Laying a Strong Foundation for a Successful Dance School
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Laying a Strong Foundation for a Successful Dance School

Laying a Strong Foundation for a Successful Dance School

Running a dance school requires passion and creativity as well as excellent customer service. Providing performing arts education also often necessitates a team of professionals that can effectively communicate with students to inspire them and shape their technique. Although dance is categorized as an art, it has needs similar to almost any other business, specifically, needing a solid foundation to stay afloat. This is why having safeguards in place such as dance school insurance is important to securing the future of these types of facilities.

Responsibilities for Dance Schools

When entertaining the prospects of opening a dance school, someone may picture the satisfaction of sharing their love of performance with aspiring dancers. However, there is much more to having a successful business than just the educational aspect. Dance schools likely also have the following responsibilities apart from teaching their craft:

Keeping accurate records of student progress

Billing, accounting and other administrative duties

Ensuring all licenses, certifications and permits are up to date

Marketing, advertising and community relations

Though there is plenty involved with opening a successful dance facility, it can be well worth it when you are able to make a living doing something you love. In addition, by investing in protections such as dance school insurance, you can feel secure knowing you are prepared and can focus on what’s important.

Sativa vs Indica
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Sativa vs Indica

If you are new to smoking marijuana, be it for recreational or medical use, you might have heard the words “sativa strain” and “indica strain” tossed around. If you’re confused as to what those mean, don’t worry. Read on and learn about the differences.

Sativa

The leaves of a sativa plant are taller and narrower than its counterpart. Strains of sativa affect the brain and give you more of a head high, helping you to feel more relaxed and at ease with the world. Good for depression and anxiety, sativa is also thought to boost creativity (think writing, painting and adult coloring books) and help you concentrate better. Some of the best-rated sativa strains include ACDC, Maui Wowie and Super Lemon Haze.

Indica

The body is affected when smoking a strain of indica flower. Indica relaxes the muscles and helps you feel chill and at peace. Smokers jokingly refer to indica as “in ‘da couch,” so it’s a great sleep aid and natural muscle relaxant if you’ve recently had surgery. The plant grows shorter and stockier than its sativa sister, smelling a little skunkier too. The best strains for an indica smoker include O.G. Kush, Pineapple Kush and Royal cookies.

It can be confusing as a new stoner, but knowing the difference between the two strains can help you understand what you’re getting and how it will affect you and your body.

True Versus False
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True Versus False

A simple plant causes enormous controversy in the United States, but for such silly reasons. False reports and hungry corporations feed the public misinformation, but the truth is that marijuana is not any of the horrible things that the media claims it to be.

A Gateway Drug?

Seventh-grade health class has been long warning students that marijuana is a “gateway drug” whose use will lead to other, harder drugs. This has been proven false for many years, but it is still being taught in schools. Why? Despite hard medical evidence proving its benefits (including ALS treatment, side effects of chemotherapy and migraine headaches), the public continues to be told that marijuana will rot the brain and get kids addicted to drugs.

The Evil Empire

Pharmaceutical companies made approximately $775 billion in 2015, thanks largely in part to the markup of expensive brand-name drugs. These numbers have been steadily climbing since the 1990s. Marijuana is a plant, and growers know that it costs very little to manufacture. One must wonder if lawmakers have more devious intents, bowing down to the almighty dollar.

While there is still medical research being done on how marijuana can slow down the growth of cancer cells, the science is slowly starting to catch up with what humans have known for thousands of years: marijuana is not something to be feared, but something to embrace as a legitimate form of medicine.

Exposures and Risks in the Trucking Industry
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Exposures and Risks in the Trucking Industry

Exposures and Risks in the Trucking Industry

Trucking businesses provide a very valuable service. Virtually anything items that require transportation on land, require them. Even with the high demand for these types of businesses and the profits to be made from running one, it can be unnerving to realize how damaging a claim can be. In today’s trucking world, having coverage is not simply an added precaution: it’s a necessity.

