The safety and well-being of our community and clients are our top priority. Texas is forecasted to experience freezing temperatures for prolonged periods throughout the remainder of the week. This weather includes the potential for snow, sleet, and freezing rain that can create hazardous conditions. During extremely cold weather, staying warm and safe can be a challenge. Learn how to prepare for winter storms, prevent cold temperature-related health problems, and protect yourself during all stages of a winter storm by reviewing the CDC winter weather preparedness guidelines by following the link below: Other items for your consideration.
Here are some tips to help prevent water damage from frozen pipes.
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We highly recommend that your insurance premium payments be made by ACH or credit card rather than mailing us your check. With delays in the mail service and thefts of mailboxes, your check may take weeks to reach us if it reaches us at all. Since the Postal Service implemented new service standards on October 1, 2021, we are experiencing more and longer mail delays than ever. Mail is now taking several days if not weeks to be delivered. In addition, thieves are now stealing entire mailboxes including one recently near our office. This concerns us as checks could be in those mailboxes. This is a new world we live in and we need to adapt to these ongoing challenges. For your safety, we recommend that you make ACH payments to us. There is no cost to you for these ACH payments as we will pick up the $3 per transaction cost. Your payments can be made securely here: As always, we appreciate your business and are here to help if and when you need us.
We celebrated Five Years today since we took over the reigns of Regnier & Associates and started anew as WinStar Insurance Group. It was fun to look back at all of the change and growth we achieved, and look forward to more success in the future! Cheers to Five Years! 🎉 Establish clear workplace policies - Develop an employee handbook and distribute it! Sample employee handbooks and HR forms libraries are easily accessible and most law-firms or insurers will happily provide content. For your protection, be sure your handbook includes an employment-at-will statement and an equal employment opportunity statement. Create written workplace policies on employment practices; post them and include in employee handbooks. Establish a policy for employees to report concerns and for management to respond. Educate management and employees about ethical and workplace practices. You may wish to include diversity and sensitivity training as part of this education program.
Hire carefully—Screen employees thoroughly, avoiding any discriminatory practices. Provide job descriptions - Create a detailed job description for each role. Each job description should clearly define the required skills and performance expectations. Institute a zero-tolerance policy – This should be established for substance abuse, harassment and any form of discrimination. Additionally, have an "open door" policy in which employees can report infractions without fear of retribution. It is advisable to have a couple of people that issues can be reported to instead of just one. Keep thorough records - Document all employee complaints or investigations, as well as what your company did to resolve those issues. Perform regular employee reviews—Review employee performance and keep a written record of reviews. Under Department of Labor (DOL) regulations, your retirement plan will need to maintain an ERISA Fidelity Bond. A fidelity bond protects the assets in the plan from misuse or misappropriation by the plan fiduciaries. Plan fiduciaries include the plan trustees and any person who has control over the management of the plan and its assets. REQUIRED ERISA FIDELITY BOND AMOUNT At the very least, the bond must be equal to 10% of the value of the total plan assets, with a minimum bond value of $1000 and a maximum bond value of $500,000. For the first year, the bond amount will be based on the estimated amount of assets that will be handled by the plan for the year. If you have non-qualifying assets more than 5% of the total plan assets, the bond amount needs to be equal to 100% of these assets. WHY DO I NEED AN ERISA FIDELITY BOND? There are serious consequences for not purchasing and maintaining a sufficient ERISA fidelity bond. Not having this required coverage can be a red flag to the Department of Labor that they need to take a closer look at the plan. You are not only at risk for a DOL audit, but there are citations associated with not having this required coverage. HOW DO I OBTAIN AN ERISA FIDELITY BOND? Colonial Surety Company is a national online insurance company that is U.S. Treasury listed and licensed in all states and territories. As experts in all aspects of ERISA regulations, Colonial Surety Company will ensure that you are properly bonded and that your bond is renewed prior to expiration so that your plan remains in compliance Use the below link to obtain the ERISA Fidelity Bond
by Kathy Haenszel - Sales Executive These days we can’t be too careful to protect property that we’re responsible for. When handling property belonging to the corporation, extra care should be taken to make sure it’s secured. Especially in the event anyone has cash or checks that belong to the utility, it shouldn’t be left in a vehicle overnight. If you’re issued a company laptop, please don’t leave it in a vehicle when it is parked for the evening – it’s just too tempting to a thief.
