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Personal Insurance Consumer Risk Index Concern Over Cyber Risk Increases More than 20 Percentage Points from Previous Year

According to the 2015 Consumer Risk Index from Travelers, financial risk continues to top the list of major concerns for Americans. However, fear over cyber risk has grown considerably, making it one of the top three consumer risks in 2015.

Cyber Risk – There has been a dramatic increase in how many Americans worry about cyber risk, from 36% in 2014 to 57% in 2015. Leading the list of specific cyber risk concerns is the fear of bank accounts being hacked (62%).

Financial Concerns & Risks – Americans list financial security as their top concern for the third straight year. Of the 66% that worry about this issue, almost half worry a great deal.

Personal Privacy or Identity Theft – Six out of ten Americans worry about losing personal information or privacy, with 25% worrying a great deal.

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Controlling Risks for Property Owners

   
Losses that occur on property you own can affect your livelihood and that of your tenants.  They also can affect your insurance rates and eligibility.  Without the proper controls in place, you could be saddled with the responsibility of owing for injury or damages that you did not cause.

Recognize The Risks

When you understand the risks you face as a property owner and lessor, you can better manage them.  Consider these scenarios:

Natural perils – A tornado sweeps through town, damaging your building and your tenants’ contents.

Fire – A grease fire starts in a restaurant at one end of your building.  Before it is extinguished, fire damages multiple units and tenant contents.

Third-party injury or illness – A patron slips and falls in the parking lot, spraining her ankle.

Change in occupancy – A restaurant replaces a retail store in one of your units.  As a property owner, you want to determine if the current sprinkler system is able to handle the demands of a restaurant.

Change in tenant operations – A retail craft store expands its operations to include pottery making.  With this expansion, your tenant adds kilns to heat-treat ceramic projects.

Vacancy – Your unoccupied building is vandalized, resulting in damaged property.
  
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Health Insurance Captives Turn Risk Into Opportunity

Many businesses and individual employees are planning to spend more for healthcare this year. According to the 2015 Scott Benefit Services Mid-Market Benefits Benchmarking Survey, 2016 will …Continue Reading

OSHA Recordkeeping

It’s that time again … time to prepare and post your company’s OSHA 300 Log information. Since it may have been a year since you’ve thought about your OSHA 300 Log, here is a refresher about the requirements.

What is an OSHA 300 Log?

Your OSHA 300 Log is a log of your company’s work related injuries/illnesses and must be maintained on a calendar year basis. There are a few low-hazard industries that are exempted from these requirements but most companies in construction, manufacturing and transportation with more than 10 employees at any time during the calendar year must maintain the log. One of the purposes of the log is to capture data from many industries to develop national statistical data on injuries by NAISC (North American Industry Classification System) industry codes.

•  The OSHA 300A is the summary of the data on your OSHA 300 log. The 300A is what employers are required to post in a conspicuous location from February 1 to April 30 every year.

•  The OSHA 301 form provides the injury details. Most state’s First Report of Injury forms satisfy the 301 requirement.

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Why the Latest ACA Repeal Attempt Actually Means Something

On January 8, President Obama vetoed the bill that would repeal significant parts of the ACA and defund Planned Parenthood for a year. On its face this just seems like another pointless repeal attempt by the GOP, (as they have tallied over 50 attempts at this point). However, this one needs to have an asterisk beside it.

The reason this one is different is because it actually made it to President Obama’s desk to get vetoed.  Why that means something is because most prognosticators believe that Republicans will keep the House and the Senate in the 2016 election so only the White House is really up for grabs.  While Republicans probably won’t have a veto-proof majority in 2017 (just like they don’t now), this proves they don’t need one to get at least a version of repeal to the president’s desk.  So if the president in 2017 is Trump, Rubio, Cruz, Bush (insert name here), then they have proven they will be able to get a bill to repeal significant portions of the law through budget reconciliation to their desk.

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