201: Risk Management and Insurance with Colleen Giles-Harris
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Summary:
We know we should have insurance. It’s a critical component of protecting you and your business from potentially costly claims. Sometimes though, it can be overwhelming to wade into all of the terms and conditions.
Colleen Giles-Harris, Underwriter and Manager of the insurance program for Pet Sitters Associates, joins us again to clarify common misunderstandings of insurance coverage. She breaks down the do’s and don’ts of the claim process, so nothing gets held up.
Insurance policies will also have exclusions, which you need to be aware of. Colleen explains what the most common ones are and how that plays into risk management as a business.
Topics on this episode:
Understanding common terminology
Claims Process
Exclusions
Risk management
Main take away? It's your responsibility as a business to know and understand risk management.
About our guest:
Colleen Giles-Harris, CIC, is the Underwriter and Manager of the insurance program for Pet Sitters Associates. As an Underwriter, she works with the insurance company to make sure that the association members have the proper coverages and that the correct premium is being charged for their exposures. As the Program Manager, Colleen works with the association to help with marketing and developing the program and she assists association members with tough insurance question. Colleen is passionate about what she does and feels strongly that every pet care professional needs quality insurance to protect their business.
Links:
Colleen’s previous episode (163)
Pet Sitters Associates: www.petsitllc.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coverage, dog, pet sitters, pet, insurance, people, claim, client, cover, policy, business, insurance company, pay, association, animal, owner, negligence, limits, occurrence, member
SPEAKERS
Collin, Colleen Giles-Harris, Doug
00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is pet sitter confessional, and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter brought to you by time to pet and pet sitters International.
Collin 00:30
Having insurance is just one of those basics, one of those fundamentals of running and operating your own business. But the world of insurance, especially in the pet care industry, can be pretty murky. There are a lot of terms and things we have to understand about the claims process, the do's and don'ts of understanding deductibles, and even some common exclusions for insurance policies. So to navigate that for us, we're really excited to have Colleen Giles Harris, from pet sitters associates back on the show, she was previously on episode 163. To give us more detail about insurance, and how to make sure we're getting the most out of it. Let's get started.
Colleen Giles-Harris 01:05
Yeah, my name is Colleen Giles Harris, and I am the underwriter and manager of the pet sitters associates insurance program. So I kind of weird, Pat, I work with the insurance company, to make sure that we are getting the appropriate premium for the coverages being offered for the members. And then I also work with the association to make sure that we're offering coverages that members need. So sometimes throughout the year, or the years plural of the program, we'll add new options as new services come up, or as things change in the pet care industry.
Collin 01:43
So as part of that, do you listen to feedback from pet sitters as far as how to cover them? Or are you looking more broadly about where to go with those kind of coverages?
Colleen Giles-Harris 01:54
A little bit of both. Sometimes it's something that the association or myself come across on the internet just searching or something. And a lot of times, it does come from numbers that are most recent new coverage that we call the expanded coverage for client pets. And we have several members reach out and ask if we could increase the limits that were available for injuries to the client and pets. And we didn't want to just increase the limit for everybody automatically. These a lot of times the limits we currently provide are more than enough. And we didn't want to increase the premium to everybody. So we offer it as an optional coverage. So our basic membership that everybody gets provides up to $1,000 of coverage per occurrence for injuries to a client pet, regardless of negligence or legal liability on the part of the pet sitter. That's a really special coverage that you get as a member of pet sitters associates, because normally, insurance doesn't kick in, unless there's negligence or legal liability on your part. So if you bought a policy through like a regular insurance agent, you probably wouldn't have that no negligence coverage. So again, the basic memberships $1,000 per occurrence, or $5,000 annually. And then the coverage, the basic membership automatically also provides up to $15,000 of coverage per occurrence, or $30,000 annually for injuries to client at. But in order for that coverage to come into play, there must be some negligence or legal liability on the part of the pet sitters, that's more traditional insurance. So this new expanded coverage for client pets is an extra $50. And that increases the occurrence limit. So it goes from $1,000 per occurrence for the no negligence veterinarian expense coverage to 20 $500 per occurrence, the annual aggregate stays at 5000. And then the $15,000 of coverage where negligence is required increases to $25,000 per occurrence. And that annual aggregate stays at 30,000. So you get more coverage for that $50 if you choose to purchase that. And that was directly came from requests from members wanting to have that option to increase it. And we see about I actually looked at report earlier today. And the last program term, about 15% of the members chose to purchase that optional coverage. Well,
Collin 04:27
I think that's a good reminder that as business owners, we can be giving that kind of feedback to help make our businesses better and make sure we have the protection that we have. So not being afraid to reach out and kind of think about your business and go Oh, is this actually you know, man, I would really like to do this if only I was covered more or what are my options here. So I like this, you can kind of have that back and forth a little bit, you know, as far as those coverage options.
