Risk Insights Agriculture: Crop Frost Protection Best Practices

While farmers in cold climates are used to the effects of frost and regularly take extensive measures to avoid damage, those in more moderate climates are simply not as prepared to guard their business from loss in this area. Use these tips to ensure you make it through the each season successfully.

Critical Freezing Temperature

Educate yourself on the critical freezing temperature of your crops. This number will depend on several factors, including the difference between air and leaf temperatures, wind chill, duration of the low temperatures, stage of plant growth and overall health of the crop. The amount of damage will also depend on the crop itself – among the most frost-tender crops are strawberries, tomatoes and sugar beets.

Frost Protection Measures

Protection methods include proper site selection and use of heaters, irrigation, chemicals, and man-made fog or wind machines. The first step is choosing appropriate land by considering its elevation, water features and sun or wind exposure. It takes years of experience for some growers to understand exactly how their land affects critical temperatures, so it may be helpful to take measurements of minimum temperatures periodically to understand frost risk. The safest practice is to consult a specialist – an agricultural meteorologist or climatologist – to determine how temperature data should be interpreted and what actions are best to take.

Other protection methods vary in cost, effectiveness and associated risks. Farmers should base their decision on the proper frost protection method on the dynamics and terrain of the growing site. Whatever the method, frost protection must be executed carefully. Preparation and testing of the system should be finished well before freezing risks are present.

Managing Frost

Crop yield, drying rate and quality may be affected in frost-damaged crops depending on the amount of harm. Contact your farm insurance broker before harvesting to avoid causing further damage and unnecessary risks. Check your specific policy to make sure you have crop damage protection. Remember, the best way to manage frost risk is to have a plan in place for cold temperatures regardless of the time of year or your location.

Top 10 Ways to Control Your Employers’ Liability Costs

Insurers will likely analyse at your claims history when underwriting your employers’ liability premium. If you can help control your claims, you can lower your price — so we’ve gathered top tips to help you impact your bottom line.

1.  Investigate accidents immediately and thoroughly; take corrective action to eliminate hazards, and be aware of fraud.

2.  Report all claims to your insurer immediately. Alert the insurer to any serious, potentially serious or suspect claims. Frequently monitor the status of the claim, and communicate with the adjuster to resolve them as quickly as possible.

3.  Take an aggressive approach to providing light duty to all injured employees upon their release from treatment. Supervise light duty employees to ensure their conformance with restrictions.

4.  In serious cases that involve lost time, communicate with the loss adjuster to demonstrate your interest in returning the injured employee back to gainful employment.

5.  Set safety performance goals for those with supervisory responsibility. Success in achieving safety goals should be used as one measure during performance appraisals.

6.  Develop a written safety programme, and train employees in their responsibilities for safety. Incorporate a disciplinary policy into the programme that holds employees accountable for breaking rules or rewards them for correctly following safety procedures. 

7.  Frequently communicate with employees, both formally and informally, regarding the importance of safety.

8.  Make safety a priority – senior management must be visible in the safety effort and must support improvement.

9.  Evaluate accident history and near-misses at least monthly. Look for trends in experience, and take corrective action on the worst problems first.

Business Benefits From Proper Health and Safety

Practising model health and safety in your workplace is not just another chore your business must do to remain compliant with legislation and avoid fines and prosecution—it is a smart and beneficial business decision. Exemplary health and safety equips your business for future growth and improves its chances for survival in a turbulent economy. Establishing a solid baseline for workplace health and safety creates a ripple effect that continues to benefit your business far into the future.

Every business has industry-specific risks that can threaten safety and productivity, including:

·         Asbestos

·         Electrical safety

·         Gas safety

·         Noise

·         Slips and trips

The simple and necessary act of protecting your employees from your business’ specific risks makes for healthier, happier and more productive employees—who, in turn, make your business more successful. Maintaining effective workplace health and safety can generate the following five business benefits.

1.     Reduced Absences and Sick Leave

Improving workplace health and safety measures reduces employee absences and sick leave. Healthy employees miss fewer working days. Minimising employee absences and sick leave saves money on both direct and indirect absence costs.

• Direct absence costs include absent employees’ salaries, overtime incurred by employees covering for absent co-workers and loss of output from absent employees.
• Indirect absence costs include training time necessary for replacing sick or absent employees, the possibility of diminished services and product quality, loss of business and recruiting temporary staff.

