Construction

UFOs are a daily danger for construction workers, though we’re not talking about visitors from other planets. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), 73 construction workers were killed after being “struck by objects” in 2014. In fact, it’s the third most common cause of death on construction jobsites (following falls and electrocutions) and includes unexpected falling objects as well as unexpected flying objects, or UFOs.

How do these UFO injuries occur? In some cases, tools may be accidently dropped off of scaffolding or roofs and strike other workers below. Objects being hoisted to upper levels of buildings during the construction process can break free and plummet to the ground. Haphazardly stored materials may topple over, and errant nails fired from nail guns can strike unprotected workers as well.

While wearing personal safety equipment—including hardhats (for overhead hazards), safety glasses, goggles and face shields (for flying hazards)—is essential, below are some of the additional safety standards OSHA suggests construction companies follow when their employees are working with or around common UFO hazards:

• When working underneath cranes, hoists or scaffolds, workers should beware of unbalanced loads, stay clear of lifted loads, and avoid crossing beneath a suspended load. Toe boards should be installed on scaffolds to prevent objects upon them from falling.
• When performing overhead work, employees should secure all their tools and materials. Areas where falling objects may be a danger should be barricaded, and any materials stored in buildings under construction should be at least six feet away from floor openings and 10 feet away from partially constructed exterior walls.
• When working with hand tools, construction employees should avoid hammers with loose or damaged handles as well as wrenches with sprung jaws and impact tools with mushroomed heads. All pose a potential UFO danger to the worker and others in the area.
• When working with jackhammers and pavement saws, workers should ensure all machine guards are in working order. They should also wear protection against flying particles on their feet, eyes, ears and hands.
• When pushing or pulling objects that may become airborne, OSHA urges workers to stack and secure materials to prevent sliding, falling or collapse as well as against wind gusts.
• Train your construction workers to be aware of their surroundings whenever they are on the jobsite. Outline essential safety standards in your worksite safety program and review them with your construction team regularly. Encourage them to report unsafe situations and behaviors to the appropriate party.

Most construction injuries are covered by your workers’ compensation insurance policy. However, injured workers may also choose to file a lawsuit against employers who they feel caused or contributed to their on-the-job injury. With construction jobsite injuries so common, are you confident you have enough insurance to protect your business? Give us a call today to take a look at your current policies and evaluate your level of coverage.

As defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), an active shooter is an individual who is actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area. From 2000 to 2013, 160 active shooter incidents occurred in the U.S.  This was an average of 11.4 incidents annually, and 70 percent of the incidents occurred in a commercial, business or educational environment.

In most cases, an active shooter incident ends in five minutes or less—before law enforcement can even respond. This means if you want to protect your construction workers, you must train them to identify potential warning signs of violence, raise their concerns, and make life or death decisions quickly should an active shooter incident occur at your office or on a jobsite.

Run, Hide or Fight

The FBI’s current model for responding to active shooters is to encourage civilians to run, hide or fight—in that order. Workers should be instructed to first run as far away from the situation as they can. If they are unable to get away to a safe location, they should locate a secure hiding place. In a heavily populated area, this may be a nearby building. In a remote location, it may be an onsite project trailer or a nearby stand of trees or bushes. Whatever hiding place is chosen, it should provide as much cover and protection as possible. Workers should never attempt to hide in a dangerous place, such as a roof or ledge without fall protection. As soon as it is safe to do so, the worker should contact emergency personnel with the location of the shooter as well as a physical description if known.

If the active shooter confronts the worker before he or she is able to run or hide, it’s time to fight. Train your workers to improvise weapons, act with aggression and take the shooter down as quickly as possible. A team approach—if other workers are nearby—may be more effective than an individual attack. Consider hiring a security company or Krav Maga instructor to provide self-defense training and run drills with your construction team as well as the teams of any subcontractors you’ve hired.

Create a Threat Response Team

The team should be composed of both management and non-management construction team members who will implement the emergency response protocols you’ve established for active shooter events. Train the team to provide information to local law enforcement in the event of an active shooter incident, provide first aid to anyone who has been wounded, and identify and search for missing workers who may have evacuated the jobsite. Inform your threat response team about all workplace violence complaints and concerns filed by your workers.