Colleen Giles-Harris 04:50
Yeah, I mean, we are a specialty program. So you have to fit the box. You don't fit the box to some extent. But we are our current program. So There's the basic membership. And then you can add on options on a card if you offer additional services. So if you offer a doggy daycare or boarding at your home or on a small facility, you can add on that optional coverage. Or you can add on a national coverage for grooming or dog training or how sitting. But if you do something like pet photography, that's not an option that we have, it's fine. Obviously, if you take pictures of your dogs and post them on Facebook or texture by and throughout the day, that's fine. But if you're doing like, full on portraits, that's not something that we're offering. Or if you have a large dog daycare or boarding kennel, you know, that's going to be outside the realm of what we have to offer. So there's, there's options, which I think is fantastic. And we don't want everyone to have to pay if you don't do those things, you know, we want there to be an option for somebody who is just a traditional pet sitter dog walker, all I needed x, I don't need anything else. But then there's people who will I do that. But then they also do this and do this. And I do this, and you can just add on those extra little Allah carts. So that's really wonderful. But then again, it is a program. So sometimes I feel bad when people have been with us for years, and they come, they're like, Hey, I'm going to start making dog treats and selling them at fairs and festivals, like well, we don't really cover that it's fine for you to make dog treats and give them to your client at Christmas time or something. But once you start selling them, and you have a product out there, that's a little outside of our program, I usually can then give that member some guidance on where they can go for coverage. So still reached out to me if there is something that you're not sure if it's covered, ask that question. And either I can tell you how to be covered under pet sitters associates, or I can give you some guidance on, you know where to go. If Unfortunately, it just doesn't fit our program,
Collin 06:52
part of that of understanding where to go is understanding some basic terminology around insurance. And you've already used several of them right now. And so I would love it if you could break down some of the common insurance terms that we need to be aware of, so that we make sure that we do have that proper coverage. And we can be asking appropriate questions for our business.
Colleen Giles-Harris 07:13
Absolutely. So some of those terms I already used are occurrence and annual aggregate. So when you're looking at your limits of insurance, a lot of limits break down to a per occurrence or annual aggregate limit per occurrence is going to be the maximum amount the insurance company is going to pay for that one incident, the annual aggregate is going to be how much they're going to pay under that part of the coverage on an annual basis or your membership term. So for example, within the pet sitter program policy, we provide up to a million dollars of coverage for bodily injury to third party persons. So if a client dog were to bite somebody at the dog park, or while out on a walk, a third party person is injured. If you have a $800,000 claim that's gonna be under the million dollar occurrence, you're gonna be totally fine. And then maybe later on that year, and I have a $500,000 claim, well, because 805 100 is 31 point 3 million. Unfortunately, you've now you can still get that 500,000, but you're going to be at 1.3. So you're not going to quite get to that annual acre get. So you're still gonna have 800, you'll still get 500, you're probably gonna potentially get non renewed because you've had at $1.5 million in claims, but you're fine, because both individual claims are under a million dollars. And they add up to less than 2 million, which is your annual aggregate. But let's say you had an $800,000 claim and then you had a $1.5 million claim one. Secondly, the second one's not going to get covered in full because the per occurrence limits a million dollars and 1.5 million, it's obviously more than a million, you're going to get a million dollars maximum from that limit anyway. But as they add up together, once they get beyond 2 million, there's also that issue. So now it's a little bit confusing, but there's the occurrence limit, which is per incident. And then there's the annual aggregate, which is the annual all of them adding up together can't exceed 2 million. And that's like the basic limits. And then there's some sub limits which I talked about earlier at the veterinarian expense and a coverage for the client pets. They have their own special occurrence limit and annual aggregate limit that I already kind of went over. And then there's coverage for things like property damage. So a lot of times people see the property damage and they think that that's going to be coverage for their property. It is third party property. The most common situation is a client dog injuring a third party animal. Even though you and I, of course, consider our pets to be members of the family, legally, they are considered property. And I know that sounds kind of cold. I don't like thinking of my dog that way, but she is property. So when a client dog injures a third party pet, they're in essence damaging the personal property with third party person, then there's also a million dollars of coverage per occurrence, or $2 million annual. Another coverage that gets really confusing for people is what we call the personal and advertising