Essential insurances: Is your business properly protected?

For logistics providers, requiring independent contractors (ICs) to carry their own insurance coverage just makes sense. After all, protecting your business—and theirs—is an investment in the future. Setting yourself up to be prepared for the unknown can save lots of money, time, and frustration when you need it most.

One major benefit for our clients is the ability to integrate insurance coverages directly into the Openforce platform. Whether you bring your own coverages or elect to participate in plans provided through our network of insurance partners, this benefit can help solidify your business-to-business relationships to significantly lower risk exposure.

Here are the top three reasons why properly managing contractor policies is not just important for your business, but essential:

1. Stay at arm’s length: If a misclassification claim should arise, simply having a signed contractor agreement isn’t enough. And it could cost you millions. When ICs have their own insurance policies in place, it supports an arm’s-length business-to-business model, creating yet another layer of defense against such claims.
2. Take the burden off your business: With IC coverage in place, you’re not stuck with the damages or forced to make claims on your own policy. This means you may be able to raise your own deductibles to save on premiums.
3. Avoid the “chargebacks” trap: Accidents happen. Covering damages out of pocket or making claims on your corporate policy hurts your bottom line. And it’s not an easy process getting drivers to reimburse you. Charging damages back to an IC as settlement deductions opens the door to misclassification claims and can leave you high and dry should the IC churn out. With their own coverages in place, the IC’s policy will cover damages, so you don’t have to.

Let the Openforce platform work for you
We’ve learned that driver insurances are crucial to lowering risk exposure, maintaining separation between businesses and reducing claims on corporate policies. Using a technology provider such as Openforce to manage those policies helps to navigate the insurance maze.

Use our platform to:

• Seamlessly connect ICs with a variety of insurance coverages
• Easily manage contractual insurance requirements
• Automatically collect and centralize all COIs
• Effortlessly monitor insurance expirations
• Ensure coverage is active and in place

Keep drivers moving with accessible, affordable insurances
With a full suite of affordable IC insurances, from cargo and general liability to occupational accident and on-dispatch liability, our licensed insurance broker, ICM Insurance Services, LLC will work with you or your appointed agent to achieve a combination of coverages that meets contractual requirements and reduces misclassification risks.

In the typical market, insurances can be a big, expensive hurdle for ICs. But we believe drivers deserve easy, inexpensive coverage. To alleviate this, we’ve worked with our insurance partners to specifically design affordable coverages that allow ICs to enjoy:

• No down payments
  ICs avoid steep upfront costs and get deductibles and premiums well below industry averages.

• No hoops
  Stress-free enrollment means busy drivers don’t have to spend time hunting for coverages on their own.

• No hassles
  With their own coverage in place, ICs won’t get buried under out-of-pocket expenses for lost or damaged goods.

When it comes to your business, you can’t be too careful with essential insurances. Empowering ICs to purchase and carry their own policies can let you stop worrying about legal costs and start focusing on what’s most important — growing your business. Reach out to your client services representative or to sales@oforce.com today to learn how Openforce and ICM Insurance Services, LLC can come together to make sure your ICs are insured—the right way.

Openforce supports the enrollment and administration of insurance coverage options that are issued to you, or Openforce can present insurance options available through our partner programs. All insurance options presented through Openforce are placed through ICM Insurance Services, LLC a are available to enrolled ICs affiliated with Openforce. All coverage is subject to policy terms, conditions and exclusions.