Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley and Account Executive Kevin Howard discuss best practice controls for solar contractors in order to get the best insurance pricing.

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Director/Producer/Host: Alyssa Burley

Guest: Kevin Howard

Editor: Emily Marasso

Music: “Home” by JHS Pedals, “News Room News” by Spence

Transcript

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Alyssa Burley: Hi, this is Alyssa Burley with Ranch Mesa's media communications and client services department. Thank you for listening to today's top Rancho Mesa news brought to you by our safety and risk management network StudioOne™.

Welcome back, everyone. My guest today is Kevin Howard, Account Executive with Rancho Mesa. Today, we're going to talk about best practice controls for solar contractors. Kevin, welcome to the show.

Kevin Howard: Good morning, Alyssa. How are you doing?

AB: Good. So, as Rancho Mesa continues to build broad and competitive insurance programs for solar contractors in Southern California, you recently interviewed a senior underwriter from a national workers compensation carrier in an effort to learn best practice controls for the types of risk they face, because we know having these controls in place can show an underwriter that a company deserves the best possible pricing available in the insurance marketplace. Will you talk to us about the top five controls the underwriter’s team looks for while reviewing a submission to quote?

KH: To take it back a step, I was really excited to interview a senior underwriter at a national workers’ compensation carrier just to pick his brain on when he's looking at a submission for a solar contractor. What's the cheat sheet? What are the five characteristics that really, you know, create that maximum credit, the best price, the lowest net rate. What we're all looking for, right? Luckily, this underwriter was able to offer me his five top criteria that creates the best price.

Number five was when a solar contractor offers health benefits to all the employees. And this is not just solar contractors, this is, you know, any business and it's a benefit in pretty much two main areas. One is it increases the employee's overall wellness. You know, that they're able to go out and do wellness checks and take care of themselves. But the big one for a workers' compensation underwriter is that that's going to help avoid that Monday morning claim. Somebody gets hurt over the weekend, playing, playing basketball or, you know, doing something on their own time, maybe jet skiing, and they're going to come in and they don't have their own health benefits, hey, you know, that's just the nature of when somebody feels like their backs against the wall. Maybe they're going to file a fraudulent worker's compensation claim. So that's something that is definitely a big plus.

AB: And I can see why that's important to an underwriter to know. So, what's number four?

KH: Number four. Number four, he mentioned that just a smaller radius of work. And so, if we're looking at contractor A, that's going to be traveling from San Diego all the way to the tipitty top of Los Angeles, and that's their client base, that's more traffic, that's more time on the road. Let's keep in mind that a car accident is, you know, a high probability of a worker's compensation claim. So if he's looking at a submission and there's that named radius like, hey, we only pretty much work in this, these sections or this, these zip codes, as far as trying to get the best price that was on his top five. So an underwriter can really gauge the amount of auto exposure when the amount of time spent on the road is minimized. Business owners might not even think about that when they're taking on projects, so it's something to be thinking about when you're doing that.

AB: So, what about number three?

KH: Number three, it was a really good topic. It has to do with how the contractor is getting the solar panels or the product to the actual job site, whether it be a commercial building or a residential home. You mentioned that when the solar panels are outsourced and delivered by a third party, just the nature of them not having to do any lifting, that's also cutting down on the driving exposure, right? So, if that's something that's in, that's detailed and listed in the submission, that's going to create more of a comfort level on the underwriter's standpoint to offer credit. And again, we're trying to hit that maximum credit to get the best net rate.

AB: Yeah, that really does make sense. All right, what is number two best practices to implement?

KH: Yeah. Number two is again, one that's really a common denominator for any contractor out there, which is how quickly, swiftly and detailed they're reporting the claims. And I know that Drew Garcia in our office, he had an article that was titled I believe, "The First 48," and just a proven fact that when you file that claim quickly and give your insurance carrier the ability to gather details, communicate with that injured worker, make some on point decisions, be decisive, it's going to only help and create a lower loss ratio over time. So, in the submission if there's proof through the loss history, through the loss runs that, you know, you'll see it right there, here's the claim, occurred on December 23rd, the claim was reported on December 23rd. Those are things that underwriters pay attention to and so anybody out there listening and thinking about that, it's definitely a benefit to have that process in place to say, hey, let's file that claim, let's not, let's not wait. Let's do our investigation, let's take the pictures, let's do the interviews, and let's get our carrier involved quickly so that they can help us.

AB: Yeah, and for those who are using the risk management center, you can pull a LAG report to see the number of days between the incident and when it was recorded in the system, and I believe that carriers may also provide similar information if you need it, but that is a really great indicator of how serious a company takes, you know, safety and reporting those claims. So, Kevin, what's the number one best practices that solar contractors should implement?

KH: If they're solar contractor owners or solar contractor personnel out there listening, you've been waiting for this one. It's the big one. It's fall protection. I mean, it's – this is where we have the big exposure. We're on roofs, we're on flat roofs, we're on stifel roofs, maybe we're on slippery roofs in the morning. There's tons of different risks involved here. So, I'm actually going to go into detail on this one because I got some really good info from this underwriter. So, a written fall protection plan being in place and available for a review, if I'm able to pull that, that fall protection report, send it to my underwriter, include it in my submission versus just that two page questionnaire that's usually the minimum requirement, that's huge. That gives them a chance to see that, hey, this is what the employees are required to follow as far as safety and fall protection, is the employee training documented? We get a new hire where we have an apprentice, are we going to train that employee to make sure that they understand how these PPE works, how the fall protection equipment is stored, where it's stored? The next one was, are the employees familiar with the fall arrest systems? And then some examples are yo-yos, ropes, lanyards, harnesses, guardrails. Does everybody understand how these work, were they properly trained? Is that documented? The next one is, are there rescue procedures and training on rescuing in place? So, hey, let's say somebody falls off the roof, what's the next step? Is that person dangling, or do we have somebody that's competent to understand? What are we going to do to mitigate any more injury, to make sure that there's nothing severe that happens? So, if there's something in that employee handbook or in that fall protection that's documented, that's huge. And then there's just the housekeeping: the assembly, the maintenance, the inspection, the handling of this fall, you know, fall protection equipment. How old is that equipment? Do we have any lanyard or yo-yos that are maybe past their expiration date? Maybe they need to be replaced. How detailed and organized is this insured? So, those are some things that are huge with fall protection, and that would be the number one where we would want to take pictures, come out to a job site. How about this one? Let's bring this underwriter, here's an idea, to the job site, through lost control to say, hey, now we're seeing it live in person. So.

AB: Absolutely, and clients can find a sample written policy and trainings and documentation, all along with other forms and procedures to help implement a program in the risk management center.

KH: Some of these controls may be difficult or unrealistic to implement with your current business model, with workers' compensation representing such a large line item on so many solar contractor's profit and loss statements, engaging in a forward thinking insurance broker who can provide you additional resources and a clear renewal strategy, it’s critical.

AB: And Kevin, if listeners have questions about these best practices, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

KH: You can call me on my direct line, that'd be the best, the best route (619)438-6874, shoot me an email, khoward@ranchomesa.com, would love to go into depth on these five. If there's, if there's something that we missed. What would be your number six or seven?

AB: Well, Kevin, thank you so much for joining me in StudioOne™.

This is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa. Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne™. For more information, visit us at ranchomesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

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