Costly Mishaps

While the best-case scenario involves a truck and its contents getting safely and uneventfully to its location, the truth is that many challenges await each trip. While many factors might be out of a driver’s control, such as traffic, weather, natural disasters and crime, many others can be attributed to human error alone such as the following:

A driver that is inexperienced or inadequately trained
Mental or physical unpreparedness due to fatigue, stress or an overwhelming workload
Lack of attention to detail and oversight on the job or in planning
Misunderstanding contract terms

When you combine these with all the possible exposures that can occur in storage, transportation and delivery, it becomes even more apparent why protections such as insurance are necessary. Before you or your next driver load up and take on the open road, it’s important to remember how adequate training and insurance should be non-negotiable in today’s trucking industry.

Secure Your Business With Strong Liability Coverage
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Secure Your Business With Strong Liability Coverage

When running a business, it is crucial to protect every component from the risks of every day and the litigation of unhappy third-parties. One of these business aspects is your management. It is not uncommon these days for a lawsuit to the board of directors, executives and the company itself. This is why it vital to invest in the right kinds of management liability. Working with a management liability insurance specialist can get you the types of coverage you need to build a strong defense.

What Exactly is Management Liability?

Management liability is the title for the types of insurance that protect those at higher levels of the company. This usually includes directors, managers and officers. This coverage helps you handle the financial burden involved with lawsuits made against these members of management and there are few individual kinds.

Directors and Officers Liability

D&O handles the litigation claiming directors and officers made a negligent decision or acted in a wrongful way. This can include decisions that resulted in the financial loss of a third-party.

Employment Practices Liability

This type of liability protects companies from lawsuits brought forth by employees. Litigation can include alleged sexual harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, failure to employ and emotional distress.

If you want to learn more about this important coverage, consult a management liability insurance specialist today to get started.

How To Get the Most out of Hiring Individual Contractors
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How To Get the Most out of Hiring Individual Contractors

How To Get the Most out of Hiring Individual Contractors

Using the services of individual contractors is a popular way for many businesses to get specific jobs done without providing many of the entitlements awarded to traditional full-time employees. These types of workers contribute to the overall mission of an organization though they often have irregular hours and limited contract terms. However, because of many legal and ethical issues, it may be important to ensure that individual contractors and other types of employees have coverage such as occupational accident insurance.

Benefits

Supplementing your employees with individual contractors can be beneficial in many ways. While there are admittedly some cons to hiring these workers, for example, not having ownership of intellectual property, many believe the benefits more than make up for it. Some of the advantages of going this route include the following:

Flexibility in staffing

Reduced wages compared to paying full-time, hourly employees

Less office space required

No obligation to provide employer benefits

 

Providing Protections

Although it may not necessarily be required, putting protections in place such as occupational accident insurance may be necessary in order to avoid potentially costly litigation. Even though these workers are not traditional employees, accident, injury or death while on the job resulting from work performed for your business or on your property can be devastating. Luckily this type of coverage is often significantly more affordable, making it an even more practical safeguard.

Insurance For The Farmers Market

Food insurance Farmers markets are well known for their fresh and local produce that vendors feel good for selling and buyers feel even better about purchasing. Unfortunately, not everything that comes out of a farmers market is for the best. Food allergies and foodborne illnesses have made it so that farmers and vendors have to protect themselves as well as their business. One of the best ways to do that is to have food insurance. If you’re thinking about being a vendor at your first farmers market, be aware that you may be required to have product liability insurance not only to protect yourself, but to protect the location and the rest of the farmers market as well.

Small Potatoes

 Many farmers feel that they’re already small enough that they can’t afford food insurance. While it may cost them money to pay for insurancemonth-to-month, it’s better than suddenly having their business completely wiped out by a single lawsuit. Getting enough farmers to participate in a farmers market can be challenging enough, but requiring each of them to have liability insurance only adds to the complication.

Accidents Happen

 If you’re new to farming and plan on selling what you grow, there’s a chance that you can use the wrong kind of compost or accidentally sell fruits and vegetables that are contaminated. It can cost as much as $5,000 to $6,000 a day to remain in critical care after suffering from a foodborne illness. Imagine how much of a lawsuit that could be.

Before you start looking for food markets to participate in, make sure that you first look for a good food insurance liability plan.