Every business has different absence rates and costs associated with ill health. Assess yours with the Workplace Wellbeing Tool found here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/workplace-wellbeing-tool. It will help you calculate absence costs to your business and develop a plan to lower them in the future. A concerted effort to reduce absences and sick leave, rooted in model health and safety initiatives, will make your employees healthier and your business more successful.

2.     Saving on Recruitment Costs

By reducing employee absences caused by ill health or accidents, you retain valuable employees and save money on recruitment costs. Recruiting employees, especially for critical positions, can be costly. Consider all the expenses associated with recruiting and training a new employee:

• Designating someone to recruit new employees.
• Searching and advertising for new employees.
• Conducting interviews with candidates.
• Training replacement employees.
• Dips in productivity as new employees become accustomed to the workplace.

Do not waste money on recruitment and jeopardise your most valuable asset—your employees—by relying on subpar workplace health and safety programmes.

3.     Lowered Insurance Costs

Maintaining an ideal standard for your workplace health and safety programmes can have a direct causal relationship to lower insurance premiums. A top-notch workplace health and safety programme can lower the number of accidents in your workplace, thus reducing employers’ liability premiums. Almost all business owners are required to purchase employers’ liability cover—it covers workers in the event they become ill or sustain an injury at work.

But purchasing insurance such as employers’ liability, motor vehicle and property cover is not enough. Insurance policies do not cover everything—they only cover a small portion of accident costs. There are also many costs not covered by insurance that result from accidents or injuries, like:

• Repairs to plant and equipment
• Production delays
• Fines
• Legal costs
• Loss of contracts

A double-pronged attack of wide-ranging insurance covers and meticulous health and safety programmes will keep your insurance costs low and your employees healthy.

4.     A Stable Reputation

You have worked hard to cultivate an upstanding reputation for your business throughout the years. Preventing accidents and ill health helps create and maintain a caring reputation for you and your business. Just one workplace accident or scandal can tarnish that hard-fought, respectable reputation. A blemish on your business’ reputation can be hard to remove. Blemishes can include:

• Fines
• Negative public opinion that is difficult to change
• Plummeting sales
• Media scrutiny
• Unwanted, large-scale attention

To avoid the relentless public enquiries that accompany workplace accidents, focus your efforts on ensuring your employees and products are safe and healthy. Good public relations can increase your sales and generate more leads. Unwavering attention to workplace health and safety helps preserve a stable and trustworthy reputation.

5.     Improved Productivity

Promoting workplace health and safety helps improve productivity. Stress and accidents at work are two of the biggest causes of absence from work today. Whether they cause short, unscheduled absences or long-term illness, they can have a serious impact on your productivity and profits. If workers have to cover for an absent colleague it can put additional pressures on them, contributing to increased absence in the longer term.

If your employees feel happier and safer, they can accomplish their work with less difficulty and danger. Employees will respect and appreciate any improvements you implement that make their jobs safer and easier. This increased morale can save you money in the long run. Safety measures by no means drag down productivity—just the opposite. Keep things moving by emphasising the importance of vigilant adherence to health and safety policies.

Wellness Initiatives to Promote Stress Management

Employees may not know it, but stress is a leading contributor to many health problems. Lowering stress can reduce the risk of medical conditions and help individuals feel better on a daily basis. You can play an important role in reducing employee stress.

Activities and Programmes

·    Monthly chair massage. On-site professional massages allow employees to reduce their stress without even leaving work. These can be offered in 10- or 15-minute blocks, allowing employees to return to their jobs refreshed and renewed.

·    Exercise class. Exercise is a great way to relieve and even prevent stress. Offer a variety of class times (before and after work, during lunch, etc.) as well as various types of classes – from relaxing yoga to stress-busting kickboxing.

·    Stress management class. Provide employees with the education and tools to manage time and tasks, to cope with daily stressors and to prevent stress from damaging their health.

·    Comedy day. You can’t worry and laugh at the same time! Bring in a stand-up comedian, show old black-and-white comedies and/or hold a contest for funniest home videos and funniest jokes.

·    Meditation room. Provide a designated space where employees can sit quietly and use meditation or prayer to defuse their stress.

·    Recognition. Celebrating workplace successes can raise employees’ morale and allow them to put their challenges in perspective. Make sure to recognise employees who have completed important projects, taken on a new challenge or had notable accomplishments.

Incentives

·    Print your company logo or a funny joke on stress-relieving squeeze balls. These are very popular toys for releasing tension and can serve as inexpensive prizes for contest winners or activity participants.