Raise Awareness of Suspicious Behavior

Train your construction workers to look for and report suspicious behavior that could indicate the potential for an active shooter or other workplace violence incident. These behaviors include threatening remarks or gestures, aggressive or hostile behavior, intentional destruction of property, self-destructive behavior and talk of violence. Talk of violence includes threatening social media posts.

Workers should also report any drastic changes in the performance of their teammates, signs of depression, or signs of paranoia. While such factors do not always mean a worker will engage in violent behavior, they may still pose other risks that should be addressed.

While construction spending in the first two months of this year ($157.1 billion) was 11.2 percent higher than it was for the same period last year, and experts predict it will continue to grow at a modest pace due to low mortgage rates and increasing demand for new homes, volatility in other U.S. markets—as well as the world—hint at the potential for another recession.

Construction company owners—though most are cautiously optimistic—may remain focused on reducing operational costs as a result. While it’s generally wise to embrace strategies that result in meaningful financial savings—such as adjusting staffing levels and the use of new tools to improve efficiencies—keep in mind these risks you may not have considered.

Risk: Construction Labor Shortage

During the recession of 2008, the number of construction workers in the U.S. contracted. Many were forced to leave the industry in search of other work, and some contractors have struggled to meet labor demands ever since. This shortage of skilled workers has had a direct effect on workers’ compensation claims. Fewer construction professionals—many with little experience—working more hours can easily lead to more on-the-job accidents. By some estimates, short-staffed construction companies could see their accident-related losses increase at least 30 percent. This, in turn, will increase their workers compensation insurance premiums.

Risk: Design-Build Liability

Design-build construction projects are becoming increasingly prevalent as fewer nonresidential and residential builders continue to use the traditional design-bid-build contracting method. While this shift in business model has the benefit of increasing collaboration and productivity, it can also expose contractors to greater professional liability risks.

Contractors whose general liability insurance does not include protections for design work remain exposed even when that work is subcontracted to another entity. As such, it’s recommended that you close the professional liability gap by purchasing your own professional liability policy with conditional design coverage rather than rely on general liability coverage alone.

Risk: Cyber Security

Adoption of technology can help contractors improve services and meet bid requirements as well as streamline the workflow and reduce timelines. However, the more technology you use, the greater your cyber security risks. To minimize these risks and protect sensitive employee and project data, contractors and construction company owners should implement a cyber security risk management strategy. This includes evaluating your company’s current IT security, reducing the potential for breaches, and investing in cyber liability coverage.

Is your company fully protected from these risks? Give us a call today to discuss your current insurance policies and possible adjustments or additions to provide you with greater protection.

If you’re a construction business owner, you know you need to have insurance in place to protect you from financial loss associated with construction projects. While many companies still go the traditional route—requiring each party to purchase their own policy—some are switching to an alternative method of risk management.

Known as a “wrap-up” or consolidated program, this approach allows the project owner to purchase a single policy to cover everyone involved—from the owner and construction manager to the general contractor and subcontractors.  Wrap-up policies typically provide coverage for general liability, builder’s risk and workers’ compensation in addition to other features based on the type of project.

Owner controlled insurance programs (OCIP) and Contractor Controlled Insurance Programs (CCIP) are the most common types of wrap-up programs. Many of their advantages are the same:

• Cost Savings – Because you’re basically buying insurance in bulk, you can get coverage at a lower cost. This means the premium for the wrap-up insurance policy will be lower than the total of premiums purchased by individual contractors.
• Efficiency – Because a single insurer is handling all claims, processing is streamlined.
• Eliminates Duplication – When contractors and subcontractors purchase individual policies, coverage generally overlaps because they have to ensure themselves for the same accidents. This can lead to litigation between insurance companies in the event of a claim.
• Isolates and Reduces Risk – Wrap-up insurance allows the project owner to isolate construction risks from core operational risks. The owner can also ensure there are no gaps in general liability or workers’ compensation coverage and create a centralized safety program.

