Insurance Inspector Coming !!

Speaking from the viewpoint of an insurance inspector (just retired this week), Just do the common sense stuff you "should" be doing all the time and you'll be fine.

boots, only, please... :)

I remember the time OSHA went through a Ultra high tech Radar site. My dad was the senior most person there other than the General and sometimes higher due to certain clearances he needed.

He got tagged because of his Polly Perk - those plastic coffee pots that had (as most today do) a two prong plug. It sat on his desk.

He took the cord to the shop and drilled out the rivet in the pot side, secured a three prong plug/cable and stripped 6" from the end. Cut the black and white lines short and attached the socket for the poly side. The Ground looped back from this socket and then up to a Green tagged lug. This lug was sheet metal screwed into the side of the perk.

That mod passed OSHA.

He naturally used a SS screw - didn't want the iron taste!

Martin

Not quite.

If you have a *total* loss when you are underinsured, you get your full policy limits. But if you have a *partial* loss, then you only get the percentage you insured. e.g. if you insure $50,000 worth of your $100,000 shop, then you've only insured half of your shop. If half of the shop burns, $50,000 total loss, you get the half of that loss that you've insured, $25,000. If you only insure 3/4 of your shop, then you get paid for 3/4 of your loss, since that's all you insured for.

Some insurance inspectors are like that, others understand that the company has already agreed to insure the risk, and their job is to help both the owner and the insurance company reduce the risk of losses. I'm happy to have one of the latter working for me now as an agent -- sure, he knows what not to insure, but he also knows that nobody is perfect, so you have to present the risk to the underwriter in a reasonable light.

If the insurance company did a good job underwriting the application in the first place, then they won't be looking for reasons to dump it. But not every company does a good job the first time, and not every loss control inspector understands their job as reducing risk while keeping the customer. If it's the first time this inspector has inspected the risk for this insurance company, then sure, I can see being nervous about it, even if that doesn't seem like a productive approach.

After paying for 15 years thay droped me thay won

...

Yeah, but that's a far cry from the "treat it like an inquisition" approach...

Martin H. Eastburn wrote: ...

Me, I woulda' cut the 2-prong plug off and put on a 3-prong.

I'll send you the hip-boots I wear when I visit this NG!

Insurance companies are in business to make profit. To do that, they need customers. The best customers are the ones that pay their premiums on time and have few claims. The company that insures us gives a seminar at least once a year of topics such as safety, workman's comp claims, drug testing, etc.

They help us avoid problems as a partnership, not the Gestapo to give us a hard time. Listen to the inspector and his report as it can save you money. Ed

Back in the 80's, our liability policy was canceled shortly after an inspection visit. Since we'd had the policy for many years, I was puzzled and asked our agent to check out what happened. It turned out that the inspector noticed we had installed an eye wash station, and assumed we were using hazardous materials (not true). The insurance company used his inspection report to decide not to renew our policy.

Business insurance is a weird world, and it gets stranger all the time. Don't assume anyone is your friend or ally, no matter what their brochure might say.

Edw>>the first place, then they won't be looking for reasons to dump it. But

I had some open boxes on unhooked machines and some on a table thay said i had open or uncoverd boxes so i put them out in a old chev. van out of sight

I think if that were my dad he would have "installed" the coffee pot into the OSHA guy's windshield.

Plastic housing grounded, check the box. That is a good story!

Thanks everyone for responding! You guys provided many comments which never occurred to me.

The insurance inspector came earlier today. I was braced for the worst. He wanted to see the fire extinguisher (but didn't care that it didn't have a tag). He wanted to know how many gallons of cutting fluid I had, and how many welding cylinders (argon and C-25). He asked if I had any acetylene (I don't use it). Then we chatted for a while and he took a picture of the outside of the building. Then he left. The whole thing took less than 5 minutes.

As far as I know, cutting fluid is relatively inert (kind of like motor oil) so I was surprised that he cared. Obviously he would care about the welding cylinders. And he didn't care about the smoke detector or my nifty eye wash which attaches to the bathroom faucet aerator.

The holiday week inspection.

I've seen them.

Barry

And Dad loves telling of that story. I saw his Polly-Perk after he retired. The use for the green wire was for the inspector only. - well maybe it drained free ions and made the coffee better ?!

Martin

Lamp oil burns - maybe cutting oil burns ? Martin