September 2010

Your workers need to take their safety responsibilities seriously – and realize that fooling around on the job can be dangerous. To get your message across, we’d recommend that you stress these essential points.

• Horseplay and fooling around are the opposites of safe, responsible work. According to the dictionary: Horseplay means rough fun. Fooling around means doing foolish, useless things – and a fool is a person with little or no judgment or common sense.
• Workplace rules ban horseplay because it’s dangerous. Although horseplay is usually a friendly, physical way to let off steam, this type of fooling around doesn’t belong on the job because it means that you’re not concentrating on your work. Directing your horseplay at others is even more dangerous; they’re not expecting the distraction and could easily have an accident, such as falling into a moving machine part, slipping on the floor, or dropping a tool.
• Horseplay creates unnecessary risks. When you indulge in horseplay, you can’t stay alert to hazards and follow safety rules. For example, running, chasing, or pushing can cause slips, trips, falls, and other accidents. Throwing tools might stab someone with a sharp edge or cause an injury. Fooling around with PPE can expose you or another worker to a hazardous substance. Speeding or stunt driving with a forklift can cause it to tip over or hit people or objects. Jokes like “hiding” someone’s PPE, dropping your half of a load, turning out lights, etc., aren’t funny – they’re dangerous.
• Take your job, your responsibilities, and safety seriously. Failure to follow safety rules is dangerous, for you and for others. Think how bad you would feel if your horseplay injured or sickened someone else – perhaps seriously. Don’t indulge in horseplay, accuse those who won’t go along with it of having “no sense of humor,” or allow other people to engage you in horseplay.

Disasters during the past decade – such as flooding in the Midwest, oil spills in the Gulf Coast, and wildfires in California – have cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Insurance will play a vital role in helping your businesses recover from a disaster, if you manage your claims properly by following these guidelines:

• Protect internal conversations. Consulting with your counsel on the nuances of your claim should keep confidential information from becoming public knowledge. However, bear in mind that most states do not protect the confidentiality of communications between and you and your accountant or broker.
• Follow procedural requirements. Your policy requires you to alert your carrier within a reasonable time after a loss and provide a “proof of loss” within a certain period. Seek to extend the proof-of-loss date until after the claim is adjusted.
• Don’t overlook less-obvious coverage. A typical property policy includes coverage for property damage, extra expense, accounts receivable, leasehold interest, rental value, royalties, demolition of buildings or structures, decontamination costs, fire extinguishing expenses, interruption by civil authority, and debris removal.
• Document actual losses. Keep detailed records of all property damage and costs of repairing or replacing damaged property. For Business Interruption claims, preserve historical sales data and document all repairs and other financial hardships resulting from the disaster.
• Don’t short-change your coverage when measuring losses. You might be able to measure your loss based not on what the business would have made if there had been no disaster, but on what it would have made if there had been increased demand for its goods or services after the loss and it had been able to conduct business.
• Work closely with your insurer. Striking the proper balance between legitimate requests for substantiation of a loss and endless demands for more information requires good-faith activity on both sides, as well as an effective working relationship.
• Keep your right to pursue legal action. Many policies require that any suit be filed within one year (sometimes two years) of “inception” of the loss. However, because it’s sometimes unclear which state’s law governs this issue or how a policy is interpreted, don’t assume that the law where the insurer is based or where the loss occurs will apply.

When you file a claim, our risk management professionals would be happy to provide advice. Just contact us by phone or e-mail.

Your safety committee should have employees eager to serve it, and management responsive to its recommendations.

However, there might be a significant gap between what you’d like to achieve and the committee you see today.

To get your committee from here to there, consider these tips:

Right size
Experts suggest a committee of six to 10 members in a company of fewer than 200 employees, with a six to 12 member committee for businesses with 200 to 1,000 employees. Larger businesses or those with various shifts and/or locations, should consider having multiple committees. If you have more than one committee, encouraging members to attend one another’s meetings will ensure “cross-pollination” of best practices and information.

Right people
Choose active, productive employees who work well in groups, are comfortable speaking out, and are accessible to their colleagues. One of the most important roles of a member is to serve as a vehicle for rank-and-file employees to express their concerns about working conditions. Some experts recommend having the members elect the head of the committee. Corporate safety managers may participate on committees or serve as advisors, but should not lead the group. To keep the committee fresh, rotate its members. A one-year appointment is usually long enough to let members get something done without burning out.

Right tasks
Although the purpose and activities of committees vary, their tasks generally include:

• Accident investigations
• Safety inspection
• Behavioral observations
• Review of equipment to leased or purchased for safety controls
• Hazard identification
• Reporting problems or concerns to management and/or maintenance
• Recommending corrective actions
• Monitoring new policies and procedures
• Communicating safety and health information and updates to employees
• Participating in safety training
• Developing and managing incentive programs
• Serving as role models for safe practices

Right results
Ultimately, you won’t find the right formula on any list. A strong, purposeful safety committee should take inspiration from management’s belief in its work, and have members who want to improve the safety and health of their co-workers.