The Importance Of Obtaining Staffing Agency Insurance

Staffing agencies are unique in their insurance needs, and because of the dynamic nature of their industry it has been problematic to obtain insurance in the past.  In fact, not more than 50 years ago it was downright impossible to have an insurance carrier grant a policy to a staffing agency.  The staffing agencies had no specific policies available to them largely because insurance companies didn’t understand their industry, and could not write policies to provide them with the coverage they needed.  Today, however, both the staffing agency and the insurance industries understand with more clarity what needs are to be addressed, making employment agency insurance policies more widely available.

Employment agency insuranceWhat A Staffing Agency Policy Might Cover

 As with a standard homeowners’ policy, a staffing agency policy can offer standard insurance specific to the staffing industry, but additional endorsements can be purchased to increase the insurance coverage that a company may want to have.  The following examples are common types of employment agency insurance policies that can protect staffing companies:

 

  • Abusive Acts Liability
  • Crime
  • Cyber Liability
  • Direct Hire
  • Directors & Officers
  • Employee Benefits Liability
  • Fiduciary Liability
  • General Liability
  • Hired and Non-Owned Auto Liability
  • Office Package
  • Owned Auto Liability
  • Professional Liability
  • Property and Inland Marine
  • Stop Gap Liability
  • Umbrella Liability
  • Worker’s Compensation

Insurance Companies and Staffing Agencies Working Together

 The only way industry specific insurance could become available to staffing agencies was through educating insurance companies about staffing agencies, and educating staffing agencies about insurance needs.  Fortunately today there is coverage available for employment agencies that are in need of customized policies.

Protect Your Company From Cyber Crime

The prevalence of cyber crime is on the rise, with about one in three companies reporting that they have been victims of this type of fraud. A 2011 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) indicated that about 34 percent of businesses have experienced fraud as a result of cyber crime, accounting for billions of dollars in losses overall, and catching up with the other most common business crimes of accounting fraud and corruption.

If you don’t think your small business stores the kind of data cyber thieves may want to steal, think again. Because of its prevalence, many businesses are turning to solutions like cyber crime insurance in Orlando to protect their information. Here are some tips to keep your business safe.

Cyber crime insurance in Orlando Educate Employees

One of the most common ways people breach a company’s system is through employee negligence—leaving a laptop with confidential consumer information in a taxicab or café, having easy-to-crack passwords, and more. Have regular trainings with employees to increase their awareness and ability to thwart cyber crime.

Update Software

Keeping your security software updated is another great way to protect your business. If you don’t have a dedicated IT department, considering hiring a professional firm to install and maintain a security system with anti-virus, anti-phishing, anti-spyware, and anti-malware protection.

Talk to an Insurance Agent

Getting good cyber crime insurance in Orlando can be a great step toward protecting your business from the threat of liability and exposure in case your company is a victim. There are a wide variety of plans available to fit the needs of many different businesses, and a good insurance agent can walk you through all the options to choose the one that works for your company.

How To Get The California Campground Coverage That’s Right For You

If you are an owner of an outdoor recreation facility, then you know there are some risks you’ll have that just don’t affect other businesses. When looking for campground insurance in California, knowing what to look for will help you ensure the coverage you get is right for your needs.

Campground InsuranceOutdoor Recreation Specific Coverage

To begin with, you will want to look at insurance providers who offer policies that deal specifically with outdoor recreation. Some companies may offer standardized types of coverage, while others may have more of a cafeteria-style approach that allows you to pick and choose what works for you. Just make sure the policy you choose covers the following areas.

  • Activities: If your campground has designated areas for, say, riding motocross bikes, then you’ll want to have a policy that covers this. The same goes for horseback riding, hiking, water sports, etc.
  • Weather: Is the area around your campground prone to fires in the summer or mudslides in spring? Get campground insurance in California that addresses specific weather concerns so you don’t have to pay out of pocket should a natural disaster devastate your business.
  • Specialized facilities or equipment: Renting out paddle boats to lake patrons is a great way to attract guests, but the facilities and equipment necessary to do so may be targeted by vandalism or theft, or it may be subject to certain kinds of damage, so get coverage that takes this into account.

Getting the Coverage You Need

After you make sure your policy covers your more unique risks, round out the policy with some basic business coverage such as general liability or workers compensation. You insurance agent can help you decide what’s right for you, so get in contact today to get the policy that best addresses your needs.

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