Separation Anxiety: Arranging Coverage for College Students
By The Reschini Group
Well, Mom and Dad, after 17 years of protecting, guiding, and ensuring her safety, the Big Moment arrives – it’s time to say goodbye to your new college freshman and head back home.
What you may not have realized, though, is that much of that protecting, guiding, and ensuring of safety has been covered by your insurance. Now that you’re little bird has flown the coop, so to speak, is it better to leave her ongoing protection to your existing policies, or secure policies specifically for her new life, environment, and potential hazards?Kids in college may be learning things in classrooms and laboratories, but they’re not as smart as you about the larger considerations of life. Not yet, anyway. So the decision as to whether supplemental insurance is worth the cost falls to you as the parent.
- There’s personal liability – college students can find themselves in some unusual situations, even some in which property may be damaged. What happens then?
- Then there’s auto insurance – one student’s car may become a communal means of transportation, where any friend of that student with a driver’s license (or not) gets to climb behind the wheel. Who’s responsible should an accident occur?
- As the student advances through college, dorm life gives way to apartment living – would renter’s insurance make sense in this case?
Be sure about your coverage. The professionals at The Reschini Group are well versed in these questions and how you can be adequately protected in any situation – including having a kid head off to college. Contact us to learn more.Leaving a child at college can cause separation anxiety for everyone. Don’t let questions about proper insurance coverage add to that anxiety.
Copyright 2018 The Reschini GroupThe Reschini Group provides these updates for information only, and does not provide legal advice. To make decisions regarding insurance matters, please consult directly with a licensed insurance professional or firm.
The State of Things: The Web of Workers’ Compensation Requirements
By The Reschini Group
“Workers' compensation is a mandatory type of business insurance that provides employees who become injured or ill while on the job with medical coverage and income replacement. It also protects companies from being sued by employees for the workplace conditions that caused such an injury or illness.
Businesses are required by law in all fifty states to pay for the medical treatment and lost wages of employees who suffer job-related injuries or illnesses. In order to avoid crippling expenses in this regard, companies purchase workers' compensation insurance policies of one kind or another.
Each state determines its own system's payment schedules, employee eligibility requirements, and rehabilitation procedures. Although provisions of each state's laws differ greatly, the underlying principle is the same—that employers should assume the costs of injuries, illnesses, and deaths that occur on the job, without regard to fault, and partially replace wage income lost.”
This definition of workers’ compensation, as cited on www.uslegal.com, states the facts of the matter clearly. All employers must provide for workers’ compensation, but the rules, procedures, and guidelines differ by state. Employers based in Pennsylvania, for example, need to know that contiguous states like Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and New York each have distinct approaches and requirements regarding workers’ compensation.A sampling of specific workers’ compensation requirements in neighboring states include:
- OHIO – This is one of four “monopolistic” states in the union, meaning that coverage can only be purchased from the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation. In some cases, Pennsylvania-domiciled clients that have employees that travel into Ohio for a period that equates to less than 90 days must still purchase an administrative policy in Ohio, and add the Stop Gap endorsement to either the Worker’s Compensation or General Liability policies, but still must also sign a waiver saying that they choose Pennsylvania benefits as their method of remedy.
- NEW YORK – This state requires short-term disability coverage for workers there. New York State must be listed on the workers’ compensation policy purchased by the employer.
- WEST VIRGINIA – A worker can sue his or her employer for “deliberate intent” to cause illness or injury, while still collecting workers’ compensation payments in this state. Five criteria must be met for a claim to be awarded, including: that a specific unsafe working condition existed; that the employer had actual knowledge of the condition; that one or more safety standards, whether regulations or commonly accepted, were violated; that the employer intentionally exposed the employee to the unsafe condition; and the employee suffered serious compensable injury or death.
The professionals at The Reschini Group can help make sure you have the right level of workers’ compensation for your specific situation. Contact us at 724-349-1300 to set up a time to talk.
Copyright 2017 The Reschini Group The Reschini Group provides these updates for information only, and does not provide legal advice. To make decisions regarding insurance matters, please consult directly with a licensed insurance professional or firm.
Plugging the Gap: The Need for Drive-Other-Car Coverage
By The Reschini Group
If you take five seconds to think about it, the number of vehicles on the road at any given moment is absolutely staggering. Then 
think of the various types of drivers, the owners of those vehicles, the accidents that remain an ever-present possibility, and it becomes clear that car insurance is, by necessity, a very complex industry.
Here’s just one unique slice of that complex world. If an employee of a company were provided with a company vehicle – and if that employee does not own a car of his or her own, and subsequently has no personal automobile insurance – then the employer has a real and potential liability exposure, should that vehicle be involved in an accident.Drive-Other-Car coverage closes that particular gap for employees who do not have their own personal automobile insurance policy, when they are driving a “non-owned” vehicle for personal use. The insured (the company that owns the vehicle) is not at risk; it is actually the employee without automobile insurance who is at risk, and this endorsement provides them with protection. The full technical definition is as follows: Drive Other Car endorsement is a commercial auto endorsement designed to provide non-owned auto coverage under a commercial auto policy similar to that which would be provided under a personal auto policy. A Drive Other Car coverage (broadened coverage for named individuals) endorsement is commonly used when an executive officer, for example, does not carry personal auto insurance because he or she is furnished a company auto. Coverage under the endorsement would come into play in the event the individual designated in the endorsement (including his or her resident spouse) is driving a non-owned auto for personal use. Coverage under the endorsement does not apply if the auto in question is owned by that individual or by any member of his or her household; or the auto is used by either of these individuals while working in a business of selling, servicing, repairing, or parking autos.The best scenario, of course, is for any employee who may be driving a company-owned vehicle to carry his or her own personal automobile policy. For those who don’t, however, Drive-Other-Car coverage can include coverage of liability, medical payments, uninsured motorist and physical damage.Be sure about your coverage. The professionals at The Reschini Group are well versed in these questions and how you can be adequately covered in any situation – including the myriad combinations of factors surrounding car insurance. Contact us to learn more.The idea, after all, is to get behind the wheel without getting behind the 8-ball. And to do that, you need to plug all the gaps.
Copyright 2016 The Reschini GroupThe Reschini Group provides these updates for information only. To make decisions regarding insurance matters, please consult directly with a licensed insurance professional or firm.