·    Give away a free massage. Local massage professionals may want to contribute a free massage as part of an incentive or prize because it allows them to advertise their services.

·    Spa day. This may involve a facial, massage, hair and nails or other combination of beauty and wellness offerings. A day at the spa is a relaxing way to rejuvenate your spirit and appearance. Ask local spas to contribute a coupon or discount.

·    Paid holiday. This surprisingly inexpensive option can give hard-working employees a free day to just relax or take care of responsibilities at home or appointments that have been put off.

·    Gym membership. Persuade your employees to participate in programmes and activities by offering a free or discounted gym membership. Regular exercise will reduce stress levels, and helping with the cost will encourage many employees to utilise this benefit.

·    Audio book on breathing exercises. Voice-guided practise in breathing exercises allows employees to relax, slow their heart rate, rid their minds of stressors and learn a simple technique to manage stress that will last them a lifetime.

Why Cyber Liability Insurance

As technology becomes increasingly important for successful business operations, the value of a strong Cyber Liability Insurance policy will only continue to grow. The continued rise in the amount of information stored and transferred electronically has resulted in a remarkable increase in the potential exposures facing businesses.

 Why Cyber Liability Insurance? A traditional commercial insurance policy is extremely unlikely to protect against most cyber exposures. Standard commercial policies are written to insure against injury or physical loss and will do little, if anything, to shield you from electronic damages and the associated costs they may incur. Exposures are vast, ranging from the content you put on your website to stored customer data. Awareness of the potential cyber exposures your company faces is essential to managing risk through proper cover. Possible exposures covered by a typical cyber policy may include:

Data breaches – Increased online consumer spending has placed more responsibility on companies to protect clients’ personal information.

Business/Network Interruption – If your primary business operations require the use of computer systems, a disaster that cripples your ability to transmit data could cause you or a third party that depends on your services, to lose potential revenue. From a server failure to a data breach, such an incident can affect your day to day operations. Time and resources that normally would have gone elsewhere will need to be directed towards the problem which could result in further losses. This is especially important as denial of service attacks by hackers have been on the rise. Such attacks block access to certain websites by either rerouting traffic to a different site or overloading an organisations server.

Intellectual property rights – Your company’s online presence, whether it be through a corporate website, blogs or social media, opens you up to some of the same exposures faced by publishers. This can include libel, copyright or trademark infringement and defamation, among other things.

Damages to a third-party system – If an email sent from your server has a virus that crashes the system of a customer or the software your company distributes fails, resulting in a loss for a third party, you could be held liable for the damages.

System Failure – A natural disaster, malicious activity or fire could all cause physical damages that could result in data or code loss.

Cyber Extortion – Hackers can hijack websites, networks and stored data, denying access to you or your customers. They often demand money to restore your systems to working order. This can cause a temporary loss of revenue plus generate costs associated with paying the hacker’s demands or rebuilding if damage is done.

Cyber Liability Insurance is specifically designed to address the risks that come with using modern technology; risks that other types of business liability cover simply won’t. The level of cover your business needs is based on your individual operations and can vary depending on your range of exposure. It is extremely important to work with a broker that can identify your areas of risk so a policy can be tailored to fit your unique situation.

Workplace Wellness: Why promote Wellness?

What is Workplace Wellness?

Workplace wellness refers to the education and activities that a worksite may do to promote healthy lifestyles for employees and their families. Examples of wellness initiatives include such things as health education classes, subsidised use of fitness facilities, internal policies that promote healthy behaviour, and any other activities, policies or environmental changes that affect the health of employees.

 

Why Workplace Wellness?

It affects your company’s bottom line in many ways. Namely, workplace wellness can help control costs, increase productivity, reduce workplace accidents and staff turnover, decrease absenteeism and raise employee morale. Because employees spend many of their waking hours at work, the workplace is an ideal setting to address health and wellness issues. 

Wellness programmes help control private medical insurance costs. For organisations that offer private medical insurance, health care costs are a significant portion of a company’s budget, so strategically targeting this expense can significantly benefit an employer’s bottom line. An investment in your employees' health may lower costs or slow the cost increases. Employees with more health risk factors, including being overweight, smoking and having diabetes, cost more to insure and pay more for health care than people with fewer risk factors.

Healthier employees are more productive. Research shows that workplaces with wellness programmes have employees who are more productive at work.

