment. Most policies contain a schedule listing of each piece of equipment with the identification number, year, make, model and value. This is commonly used for landscaping equipment with an individual value of more than $1,000. Scheduled equipment will usually have lower deductibles and other coverage advantages in addition to the lower rate.

As the owner of a landscaping business, you certainly have many things on your mind. Take time to verify that your landscape equipment is adequately covered with equipment floater insurance, since it cannot be properly covered under other insurance. Research the coverage options to see if they fit your business needs and check the accuracy of the equipment schedule. On the declarations page of the policy, the premium will be computed with the associated rates and premium discounts. If no discounts are applied, or if other corrections need to be made, then I recommend you discuss available options with your insurance agent.

Welcome to BearWise Lanscapers

Welcome to BearWise Landscapers!

BearWise Landscapers is a division of an insurance agency (Black Bear Insurance Agency, Inc.) located in Orlando, Florida. Our agents specialize in serving the insurance needs of lawn care, landscaping, tree trimming, and other related businesses throughout the state of Florida. This specialized approach allows us to provide more valuable resources and services to our clients than other insurance agents who do not specialize in the industry. As a division of an independent agency, our agents have access to multiple insurance carriers and can shop the rates between those insurance carriers to offer multiple quotes and be very competitive with rates. We are proud to partner with the top insurance carriers that underwrite landscaping businesses.

More important than all of these business advantages we use to pass along insurance savings to our clients, is the fact that we enjoy what we do and enjoy working with Florida landscapers. I personally enjoy learning about insurance and explaining practical ways that business owners in the landscaping industry can use insurance to protect themselves. We pride ourselves on the exceptional service we provide to our clients and would like the opportunity to provide your business with comparative insurance quotes.

Please take a few minutes to browse through the articles on our website and let us know if we can provide further information to you. You can call our office toll free at 866-296-2327 and dial extension 3917 to speak with me or extension 3852 to speak with Dawn Bennett, who leads the client services for BearWise Landscapers.

Thank you and again welcome to our website and the services we provide for the Florida landscaping industry.