What can Hortica do for you?
{Sponsored} For more than 130 years Hortica® has provided insurance solutions for businesses in the horticultural industry. As the only U.S. insurance company solely dedicated to greenhouse growers, nurseries and garden centers, Hortica® provides services and resources tailored to the unique risks and factors their insurers face in the horticultural industry.
We sat down with Brent Bates, Director of Safety Services at Hortica®, to learn more about available services and resources.
What are some unique services provided?
Brent Bates: We offer safety courses to our insurers whose laborers are required to have what is called an OSHA 10-hour certification. Most vendors who provide this training have their OSHA 10-hour certification fall under the generic category of construction. Hortica has developed our OSHA 10-hour and OSHA 30-hour courses to be geared toward the horticultural and greenhouse growing industry. This allows laborers to spend time in class learning about things that matter in their industry while also earning their OSHA certification.
As part of the Sentry Group, we’re able to get our insureds access to group purchasing power systems so they can get motor vehicle records and use this information in the hiring and retention of seasonal drivers. Our online resources make it cost effective for insureds to go out and purchase — for their own internal program — motor vehicle records of potential drivers so that they make sure they’re hiring high-level people to work for them. This helps reduce auto accidents which translates into lower auto insurance premiums.
A lot of our insurance competitors only provide safety consulting services to very large accounts and many times the smaller businesses fall through the cracks and don’t get the services that they need. Those smaller businesses need some consultation and help to develop their own internal safety programs, and Hortica is there to provide those services to the smaller businesses as well.
How can growers use the available online tools to further protect their business?
Bates: We develop tailgate safety training materials, available online to our members for free, that are focused on horticulture.
By being a member of the Sentry group and all the specialty lines sold within the larger group, we’ve been able to obtain resources from customer safety libraries. On our website, we try very hard to get insured members access to services that they could not get themselves.
If somebody has a unique need, we try to be a resource for them to turn and to help them develop something specifically for their business. We have found that often if one insured needs that help, other accounts probably need that too. So a lot of those programs are developed in direct response to an account making a suggestion or asking for help and then we make it a part of our website to help other people who may have the same or similar problem to address.
The vast majority of our online training has a Spanish version, either written or narrated; or we help develop a Spanish version of specific material if a customer needs it.
How does Hortica® work with industry associations to provide services for its customers?
Bates: We have always tried to be part of industry associations through active membership. It’s a mutual benefit. It’s for us to not only participate but to also learn about the unique issues and challenges their members face. We contribute financial resources to support scholarship, research and development programs.
Hortica® representatives have attended association meetings to deliver presentations focused on unique issues a state or region may be facing. For example, we learned about unique issues that companies in Florida were facing regarding workers compensation. We went in and worked with the state insurance department to get some rate relief for certain types of jobs.
Our focus is to help the horticultural industry, to provide the resources they need and to understand the different issues that are unique to horticulture. We are constantly updating our insurance products to address the specific needs within the industry. By being members of horticultural industry associations, we’re able to better understand the industry’s needs.
For more information, visit the Hortica® website at www.hortica.com.
Hortica® property and casualty coverages are underwritten, and loss control services are provided, by Florists’ Mutual Insurance Company and Florists’ Insurance Company, members of the Sentry Insurance Group. For more information, visit hortica.com. Policies, coverages, benefits and discounts are not available in all states. See policy for complete coverage details.
77-69C 14002100 8/28/17
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