Knowing If You Have Gaps in Your Insurance Coverages

By: Tony Hopkins / Practice Leader, Vice President & William Cray / Sales Executive

First, how would you possibly know if your policies have gaps in coverage? Here’s a quick and enlightening story related to this question.

At GAWDA’s most recent Spring Management Conference, Tom Elliott of A-Ox Welding gave a presentation describing a recent explosion and ensuing fire.  Attendees from all across the country and industry learned a couple of major lessons with one of particular importance:

1)   

There is a distinct difference between

An insurance agent that knows the industry and has the expertise to identify gaps in coverage

VS.

A local agent who is simply close in proximity

Tom specifically mentioned the Horton team (Tony & Will) as the specialists that taught him a great deal about insurance and the importance of specific coverages in their relation to the welding & gas distribution industry. Going in further, here are a few critical coverages that are often overlooked when it comes to ensuring your protection:

• Escaped Gas Endorsement – Provides coverage for “any gas you sell,” not allowing the carrier to enact the “Total Pollution Exclusion” that exists in most policies today, which excludes gases.
• Business Income Limits – One of the most difficult limits to select, because it’s confusing and complicated. However, Horton has a benchmarking report that identifies limits that are sometimes too high (costing too much) or too low (inadequate coverage).
• MCS-90 – $1mm required by the Department of Transportation (DOT) when hauling HazMat, $5mm required when hauling Bulk HazMat, which provides a financial guarantee that a pollution event will be paid for to the public.
•  

  Broad Form Pollution Coverage – Provides pollution coverage for the MCS-90 (above) on the Auto policies to pay for a pollution event on the road.

• Additional Insured Endorsements – Many of the major gas supplier contracts and customer agreements signed today require distributors to pay for another party’s negligence, most base policies do not provide this coverage!
• And others beyond these

For a free coverage review to see if you have any hidden gaps in your policy, please contact one of Horton’s Welding & Gas team members.