injury coverage. And people look at that. And they sometimes think that that personal coverage means coverage for them if they get injured personally. But it's actually personal liability, like libel and slander and defamation of character. Sometimes that directly connects to advertising, which is why it's a combined to limit called personal and advertising injury coverage. So might be an example of let's say that you go to a client and you're talking with them a potential client, and you say, yeah, john doe, petsitter. He's really bad. He doesn't know what he's doing. And you kind of go down a path of things and bad things about john. If those are lies, john can come back and say that slander or slander is spoken, libel was written. So John's like, well, you slandered me. And then there's a defamation of character because you said incorrect things about me to a client. If you write that stuff on our website, even on Facebook, even though sometimes such social media makes people feel like they can say anything they want, you can get sued if you lie about people, and that is now libel, because it's direct. And our policy will provide you with coverage. If you get sued for some libel, or slander, or defamation of character type things. There's a million dollars of coverage for that. And then we get into the optional coverages our most popular optional coverage. Again, I looked at a report just this morning, so it is about a little over half of the members choose to purchase the optional broadened property damage coverage and bond. That is a really special coverage that we provide that's very different than a traditional bond. So it's a little bit of a lengthy explanation, so but I want to make sure people understand that I get a lot of questions on it. So there's something that's called a dishonesty bond. And that usually covers the owner of the business, and usually requires a background check usually requires that the person is actually convicted, before coverage comes into play, we do not provide dishonesty bonds, if that's something that you're worried about, you can get something like that through an independent insurance agent. They range in price, depending on your personal history, and the level of coverage you want. What we offer as a surety bond, but provides coverage for employees are independent contractors for theft, it does not provide coverage for the owner of the business for theft, because you know, you can control your own sticky fingers and what you do. But you know, you can't control what other people do. Right, right. So as great of a job as you do hiring somebody, your employee decides to steal from your client, we will provide up to $10,000 in coverage for that theft. If you as the owner of the business, were accused of stealing something, we're always gonna assume you're innocent, we're always gonna spy on you with you, and assume that you didn't steal it, even though they blame you. So we'll defend you in court. But if we find during the claimed investigation, a video of you selling the item that was stolen at the pawn shop, now, we're not gonna cover you anymore. So as long as you're in those that will cover you. And we'll cover your employees and independent contractors up to $10,000. And then we also include in that optional coverage, which again, is called the broadened property damage coverage and bond. I know it's a mouthful, we also provide coverage for breakage. And that is not something that's covered by the traditional bond. But we actually see a lot more breakage claims than that claims. So you know, you go into the client's house and you accidentally knock over a vase, or you turn the TV on for background noise for the dog and it falls off the wall or you're not getting off the table. Or if you're staying overnight with the dog and you're cooking something and you break their stove or their microwave or whatever, will provide up to $10,000 in coverage for that breakage. And we see a lot of claims under the breakage section there. It's only an extra $100 for that optional coverage. So I do highly recommend it. And those limits are $10,000 per occurrence, or $25,000 annually. So if you had 310 $1,000 claims, that third claim is only going to be covered up to $5,000 because there's $25,000 annual so that's another explanation of how That occurrence and annual aggregate kind of work. You don't want to exceed that 25,000 hole, you're not going to have that coverage for the rest of your membership term. So yeah, any any coverages that I didn't mention that you'd have questions about,
Collin 15:14
I'll just say as far as the breakage one, especially if you're going to be in somebody's home a lot. If you're doing house sitting, if you're doing prolong stays with people, that sounds like a really good option. Meghan and I have talked about the story where for the same house sit there with their stove, like melted, like literally, it started melting while we were using it, which was, which is bright orange glow from the element as it was melting into the floor of the oven, but terrifying. But it's reminder that those things can happen, right, whether your fault or not, it can just happen while you're there. And to have that kind of coverage. I think, you know, some other coverage that people ask a lot about when they're in their care is specifically more about coverage for the dogs themselves. I know you've already referred, you talked about how they're considered property in the world of insurance. Is there a way for us as business owners to provide per dog insurance when they're in our care? Or do we just have the blanket coverage? That as we offer?
