Getting Ready for a Yearly Work CompWorkers’ Compensation Audit
Your business’ actual workers’ comp insurance premium is determined from the annual workers’ comp audit conducted by the insurance company. This insurance premium can vary drastically from the estimated insurance premium used to create the original policy. To expedite the process, assign one person as the sole contact for the auditor. This helps to eliminate miscommunication. Select someone that is intimately acquainted with all aspects of the business and employees, as well as the payroll records. Have info about the specific job duties performed by a certain department or by individual employees at hand. Anticipate all questions to gain an advantage and make sure that you can provide correct details to the auditor. You do not need the auditor to make any guesses because he or she will inevitably choose the workers’ comp codes that will definitely be more favorable to the workers’ comp insurance carrier. Ask for the work papers for the previous year’s audit for the contact person to review with your prior years audit billing statements. This will jog his or her recollection from the prior audit or show him the types of information the auditor is looking for). At any rate, it is a good preparation tool, sort of like preparing for a test. Ensure that your payroll information clearly specify which hours were paid as overtime so that he does not mistake that pay with straight hourly wages. If your company uses subcontractors or independent contractors, make sure you have proof that they have their own workers’ comp insurance. Without that evidence, your insurance premiums will likely go up, as you may be liable for their risk exposure. If you employ a employment agency, those workers are employed by that agency and is going to be covered under the agency’s workers’ comp policy. Make sure your records and clearly differentiate between employees, contracted temp employees, and independent contractors. If you are in the construction industry, or similar, don’t forget that you’ll use multiple workers’ comp class codes and assign one employee multiple job codes. Documentation must show the particular hours staff spent in each of the different workplace exposures. If not, every employee will be put into the most expensive classification code possible. The key is knowing how the insurance companies operate. Their ultimate goal is to raise your rates to as high as feasibly possible. The thing you need to understand is that they frequently make mistakes and you must be on the watch out for them. If you’re not fully prepared or you’re unfamilar with the workers compensation system, talk to a professional or start brushing up on your workers’ comp knowledge. It will likely mean the difference between saving and spending a lot of money.
Getting Ready for a Yearly Work CompWorkers’ Compensation Audit
Your business’ actual workers’ comp insurance premium is determined from the annual workers’ comp audit conducted by the insurance company. This insurance premium can vary drastically from the estimated insurance premium used to create the original policy. To expedite the process, assign one person as the sole contact for the auditor. This helps to eliminate miscommunication. Select someone that is intimately acquainted with all aspects of the business and employees, as well as the payroll records. Have info about the specific job duties performed by a certain department or by individual employees at hand. Anticipate all questions to gain an advantage and make sure that you can provide correct details to the auditor. You do not need the auditor to make any guesses because he or she will inevitably choose the workers’ comp codes that will definitely be more favorable to the workers’ comp insurance carrier. Ask for the work papers for the previous year’s audit for the contact person to review with your prior years audit billing statements. This will jog his or her recollection from the prior audit or show him the types of information the auditor is looking for). At any rate, it is a good preparation tool, sort of like preparing for a test. Ensure that your payroll information clearly specify which hours were paid as overtime so that he does not mistake that pay with straight hourly wages. If your company uses subcontractors or independent contractors, make sure you have proof that they have their own workers’ comp insurance. Without that evidence, your insurance premiums will likely go up, as you may be liable for their risk exposure. If you employ a employment agency, those workers are employed by that agency and is going to be covered under the agency’s workers’ comp policy. Make sure your records and clearly differentiate between employees, contracted temp employees, and independent contractors. If you are in the construction industry, or similar, don’t forget that you’ll use multiple workers’ comp class codes and assign one employee multiple job codes. Documentation must show the particular hours staff spent in each of the different workplace exposures. If not, every employee will be put into the most expensive classification code possible. The key is knowing how the insurance companies operate. Their ultimate goal is to raise your rates to as high as feasibly possible. The thing you need to understand is that they frequently make mistakes and you must be on the watch out for them. If you’re not fully prepared or you’re unfamilar with the workers compensation system, talk to a professional or start brushing up on your workers’ comp knowledge. It will likely mean the difference between saving and spending a lot of money.
Is State Farm Getting Ready to Bailout on the State of Florida?
For years State Farm Florida Insurance Company has remained one of the few Fortune 500 homeowners insurance companies still doing business in Florida. It is still by far the largest private insurance company in the state for both homes and autos covering 1 million and 2. 5 million policyholders respectively.
They deserve credit for that.
After all, following the billions in claims from Hurricane Andrew in 1992, many large insurance companies simply left the State of Florida for good – and never looked back. That left Florida to deal with the problem on its own and caused it to create its own state run insurance company of last resort to help those who simply could not find coverage.
State Farm Florida Insurance Company did not follow this approach.
It has taken a prudent approach to the market that has been present in Florida since Hurricane Andrew. These steps have included:
Strict underwriting criteria for homes selected for new business
Multiline discounts for policyholders with home, auto, and life coverage
Selectively cancelling higher risk older homes closer to the coastline
This approach might have been successful during normal, reasonable periods of history. But things in Florida have been anything but reasonable in recent years:
From 1992 to 2004, no large insurance companies re-entered the Florida home insurance market – leaving State Farm on its own.