Of course, wrap-up programs also have their disadvantages:

• Administrative Costs – Because the project owner is responsible for purchasing wrap-up insurance, paying premiums and filing claims, he must provide administrative support. This may require an additional internal hire or outsourcing of administrative duties.
• Upfront Premiums – Some insurers require company owners to make a large upfront premium payment before the start of the construction project.
• Contractor Resistance – Some contractors and subcontractors prefer to purchase their own insurance. They like to include the cost in their bid and may even generate a profit if their insurance carrier gives them a rebate. Wrap-up insurance can also increase the administrative costs when wrap-up insurance is used because they have to work with a different insurance company than the one that handles the rest of their coverage.
• Excluded Risks – Some wrap-up policies exclude certain risks such as offsite work, damage to another contractor’s work and pollution cleanup. The coverage duration may also be shorter than that of an individual policy.

As with any insurance policy, should you choose to purchase a wrap-up program, making sure you understand what the policy covers and does not cover is essential. You should also ask your insurer to review all of the policies you have in place to look for potential gaps in coverage and other risks. For more information on your construction insurance policy options, give us a call.

On a construction jobsite, safety is everyone’s responsibility. Rules established by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) state that every contractor, regardless of its role, has a non-transferable duty to protect its employees from all hazards—regardless of who created them. This means that a general contractor, a subcontractor acting as a general contractor, or a sole proprietor who has subbed out specialty work can receive an OSHA citation and fine if an employee under them is injured on the job.

When issuing a citation, an OSHA inspector first determines the role each employer fits into.

• The creating employer is the one who created the hazardous condition by violating an OSHA safety standard. OSHA will cite the creating employer even if they employees injured by or exposed to the hazard work for another employer on the jobsite.
• The exposing employer is the one whose employees were exposed to the hazard because the employer knew of and ignored the hazardous situation, failed to discover the hazardous situation, and failed to take steps necessary to protect its employees. These steps may include correcting the hazard, asking the creating employer to correct the hazard, and removing employees from the job.
• The correcting employer is also responsible for correcting the worksite hazards. Correcting employers are usually employers hired to install or maintain certain health or safety equipment or devices.
• The controlling employer is the jobsites general supervisor. The controlling employer has the authority to address and correct all safety issues and is therefore expected to do so.

If you’re going to be the controlling employer on the jobsite, you should have a safety management plan in place before you begin hiring subcontractors. Consider doing the following to reduce your chances of winding up with a costly OSHA fine:

• Include a provision in your subcontractor contract that states they are required to follow all OSHA safety standards while working on your jobsite.
• Require subcontractors to submit a copy of their safety manual and worker training materials along with injury and illness records before you hire them. Don’t subcontract work to employers with poor records or who have incomplete safety programs in place.
• Require every subcontractor you hire to produce a site-specific training programas well. Ask them to guarantee in writing that each of their workers will receive site-specific training before their first day on the jobsite.
• If second and third-tier subcontractors are used, make sure your subcontractors report them to you as well as require them to submit the same safety program and training documentation.
• If the subcontractor or its employees will be performing work six or more feet above lower levels, require proof of a fall protection plan as well as documentation showing all employees have received fall protection training.
• Require the subcontracts to prove they have workers compensation insurance in place for all of their employees.
• Host a safety orientation for all subcontractors and employees before the job begins. Require all subcontractors and their employees to wear hardhats and safety goggles on the jobsite.

With proper safety planning and subcontractor management, you can avoid exposure to costly OSHA citations. For more insight or advice on this or any other construction risk management topic, give us a call.

The Support of Management

Everyone in a position of authority—from the company owner to the job site supervisor—needs to put safety first and the project second. While most construction projects take place under tight deadlines, accidents are more likely to occur when workers are hurrying through their jobs, cutting safety corners along the way. The human and financial costs associated with the inevitable accident are significantly more expensive than the investment of time to follow protocol. Management must ensure that all workers understand this and perform their jobs accordingly.

Employee Education

Regardless of past experience, all new construction employees should be provided with appropriate training—from safety procedures to the equipment they will be using—before they’re turned loose on the jobsite. Supervisors should spend additional time supervising new employees as well. Seasoned workers can be valuable mentoring and teaching resources; use them wisely.

Tools and Equipment

Every tool and piece of equipment used on your jobsite should be in good condition, working properly and frequently checked for damages. Perform repairs immediately, and retire old equipment and tools when necessary. These rules apply to personal protective equipment (such as hardhats, harnesses, gloves, safety glasses and respirators) as well.

