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How does proper maintenance help reduce liability and workers compensation claims?

The obvious maintenance issues, like brakes on trucks or a proper source of electricity, are usually attended to on a schedule. People are aware of their importance.

Extend this awareness to the smaller items which should be checked daily. If these safety items go unchecked, major injuries and property loss will occur.

Of course, each employee should check their safety equipment and personal protection for fit.

Assign someone to walk the perimeter of the site to assure safety fences, silt fences and security measures are in place and undamaged. Visually inspect any areas where fuel is supplied to assure no leaks have occurred and secondary containment is in place.

Regular maintenance as a daily pre-check list on any mobile equipment pays dividends. Check all fluids, greases, electrical connections, fuel supply, battery charge, brakes, tires, tracks and hydraulic systems. Failures in any of these items can cause catastrophic losses.

Power tools should be inspected daily. Are plugs properly grounded? How about the extension cords? Any cuts or nicks in any electrical cord? Are blades sharp and unbent?

Even hand tools need an inspection. Look for stress cracks in metals like hammers, chisels or screwdrivers. Check the grips for wear and slipperiness. Recheck the daily activity list and assure all tools, supplies, equipment and labor are on site.

Fix or replace defective items. Now work can begin and continue safely and uninterrupted.

Equipment suddenly shutting down or tools breaking during work can be avoided with inspections and maintenance. These incidents create unsafe work places. Loads shift and fall, shrapnel flies, saws lurch. All avoidable.

Consider these issues occurring while working around other people and their property, as is often the case on construction sites. Liability is quickly assigned to people who work with defective equipment and tools. Daily pre-work maintenance checks are essential to reducing liability and workers’ compensation claims.

They have a reputation for being a bit dogmatic, but if you embrace this quality, loss control engineers from the insurance company can be great resources. And why should they compromise when it comes to employee safety.

Safety involves properly planning and preparing to do each job correctly. Isn’t this goal shared by your production team?

Safety planning, like any standard operating procedure, begins with defining the task at hand, just taking a moment to think through the process. Consider the risk associated with the job.

Your loss control representative probably has safety procedures, equipment and personal protection requirements written for most tasks. Request these and incorporate them into your processes.

Create a safety culture for your business. Safety is and should be provided as the number one employee benefit. Ask your insurance company representative to provide lunch pail topics or handouts, OSHA bulletins, or safety posters.

Executives should embrace the safety messages and be part of the prevention and investigation team. Learn from the labor force – they have more time to consider safety issues, and more incentive.

For example, if a specific safety procedure is a constant source of complaints, work with the staff affected and the safety engineer. Some procedures or protective equipment can be modified if bottom line safety is not compromised.

Take responsibility for the on-the-job safety of your employees. Don’t blame the insurance guy for requiring hardhats or keeping the public out of your garage area. Own that responsibility. Require proper personal protection, restrict the public from dangerous work zones.

When the safety inspector makes an appointment, embrace their knowledge and bring up any concerns you have about your operations. Let them know in advance, and you’ll get a few good, useful tips.

If you have in house safety staff, instruct them to listen, safety is a collaboration of good ideas.

Great news! You won the contract to build that new project. You’ve seen to the details, like sending certificates of insurance to the owner that meet their workers’ compensation and general liability requirements. And now, you begin gathering submittals, shop drawings and change orders. What’s missing?

Have you ever considered the engineering, value engineering or design aspects of these documents? General liability excludes these critical services from coverage. Let’s delve into these grey areas.

Any time you vary from the architect’s or engineer’s drawing, you are technically redesigning the project. Obviously, many changes are minor and inconsequential to the overall building strength and endurance. But many seemingly minor changes do corrupt the building systems.

Suppose you can’t find a specific light fixture and substitute a slightly less efficient one. You probably just violated the newest energy codes. Since energy code compliance is design driven, you may have inadvertently stumbled into a professional liability claim.

When the architect gets sued for the compliance issue, he’s going to prove his design was scrapped and point to you. This claim becomes a grey area. Did you fail to complete your operation correctly, or did you redesign the energy usage for the building? Most of the former, some of the latter is correct.

Do you build or use pre-fabricated components? Roofing structure comes immediately to mind. Does the manufacturer submit drawings for the structural design? Do you endorse them?

Does your company do any construction management, even as an expediting process? How about value engineering?

When you submit change orders, do you suggest better design or function elements in your request?

These actions reflect professional consulting, design or engineering. Errors might be treated as professional liability claims.

There is an element of design and value engineering in every decision. Where the grey ends is a difficult line to draw. Be aware of this issue.

Suppose you use a high-early concrete mix so you can get steel up quicker. Do the long-term setting qualities change the structural integrity? Memorialize this question in a memo to the project architect or engineer; let them decide.

If you do actively engage in consulting, value engineering or design work, purchase professional liability coverage regardless of project insurance requirements.

Safety should be your most important employee benefit. Everyone goes home healthy. So, what tools can you use to create a safer work environment?

As a contractor, you’re required to keep injury logs for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Don’t do this just for them – use this tool.

Record every injury, no matter how minor. Any time the first aid kit is used, jot down why, what kind of injury, and who.

Insurance companies learned long ago that the frequency of accidents reflects more accurately the efficacy of a safety program than does the severity of any one accident.

Many small injuries suggests bigger safety issues than one big injury does.

Review and analyze your OSHA logs. Is any one person particularly injury prone? Is any one type of injury prevalent? Is any one job description, that is general labor, carpenters, drivers, suffering injuries more frequently? Do injuries point to a too crowded work space?

If the analysis suggests one person is accident prone, decide whether to keep that person employed or not – nobody wants to be on a construction site with accident prone coworkers – or retrain them in safety practices. Drug test accident prone people.

If one type of injury occurs regularly, review your personal protection equipment. For example, are steel tiers wearing appropriate gloves? Is everyone wearing safety glasses? Correct the issue and emphasize the safety concern in the next training session.

If one job category stands out, review that process with an eye toward safety. Communicate the concern to employees in this job. Purchase new or replace antiquated safety equipment. Discipline the employees to wear or use protective gear properly. Create a safer environment.

Speaking of the environment, do records indicate the work area is too crowded? Has a plumber been hit on the head with lumber as it was hauled in? Are employees fighting over power outlets? Rethink jobsite organization. Often these injuries indicate poor site management rather than labor safety issues.

This process is hindcasting. Analyzing past claims and discovering ways they could have been avoided.
After your review and analysis, forecast the future. Have these dominant injury issues been rectified?

Don’t accept injuries as part of the game, create a safe work environment; the best employees appreciate it as a benefit.