Florida hurricane claims in 2004 and 2005 caused billions of dollars in damage. State Farm Florida paid millions in claims and had to request an emergency cash infusion from its parent company to recapitalize it.
While the company was able to get significant rate increases after the 04/05 hurricanes, massive rate increases granted to most of the companies in Florida in 2005 and 2006 caused a major political uproar. Quite honestly, the public demanded rate relief because Florida home insurance was simply not affordable.
The pressure for lower rates was far worse due to outrageous property taxes and the collapse of the Florida real estate market.
The State of Florida reacted to voter pressure. But the results were not impressive.
The 2007 and 2008 legislation had a minimal effect on lowering homeowners insurance rates and shifted billions of dollars in catastrophic risk to the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund – a state entity that has publicly stated that it can’t meet its reinsurance obligation to insurance companies in part due to the frozen bond markets.
As a result, all companies including State Farm Florida are concerned that the Florida Cat Fund won’t be there to pay them back after a major hurricane and are looking for new sources of backup reinsurance.
That, combined with other factors led the company to request a 47% rate increase a few months ago. After state regulators rejected the rate increase, the company appealed that decision in court. Recently a judge agreed with state regulators that State Farm’s 47% rate increase was not justified and also rejected the rate increase.
This brings us to where we are today – a time when many Floridians have to be wondering if State Farm Florida is preparing to exit the state for good. This would not be welcome news and would cause a major shock to the Florida homeowners insurance market as policyholders scramble to find other coverage.
In today’s uncertain times, you have to be ready to face realities. One of those might be that State Farm will cancel or drop your homeowners insurance coverage in Florida. If that happens there are several things you need to do to respond to this:
Shop your policy. Most State Farm Florida agents can only offer you homeowners coverage with Citizens after your policy is cancelled. Find a large independent agent who represents multiple companies in order to give you the best options for replacing State Farm Florida.
There are new Florida base regional insurance companies that have been created over the past 15 years, with many only being recently approved since the start of 2006. Some of these companies might be a good option to replace State Farm but you have to research each and every one of them. Check their financial ratings and customer service history thoroughly.
State Farm Florida insurance agents will be hurt by mass cancellations of home insurance policies. They have spent years building a book of insurance business in Florida. When they lose your home insurance business, they often lose your auto and life insurance business as well. While you can’t help but be sympathetic, you need to know that it is in your agent’s self interest to keep your auto and life insurance business while putting your home insurance coverage into Citizens Property Insurance. Don’t accept being placed with Citizens without looking for other private home insurance companies through other agents that can also offer you auto and life insurance.
Get all the facts if you are thinking about Citizens Property insurance. Citizens has said that it does not charge enough premium to cover the risk that it takes. It too is expecting problems borrowing to pay its claims after a major hurricane in today’s troubled bond markets. Major recommendations being presently considered at Citizens include raising rates, limiting coverage, and mandating certain home hardening measures. Do your home work on Citizens just like you would for any other company.
While we don’t know how the final situation with State Farm Florida will play out, if you follow these steps you’ll be way ahead of hundreds of thousands of policyholders that might be scrambling to get coverage all at once.
Get Your Credit Rating Ready For Home Mortgage Approval
Your credit report is an important process of home mortgage approval and may be ready to spend a charm for home approval of the mortgage if techniques are used to increase or maintain the credit history before and during the entire home mortgage approval. Order your credit report. Do you prefer to order a copy of your credit report at least two years before you decide to apply for a mortgage as you have to make sure no errors in your credit report in order to get home approval process mortgage. Errors on your credit report can lead to a lower grade, but also a poor reputation with future creditors. What are the common mistakes in your credit report? There are plenty of cases where financial institutions can be marked as late payments or failure, even when payments have been made at this time can give rise to potential creditors to assess the future as a bad creditor. By contacting the creditor, this information may be changed to include accurate and positive information, which can improve the credit rating of the application, you look like a worthwhile borrower. Clear all credit file collections. The second step to take in order to obtain the approval of home mortgage is to clean up your credit file. Collections of accounts have been shown to be harmful to your credit report and is known to cost up to a hundred points of the credit score get you to the mediocre level. For example, a rating of good with a score of collections that we can bring up an average score leaving the consumer susceptible to higher interest rates and the increased likelihood of being rejected by potential lenders. Pay your debts. Payment of arrears is another necessary component is taken into consideration in the approval of the mortgage. When you pay off the debts to a maximum of thirty percent of the credit limit that ensures that its ratio of debt to credit limit you can maximize your credit score. This represents up to thirty percent of the credit score, increasing your score once the debt is paid off. Implementing a dynamic pay plan may have several positive issues in the credit score and prove to potential lenders lending practices of trust and also the ability to pay debts. Increasing your credit score can maximize the applicant's ability to obtain approval of home mortgage. Although there are many more methods that can be used to inflate the credit rating, constant payments and a small debt credit rating may be the best way to prepare your credit score when you expect the adoption of a mortgage. Once you put all of these processes in action is the time to investigate with future home mortgage companies and financial institutions a loan amount that can be pre-approved. Make sure you are pre-approved for a home mortgage can help reduce the budget should be tied to while searching for your dream home.