Work Zone Barriers

Whether your jobsite is in the middle of a city or the outskirts of the suburbs, utilize safety fencing or other barriers to keep unauthorized people out of the construction area. Additionally, use safety fencing to alert your construction workers to particularly dangerous areas within the jobsite (such as excavations and openings or locations where they may encounter falling objects).

Easy Access to Safety Materials

You can have the most elaborate job site safety plan in the world, the best-stocked first-aid kit, and oodles of equipment manuals and other documentation, but they won’t prevent even a single accident if they are not readily accessible. Designate spaces on your job site for safety materials and educate your workforce on how to access those materials.

 

While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has many rules in place to help employers reduce recognized hazards in their workplaces, the construction industry is particularly complicated. At any worksite, you may find multiple employers—from owners to general contractors to subcontractors—working simultaneously. In such a situation, it’s common for the actions of one company’s employees to affect the safety of the others.

For this reason, OSHA created the Multi-Employer Worksite Policy. It allows the issuance of citations to employers who endanger other contractors’ employees as well as those who expose their own workers to hazardous conditions.

 

Four Categories of Employers

According to OSHA, multi-employer worksites may contain employers from four categories.

• The controlling employer—in many cases, the acting general contractor—has the authority to correct hazardous jobsite conditions. As such, they are responsible for the safety of all workers, regardless of their actual employer.
• The creating employer is the employer whose activities have created a hazardous condition. The creating employer may be the general contractor, another contractor or a subcontractor.
• The correcting employer is the employer responsible for correcting the hazardous condition. This includes the creating employer and the general contractor, in many cases.
• The exposing employer is any employer whose workers were exposed to the hazardous condition. This may include every employer on the worksite, depending on the severity and nature of the hazard.

It’s not unusual for OHSA to issue a hazardous condition citation to every contractor and subcontractor on a multi-employer worksite, despite only one employer creating the hazard and union jurisdictional rules prohibiting members of one craft from correcting the hazards created by another.

 

Enhancing Worksite Safety as a General Contractor

While it’s important that each employer on a multi-employer worksite understands its role and responsibilities in eliminating safety hazards, the primary employer, general contractor or controlling employer can take additional steps to limit the likelihood of accidents, injuries and OSHA citations.

• Start with safety planning. Take the time to formally identify site-specific hazards, outline necessary safety precautions, and assign responsibilities to worksite employers. While you should always do this before starting a new project, you should also make updates before each new phase.
• Put it in writing. Include the worksite safety requirements you’ve outlined in every contractor and subcontractor contract.
• Review contractor/subcontractor safety records. When selecting contractors and subcontractors for a job, review their past OSHA citations, accidents and injuries, and safety practices. Never hire an employer with a poor safety history.
• Hold regular meetings. Whenever you begin a phase or bring in new contractors or subcontractors, hold a mandatory safety meeting in which you discuss the worksite specific safety plan and expectations for maintaining safe work conditions.

 

For best results, establish a clear chain of communication on worksite safety issues. If all contractors and subcontractors understand how to notify the appropriate party when they discover a hazard, it will be easier to deal with it properly and promptly, reducing the chance for accident or injury to any employers’ workers.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), 30 million people in the U.S. encounter hazardous noise levels on the job every year. Thousands of these workers suffer preventable Occupational Hearing Loss as a result. It’s an all too common and expensive occupational injury. In fact, hearing loss disability costs our nation an estimated $242 million annually in worker’s compensation according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While medical science is as yet unable to cure noise-induced hearing loss, employers can help to prevent it.

 

How Much Noise is Too Much?

OSHA recommendations include keeping workplace noise levels below 85 decibels (dBA) over an eight-hour time-weighted average. While research has indicated that regular, eight-hour exposures to 85-dBA noise can damage your workers’ hearing, higher noise levels cause damage even faster. For example, at 100 dBA, repeated exposures of as little as one hour per day can cause irreparable hearing loss.

Construction worksites are particularly noisy due to the equipment regularly used within them. For example, graders and scrapers produce noise at 107 dBA, jackhammers run at 102 dBA, and even bulldozers are as loud as 100 dBA. Concrete saws and electric grinders emit 98 dBA, while nail guns (97 dBA), forklifts (93 dBA) and belt sanders (90 dBA) also produce noise levels well above the OSHA recommended 85-dBA level.