Colleen Giles-Harris 16:14
Well, from our program perspective, it is sort of the blanket coverage is not really per dog. But we do find that, I don't want to say that there's never been a claim that when that's towards efficient forks, I'm sure there were, you know, non jumped into my mind right away. But I know that we had claims that maxed out at $15,000, which makes me leads leads me to believe that there probably was more than that, we just maxed out 15, because that was the one that at the time. So I'm sure that there were, but the majority of the time, the limits get that higher, the claim gets that big, mostly because of VAT expenses. It's not the animal itself. But you know, the expenses involved in trying to take care of the animal, the one of the largest ones I can think of there was a dog that hit by a car, and it broke multiple legs and ribs, and it was hospitalized for quite a long time. And there were multiple surgeries. And it was very, very expensive. And there was it was touching gold, they weren't really even sure if the dog was gonna make it in the end, it miraculously did. But you know, it was a lot of that bells, a lot more commonly, it's gonna be situations where it's several 100 to several $1,000, we see a lot of torn ACLs, my dog has torn both of her ACL. So I know how difficult that is. It's also expensive, you know, typically it's four or $5,000 per per surgery. So those kind those are, those are much more common situations when an animal tragically dies in the pet sitters care, which are the worst phone calls to have to deal with. And that's just awful. I've dealt with many of them over the years. But again, because the animal is considered property, we look at the replacement value of the dog. So I'll use my own dog as an example. Of course, I think she's absolutely priceless. I have probably put $20,000 into her for all of our surgeries that she's had. But on I adopted her she was $350 from the foster home. So they probably the insurance company would likely say that I could go get another box for lab mix from a foster home for $350. My sister has a fancy fancy lab, that was like 15 $100. She, by the way, isn't any cuter that my dog she was 15 $100 because she's the specialty lab. And if she were to die, and the pet sitters care, they probably would say okay, it's gonna cost 15 $100 for you to go get it comparable dog. And that's a really difficult conversation to have with a pet sitter and a very difficult conversation to have with a pet owner, because people don't think of their pets like property. But legally, that's just how they they are looked at. And I try to look at it from the perspective of more of a global viewpoint of if we were to start to have pain and suffering and punitive damages attached to dog. Now we have a pretty negative impact on the veterinarian industry is that the veterinarians and the vet surgeons now have to be concerned about being sued for punitive damages and pain and suffering for anything that might go wrong. their insurance is going to have to drastically go up which means their costs to their clients is going to drastically have to go up. So until a court somewhere out there decides to push against that and set a new precedent of having pain and suffering. I wish I don't see happening personally. This is how both kind of things worked out that it really is just the value of the animal and how much it would cost to go get a knife Other dog, or cat of comparable value.
Collin 20:07
Have you heard of time to pet dog from bad to the bone pet care as this to say,
Doug 20:11
time to pet has made managing my team and clients so much easier. Our clients love the easy to use app and scheduling features. And our sitters love being able to have all of their information organized and easily accessible. My favorite feature is the instant messaging by keeping conversations on time to pet, we are able to monitor our team and ensure nothing ever falls through the cracks.
Collin 20:31
If you're looking for new pet sitting software, give time to pet a try, our listeners can save 50% off your first three months of visiting time to pat.com slash confession. Another term that I think comes up a lot, especially when reading through policies is the word negligence. And so I'd like for you to maybe outline what that means and an insurance terms and the role that that plays in the policies.
Colleen Giles-Harris 20:57
Sort of the easiest way to look at it is negligence would be you either have to have done something wrong, or there has to be something you could have done better or differently to have prevented the claim, or a term that's used at insurance a lot is what would a prudent person do. So you're walking a client dog down the sidewalk and you come across the lady who's walking her dog, the client dog is 16 feet out on a retractable leash, you probably don't have that much control over the dog as you should have. And I think that a lot of times that would be viewed as some negligence there because you didn't have control over the situation. And perhaps a prudent person would have had the dog on a shorter leash, and perhaps a prudent person would have stepped aside and let that lady and her dog walk by. So it's somewhat subjective and every claim is paid based on the individual circumstances involved in that very specific situation. So just because you talked to your friend, the pet sitter and their claim was paid out at X amount, and you have a similar claim, your claim might not be paid out exactly the same, because those individual circumstances are gonna be very much impact how that situation is handled. But yeah, from a negligence perspective, it really is what what a prudent person have done, is there anything you could have done differently, or if you did absolutely everything, right. And if there's nothing you could have done differently, a lot of times it comes back and you're not negligent. And that's where that no negligence coverage that veterinarians expense coverage that we offer comes into play. Again, that's not something that you get through a traditional insurance policy, we actually introduced it, maybe 1012 years ago, because we had situations where the pet sitter wasn't negligent and therefore wasn't legally liable. But they felt bad. And they wanted to help. And they wanted to offer something to their client. So that's why it's a smaller limit. And it's available out there. In those situations, a common scenario we come across, I feel like a stray dog. So I same thing, you're walking the client dog down the sidewalk, and this time as a stray dog, they come running out of nowhere, and they attack the client dog and then they run off, right, the liability for that should fall on the owner who just let their dog out without any kind of supervision, right. But we don't know who owned that dog it ran off, we can't find it, we have nobody to sue. So our policy will potentially provide up to $1,000 of coverage, or 2500. If you add on the expanded coverage for client pets, even though there was no negligence and legally you are not responsible because you were not negligent, we would still potentially provide some coverage to help pay some of those medical bills for the client dog because it was injured, even though the pet sitter really didn't do anything wrong, and then really couldn't have done anything differently. They can't control a stray dog.
