This episode is brought to you by Century Insurance. Century Insurance is an A-plus rated, mutual insurance company specializing in providing all lines of insurance protection for artists and and trade contractors through a very limited number of select agency partners like Rancho Mesa Insurance. You're listening to Rancho Mesa Studio One podcast where each week we break down complex insurance and safety topics to help your business thrive. I'm your host, Alyssa Burley, and I'm joined by Greg Garcia, partner with Rancho Mesa.
He specializes in providing insurance and risk management solutions to the landscape industry. Today we're going to discuss why Fleet Safety starts with strong MVR guidelines. Greg, welcome to the show. Hey Alyssa, thanks for having me.
Happy to be here. Well, we're always happy to have you. So you recently wrote an article where you specifically mentioned one of the biggest exposures for landscape companies begins before any work even starts and that's their commercial vehicles on the road. So will you explain why auto liability is such a significant risk for these types of businesses?
Yeah, certainly. Yeah, something that you know I felt like it was a good good article topic and I think these MVR guidelines is something that usually would get overlooked for a landscape company. You know, I think when I think about Fleet Safety, the most things that come to mind would be vehicle inspection reports, making sure you know everything is up to date and you know guys are going to the correct locations and things like that don't speed all of those things. But I think taking a look at who's actually getting behind the wheel of your commercial vehicles is absolutely critical.
And if you think about an auto accident and at fault auto accident and how much that can impact business, it's really almost endless if you think about it. So an at fault accident, that can also impact work comp, right? So some of those the driver and maybe there's two or three crew members in that truck that get injured in that auto accident that's created now three work comp claims. So now that's impacting your work comp insurance program.
And then you think about most of these trucks are you know driving with trailers that may have inventory and equipment. So that equipment gets damaged. Okay, that's going to impact in the marine inventory is damaged. Okay, so now that's going to impact the potential deadlines and meeting deadlines and all of that stuff.
And then if it's a bad enough accident, right, and you exceed your million dollar auto liability limit, now you're impacting your excess policy. So auto liability is the biggest exposure for our landscape companies. And I just want to keep it top of mind for all of my clients, something that we're continuously talking about is making sure MVR guidelines are up to date and really kind of putting these driving positions on a pedestal, if you will, because it is such an important role in a landscaping company. And those employees need to be aware of that and they need to take pride in being a driver for the company.
So that's kind of been my message to our clients and you know, prospects that like that. Now's the time to really start to dive in to these guidelines and really having your own criteria. I think gone are the days where they go. Yeah, we just send it to Rancho Mesa and then Rancho Mesa tells us if it's a good enough driver.
You know, I think they really need to, you know, take the first step and really looking at who's getting behind the wheel of the trucks. Yeah, really customize their requirements to their company. Exactly. So you also mentioned proactive measures companies can take like using GPS systems, dash cameras, and daily vehicle inspections, like you mentioned.
So how do these steps help mitigate rising auto insurance costs and improve overall fleet safety? So these are some of the ones that I think most landscapers would think of when you're talking about fleet safety, GPS, dual facing dash cams, you know, up the vehicle inspection reports, which I think safety one can do. I can do that. Throw that in there as well.
But for us, as an insurance agent, when I'm sending in a submission to a carrier on my clients behalf, these are crucial and critical for me getting the best pricing I can get from that carrier. Because if you think about it in the guaranteed cost market, which most people are in for their insurance program, they're getting lumped in with every landscape company and their driving experience, right? And their auto, you know, their auto experience. And you know, I know we documented on previous podcast how carriers are just not profitable on the auto right now.
And that's why we're seeing the market continue to harden rates continue to go up, you know, double digit increases every year. So I think these three steps, you know, doing the NVR guidelines, the GPS systems, the dash cams, making sure the daily vehicle inspection reports are in process. You know, those are that's basically fuel for me to go to the carrier and the underwriter and say, Hey, this is why ABC landscape needs to be priced differently than the market because they're taking these proactive measures to try to create a stronger fleet safety. And they shouldn't be lumped in with everybody else.
And then I think the other thing that does too is kind of a long winded answer here. But I think the other thing that does as well is that if an accident does happen, because they're going to happen, right? That's why it's called an accident. Nobody's ever trying to get into an auto accident, but they're going to happen.
So a carrier is going to look more favorably on an account that is trying to do all the proactive things to mitigate those accidents from happening rather than the landscape company that's not doing all those things now they get into an auto accident. They're definitely, you know, at come renewal time, maybe they get a non renewal, you know, a double digit increase on the premiums. So the you know, the benefits are endless. And not to mention keeping everybody safe, right?
That should just be top of mind. You want everybody going home at night. You know, it's scary out there driving, you know, driving into work today, you look around in other cars and everybody's on their phone texting while they're driving. So they're making everybody on their makeup.
Yeah. So it's a it's dangerous out there. So we want our clients to be as proactive as possible with their fleet safety to, you know, better represent them to the marketplace. All right.
So you've also emphasized the importance of implementing strong MVR guidelines and ongoing driver training. What should a solid MVR policy include and how can regular training help companies stay in good standing with their insurance carriers? Yeah, this is a good little segue here kind of what we already touched on with the internal MVR guidelines and how that needs to start to be a process for everybody and get implemented kind of right away. I said it before gone or the days where you're just saying, Hey, Rancho Mesa, you go run this MVR and you let me know if you know Greg Garcia can drive for us or not.
What carriers really want to see is they want to see the landscape company take the initial step and have their own guidelines because they want the landscaper to show the carrier that they understand the importance of who's getting behind the wheel of their trucks, right? So it starts with running an MVR and you know, some of those guidelines might be, you know, over the age of 21, having three years of driving experience, no major moving violations, those things. But to take it a step forward, it would be, you know, annual driver trainings, which I know safety one has as well. We just uploaded those, you know, making sure they're touching on those and, you know, before they get behind the wheel, maybe doing a road test, right?
Can they back up a trailer? Can I do all these things? Like I said, I think that just really puts you in good standing with your carrier because when the eventful accident does happen, it's going to help lessen the increases on that renewal and hopefully allow the care to offer renewal. We know we've seen multiple carriers kind of just stop riding auto and California altogether.
So it's a limited market. And for us, we're trying to bring best in class landscape companies to our carriers. And that starts with, you know, creating these MVR guidelines internally. Yeah, absolutely.
And we have a team here in plant services that if clients are listening and they have questions about what driver trainings we can offer. We've got quite a few of them that are online and we have toolbox talks and all kinds of stuff for our clients. And I think we can document those trains as well. I think that like, you know, we always talk about documentation is key.
So having that documentation of the who did these driver trains when they did them, I think is crucial to any good fleet safety as well. Absolutely. So Greg, if listeners have questions about their auto liability, what's the best way to get in touch with you? Yeah, a couple ways they can either email me at ggarcia at rantromaisa.com or they can call me at 619-438-6905.
All right. Well, Greg, thanks for joining me in Studio One. And I hope our listeners take a few minutes to read your article. Yeah, awesome.
Thanks for having me, Elizabeth. Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode for Studio One. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe. And for more insights like this, visit us at rantromaisa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.