 

What Can You Do?

One of the simplest ways to reduce hazardous noise exposure on your construction jobsite is to create a plan of attack before the project begins. This requires the general contractor, contractors and subcontractors to discuss activities and equipment use that is likely to generate hazardous noise as well as ways you can limit your employees’ exposure in addition to providing OSHA-required personal protective equipment. To get started, consider the following:

• Reduce Noise Levels – Whenever possible, choose the quietest equipment available. For example, one brand of generator may naturally produce fewer dBAs than another does. Proper maintenance is also essential. When you change seals, lubricate parts, replace blades and install mufflers, you can often reduce noise level production significantly.
• Move the Source – Noise level exposure goes down as you increase the distance between noisy equipment and your workers. Use extension cords, air hoses and other devices to move equipment farther away from wherever the main work area happens to be on a given day.
• Block the Noise – Construct temporary barriers out of plywood or other on-site materials and place them around your noisiest equipment. This will reduce the noise level exposure of other workers on the jobsite.
• Change the Schedule – Scheduling the loudest construction activities for times when the fewest number of workers are onsite is a very effective way to reduce hazardous noise exposure.

 

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends all employers implement a program for hearing loss prevention that includes noise assessments, engineering controls (such as acoustic barriers), audiometric monitoring, hearing protection equipment, worker education, record keeping and regular evaluation. You can find a number of resources on the OSHA website that should be of help regardless of your industry.

Workers’ compensation premiums represent a major personnel expense for most organizations. Injuries that cause employees to miss work are especially costly, in terms of both lost wage compensation and lost productivity. Also, the longer a worker is disabled and unable to work, the more his future earning power decreases and the more likely it becomes that he will hire an attorney. For these reasons, it is advantageous to both employer and employee to get the injured worker back on the job as soon as possible. As a result, many employers have implemented return to work programs.

Under a return to work program, the injured employee performs a different job while receiving his prior level of pay. The new job should be matched to his current physical capability, reflecting his state of recovery from the injury.

To succeed, this requires a good working relationship between the employer and treating physician. The employer needs accurate information as to the tasks the worker can safely perform; otherwise, the result may be a second, more severe injury. If the worker’s physician will not cooperate or provide a realistic estimate, the employer or insurance company may have to require a physical examination by an independent physician.

A return to work program should be one piece of a comprehensive and coordinated loss management program. The elements of the program should include:

• Immediate reporting and investigation of accidents
• Arrangement of primary medical care
• Return to work program
• Regular communications with the injured worker

To assist in the arrangement of primary care, the employer should provide the treating physician with job descriptions that explain each job’s physical tasks in detail. Meetings with the physician to explain the nature of the employer’s operation will help match a job to the worker’s capabilities. Communications between the physician and the employer are vitally important. The employer may want to arrange for direct reports from the physician or regular reports delivered by the employee. The ideal situation is one where the employee can assume light duties without missing any time.

Barring that, limiting lost time to a week or two will still keep the claim’s cost down, resulting in premium savings for the employer. The experience modification formula, which adjusts the premium based on loss history, gives the most weight to losses of $5,000 or less.

Getting the injured worker back on the job quickly will help keep the loss well under that limit. Since losses remain in the calculation for three years, the effect of holding down claim costs is long lasting.

Of course, return to work programs have pros and cons. The pros include:

• Limiting or eliminating lost work time
• Keeping the worker involved in the work environment
• Eliminating the need to locate, hire and train a replacement
• Increasing the chances of success should the worker refuse the new duties and sue for lost wage benefits, since the employer can show that it made a reasonable job offer

Among the cons are:

• The employer will pay the employee’s full wage for reduced productivity
  An employee with a bad attitude about his alternative duties could lower morale among the other employees
• If the alternative arrangement does not work out, returning the employee to lost wage benefits will wipe out any cost savings
• While individual cases might not produce the desired results, employers should realize long-term savings by implementing return to work programs. Beyond the verifiable dollar savings, return to work programs can give the employer a more stable, happier workforce and a good reputation with potential employees.