Healthier employees miss less work. Healthier employees mean fewer sick days, which is another benefit companies generally achieve through wellness programmes. Plus, employees’ healthier behaviour may translate into better family choices, so employees may also miss less work caring for ill family members. Reduced absenteeism can create significant cost savings and return on your wellness investment.

Wellness programmes can reduce employers’ liability costs. Employees who make healthy changes and lower health risk factors often have a lower chance of a workplace injury or illness or a disability. In both cases, this can save the employer money, not just on insurance, but also the replacement cost of recruiting and training a new worker to replace one out of work for health reasons.

Wellness can create higher morale and improve recruiting. A company that cares about its employees' health is often seen as a better place to work and wellness programmes can attract top talent in a competitive market. In addition, expressing a commitment to your employees’ health can improve employee morale and strengthen retention. Employees can experience many potential benefits after joining a wellness programme, including:

•          Increased well-being, self-image and self-esteem

•          Improved coping skills with stress or other health factors

•          Reduced risk for developing chronic or life threatening conditions

•          Easier access to health improvement programmes and convenience can increase motivation to improve health

•          Improved overall health

•          Access to needed social support, as co-workers strive towards healthier lifestyles as well

•          Improved job satisfactions

•          Safer and more productive work environment

Employees who experience these positive changes and benefits will often feel more loyalty to the company and grateful for the company’s commitment to their health.

Contact us for more insurance industry related news

International Medical Insurance in Russia

Many companies succeed in providing a variety of employee benefits. The standard package of employee benefits, including Voluntary Medical Insurance (VMI ) and food vouchers, is almost no longer perceived by talented employees as a competitive advantage of the employer. Forward-thinking companies go further and try to adapt international practices to the Russian market, and also conduct benchmarking for the best local experience.


However, VMI today is the most popular social privilege, designed to solve a number of problems:
• increased productivity by reducing morbidity;
• the provision of timely medical care to employees.


Unfortunately, for all the popularity of VMI, HR departments still come across problems in health insurance and inconvenience for users of these programs. The most difficult for international medical insurance companies is to provide medical insurance to expats who often hold leading positions and require special attention. This is not surprising, because we are responsible not only for them but also for their families who temporarily reside with them.
All this becomes a reason for developing new products and services in the employee benefits market.
Many companies are aware of International Medical Insurance (IMI), but until 2009 only foreign employees going to work abroad could benefit from that.
In 2009, there were the first examples of local programs for international health insurance in Russia, not only for expats, but also for Russian employees. Currently, IMI is an attractive alternative for VMI employees of a certain level, such as top and middle management.
So, what exactly is IMI, and how is it different from the popular VMI program?

First of all, it is a medical insurance program that provides insurance both in Russia and abroad, depending on the coverage.
The main difference from the VMI is an expanded list of medical services provided by the program. Unlike the VMI, it includes: rehabilitation, treatment of critical illness, pregnancy and childbirth, transplantation, prosthetic devices, the treatment of cancer and AIDS, drugs, treatment of mental disorders, neonatal care, routine checkups, evacuation and repatriation.
It is important to note that the enhanced sum insured is greater than the maximum amount of the VMI program, which allows employers to avoid financial risk for some types of illnesses.


Example: We provide our employees with travel insurance if they are going on a trip abroad, but it always involves only emergency medical care.


The IMI program includes necessary planned treatment abroad. Moreover, this program gives an employee who has basic insurance access to any medical institution, even of a higher level.
In the case of VMI, it depends on the level of the plan (standard to VIP).


Today, the Russian market can take advantage of programs of four leading insurance players who are in partnership with international insurers. This alliance is established to ensure the maintenance and administration of such programs. Quite often, medical services companies are involved to co-operate in order to provide international medical services assistance, including in Russia. Programs of this type of insurance also provide a settlement of the international system of payments.


Example: A senior manager of an international financial and investment services company was insured by a local VIP IMI program and expats were insured through a global agreement by headquarters, which hampered service processes and the resolution of complaints. Problems arose with the employees based abroad — they were not happy with the level of services and claims, as handling was carried out through the head office and with the local employees — they were not satisfied with the selection of medical institutions. The solution was to offer an IMI program for both. As a result, the company had an opportunity to take advantage of tax benefits to subscribe a local agreement.


Expats received local support as part of the IMI program and it also simplified getting the treatment they need in the clinics. Local employees received the desired inclusion of medical institutions together with the expansion of health services, while expenses remained at the planned level, and the level of satisfaction increased.


Contact us for more information