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Contact Us
Foundation Insurance Group
803 West Broad Street
Suite 500
Falls Church, VA 22046
703-988-3750 (phone)
800-203-2811 (toll free)
www.foundationinsurancegroup.com
info@figva.com
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How to Insure Your Woolly Mammoth, Tongue, Food Truck (or Other Unusual Assets)
Property, disability, and professional indemnity insurance can cover more than you might think
Lyuba's five-year world tour will be wrapping up this fall, but before she hit the road the woolly mammoth calf was insured for €1.1 million (about $1.5 million). After 40 thousand years in Siberian permafrost, the remains were the best-preserved of any mammoth ever found - and the last thing the scientific community wanted was for those remains to be damaged or lost.
Insuring a woolly mammoth is definitely unusual, but policies are written to protect unusual assets all the time. In the case of Lyuba, most scientific samples or archeological treasures are insured, just like any other piece of valuable property.
We often hear about celebrities insuring iconic body parts (a type of over-the-top disability policy), from Heidi Klum's legs ($1.2 million for the right, but only $1 million for the left, which is "depreciated" by a scar) to Gene Simmon's tongue ($1 million). Insuring tongues isn't just for celebrities: Edy's Ice Cream took out a $1 million policy on the taste buds of their master ice cream taster.
A few eccentric business owners have taken out eccentric policies at their businesses. The owner of the Royal Falcon Hotel in Lowestoft, UK, for example, has insured staff and guests against death or disability caused by ghosts.
But the vast majority of unusual policies are for reasonable, but outside-the-box, business concerns. Food trucks, for example, need insurance that covers all of the elements of a restaurant with all of the elements of a company vehicle.
Farmers who raise and breed deer for hunting reserves need coverage against the loss of stock of unique breeding or hunting value (there are actually prized stud deer) from disease, predators, and tranquilizer dart mishaps, as well as insurance for hugely expensive deer-proof fences - but they don't need coverage against someone getting sick from eating the deer, the way that farmers raising other kinds of animals often do.
There's also a whole range of professions that might seem strange, but can still be covered when mistakes happen. Professional indemnity insurance has long been used by individuals in professions where advice is a big part of the business - it covers the damage of an unsatisfied customer saying they lost money because of bad advice, service, or design.
This kind of coverage is often required for engineers, accountants, surveyors, and others in similar, traditional occupations, and is now growing in popularity in fields like marketing and recruitment - but professional indemnity insurance is also useful in odder occupations, from horse whispering to polygraph testing. If a customer loses money because of a horse's lie (or another mistake or piece of bad advice), professional indemnity insurance is vital.
When it comes right down to it, anything can be insured, and if you have an unusual business, or a not-so-unusual business with unusual assets, we can help you find a policy that's just right. We've never insured a mammoth before, but Lyuba has raised hopes among some scientists to start cloning - so if your business eventually switches to mammoths for delivery or heating or construction, we'll be here to help you with that, too.
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Making Your Company Culture a Culture of Safety: Part 1
Charles Duhigg told a story in his recent book,
The Power of Habit, which sent waves through the business world: the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) quintupled its profits and increased its market capitalization by $27 billion - by creating a culture of safety.
When Paul O'Neill became the CEO of Alcoa in 1987, Duhigg writes, he announced that his main goal was to make Alcoa the safest company in America. Investors raced to tell their clients to sell: some crazy hippie had taken over Alcoa. But after just a year, Alcoa's profits reached a record high, and those investors were kicking themselves.
O'Neill proved that changing the culture of a business to put safety first causes other beneficial changes as well - changes that make for an all-around better company.
To do that, O'Neill went all-out. If an employee was injured, he wanted to be called directly, and told what had happened and what would change. Safety was the first item on the agenda at every meeting. The health and safety audit rose to the level of the financial audit. Managers weren't punished for injuries suffered on their watch, and everyone at every level was encouraged to point out concerns without fear of negative consequences. Injury information was analyzed to find solutions.
It's no surprise that these changes made Alcoa one of the safest companies in the country (according to Duhigg, employees are now more likely to get injured at a software company than "handling molten aluminum at Alcoa") - and that part of the increase in profits came from substantially lower insurance premiums. But that doesn't explain why profits were five times higher at the end of O'Neill's time as CEO.
These safety changes set off a chain reaction. By involving leadership in the day-to-day, hands-on workings of Alcoa's factories, and empowering workers to speak up about their concerns, the company also started making changes that increased efficiency. The changes O'Neill made at Alcoa can provide a power lesson to other businesses: once the channel is open for discussing ways to make your company safer, everyone is able to come together to discuss ways to make your company better.
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D&O Insurance: Protect Yourself
 When you run a business, you do everything you can to make it thrive. You also make sure your business is protected, with the right insurance and the right practices.
But are you protected? We're not talking about your business here - we're talking about you, the executive, director, or officer reading this article.
You always do what's best for your business, and try to make the right decisions. But if you made a mistake, and things went south for your company, you could find yourself facing fines, court battles, or worse. That's why there's director and officer (D&O) insurance - to cover legal defense, settlements, and other big costs that you and other directors and officers at your business could find yourselves expected to pay.
In recent years, and especially in the wake of the financial crisis, we've seen a significant increase in civil claims and regulatory, administrative, or criminal investigations into directors and other higher-ups at businesses large and small. And the costs have been huge.
In fact, Forbes recently reported on a study by Cornerstone Research, showing that FDIC lawsuits against the directors and officers of financial institutions have continued to climb since the start of the Recession, from just two in 2010 to 40 last year. About half of these lawsuits have reached settlements totaling up to more than $34 million, paid by the directors and officers themselves.
As the Forbes article points out, this should be a lesson for everyone else, especially medium-size companies. It's incredible how few of those companies had D&O insurance, and it's clear that, now, that kind of coverage is crucial.
Even if your business isn't in the financial sector, you should still consider D&O insurance. Even doing the best you can, there's still a chance of running into trouble with regulators, investors, or other parties who could claim that you did something wrong - and, even if that claim is false, you could find yourself paying an arm and a leg to fight back.
But it's also important to have the right kind of D&O insurance. An overloaded policy, that tries to shoehorn in too many kinds of protection for too much of your business, could turn out to leave you unprotected. The right D&O policy is one that puts you and the other directors and officers first - and covers the specific risks you face in your industry. Talk to us about finding the right kind of plan for you.
You've worked hard to make your business what it is, and to make sure it's protected. Now, consider protecting yourself.
    
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All content © 2014 Professional Marketing Associates, Inc. This newsletter is not intended to provide specific legal or insurance advice. Please consult your individual agent for further information on the topics covered.
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