Also, remember to lock your company vehicle when leaving at the end of the day, whether parked at the office or at an employee’s home. by Desiree Moore - Assistant Account Manger In a world where you can access so many things in just a few clicks of a button, protecting your data is crucial. Adding Multi-Factor Authentication is an extra layer of protection by the site/application requiring a numerical code as a second form of digital identification. This is accomplished from the code sent from a dedicated app in the form of a text or email. Don’t let virtual hackers get into your system.
Please see the flyer below for more in-depth details to learn how you can better protect yourself. by Kathy Haenszel - Sales Executive Each year before your insurance policy renews, we send out a list of all the property you have insured through us, with a request that you look it over and update it. This is done to try to make sure you’re properly insured in the event you have a claim. This is especially important this year since construction costs have gone through the roof in the past few months. A pumphouse or tank that might have cost $10,000 to replace last year at this time would likely cost significantly more to replace at current prices. When you receive the property listing, we would appreciate you taking a few minutes to look it over through the lens of current prices. We’ll be making a push to reach out to you if it’s been a while since your property values have been updated, but in the meantime if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
We are pleased to announce that Texas Mutual's board voted to pay $330 million in dividends to support our policyholders. Texas Mutual is working diligently to deliver dividends to our policyholder owners and are on target to mail checks on July 1st. Policyholders will also be able to log in to the Texas Mutual website to see their dividend information.
This year marks the 23rd year that Texas Mutual is paying dividends to their more than 57,000 policyholders, bringing the total to over $3.4 billion back to Texas businesses since 1999. WHAT IS A DIVIDEND?
As a policyholder-owned company, Texas Mutual clients contribute to their success when they make safety a priority and choose to do business with Texas Mutual. There are two components to earning a dividend. Safety, paid through the annual component, and loyalty, paid through the retention component. Our newer Texas Mutual policyholders can also earn dividends through the early qualifier program, which is paid in November. Since 1999, Texas Mutual has distributed over $3.4 billion back to Texas businesses.
Dividends are based on performance, are not guaranteed and must comply with Texas Department of Insurance regulations.
by Brett Cheatham, Sales Executive Many business owners and managers understand coinsurance from a health insurance perspective. The idea that the insured pays part of the cost of health services as a percentage of the total and the insurance carrier pays the rest. The consumer becomes the coinsurer. What a lot of people don’t know is there can be a similar “coinsurance clause” in commercial property policies. Many commercial property policies contain a coinsurance clause. This clause imposes a penalty when a policyholder suffers a loss and has failed to purchase an adequate amount of insurance.
In property insurance, coinsurance is based on the concept of insurance to replacement cost, meaning the ratio of your insurance limit to the value of your insured property. This means that you must purchase a policy limit that meets or exceeds the coinsurance percentage. If you have a 100% coinsurance clause and a building that would cost $1 million to replace, you must purchase at least $1 million in coverage. For example, let’s say the insured had only purchased $800,000 in insurance on the $1 million dollar building and had a covered loss with damage of $100,000. In this scenario, the building was only insured for 80% of its actual replacement cost value. Therefore, the carrier is only obligated to reimburse 80% of the cost of damages less the deductible. In other words, the insured would only receive $80,000 less the deductible of their $100,000 claim. The carriers we insure our water and waste water systems through have a 0% coinsurance clause. Meaning that in our above example, the insured would receive full claim reimbursement less the deductible. No surprises! |
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