Collin 24:00
Yeah, I think at the end of the day, you do have to realize like, again, not the whole world is not in your control. And that's one way one reason why we have good insurance to cover us and these kind of these kind of instances, but be you do have to be doing your due diligence and being a reasonable responsible IT professional in those instances. And so it's just a reminder to always be vigilant, and you never know what's coming at you, but do your best, right and to take those kind of trainings and to be learning and doing different and taking advantage of different resources. So she can be improving, right. And that's it having this kind of coverage is part of that too.
Colleen Giles-Harris 24:34
I mean, treat every dog like it's your own, which I think most pet sitters do anyway, but at the same time, I feel like almost treat the dog like it's better than your own. You know, this is somebody else's baby that you're responsible for. So maybe if I was walking my own dog down the sidewalk, I might let her interact with another dog because I know her that well. And I feel 100% correct. confident in her, I'm responsible for her, she's my dog. versus if I was walking somebody else's dog, I think I would be that much more firm that much less likely to allow that situation to happen. Because it's an I'm now a business owner, I'm responsible for someone else's dog, I might know this dog really well, because I have walked it for years. And I see it all the time. But I don't know what as well as an owner knows their dog. So maybe I'm just gonna take a step back and not let them interact, not put myself out there and put my business out there for a potential situation to happen, where maybe I would if it was my dog. So like, you treat the dog like it's your own, because it's the baby. But also, it's also somebody else's, you know, that kind of makes sense what I'm trying to get out there?
Collin 25:48
Well, and we've talked a little bit about kind of all these things that occur before an incidence or before a claim. And so what are some do's or don'ts about the claims process that we need to be aware of to make sure that it goes as smoothly as possible,
Colleen Giles-Harris 26:01
the one that claim happens, the first thing that you want to do is document that's sort of my favorite thing, and insurance document, document document. So, you know, take pictures, if it makes sense, write things down. You know, if I had a major situation happened, I would come home and write down a bunch of notes. Because it's fresh, in my mind, it just happened, I'm going to be able to have those little details that maybe even a few days from now, I'm not going to remember, make sure they get contact information for anybody who is around. Obviously, if there's somebody who's directly involved, you know, a person that was bid or an owner of a dog that was that you want that person's contact information, but also witnesses. So if something happens that a dog park, you don't want just the contact information for the person who owns the job that was injured. But also if there's a witness there who might be willing to give their contact information, sometimes that can really come in handy to have another third party person who has no skin in the game, so to speak, they can can provide some information as well. So yeah, documentation, contact information, photos, if applicable. You also don't want to admit any kind of negligence or make any kind of promises, I always tell people to be kind of vague. So even if you're talking to the client themselves, or if you're talking to the owner of an injured pet, or a person that's been injured, just simply tell them, I will submit this to my insurance company. And I will get back to you as soon as possible. I will say that 1000 times a year, I've submitted this to my insurance company, and I will get back to you as soon as possible. People pretty much understand that insurance claim take you know, a couple of days, at least to get kind of the ball rolling, people are pretty understanding about that. Whenever possible, you want to have the owner of the pet pay the vet bills themselves, obviously, that's going to be the case with a third party pen, but also with a client. So if the owner of your client that is in town, maybe it was just like a dog lunchtime, dog walks and they were just at work, or they're on vacation, but they're accessible, you always want to have them pay for the vet bill, if they're obviously able to come and take the dog to the vet themselves. That's great, because I think a lot of owners want to do that. But if they can pay over the phone, that's a really great option. The only time that you as a pet sitter should make a payment on something is if it's a true emergency, and the owner is not available. So let's say they are on a cruise in Europe, because life is finally starting to open up and they're off on a cruise, and you can't reach them. Well, we understand that the VAT is not going to take care of the dog unless you pay. So it's totally fine for you to pay the vet bill, we understand that if the owner is available, I can give a credit card over the phone, or if they've got a credit card on file with the vet. Some of that's all of that, that's going to be the better option. And then what would happen is the insurance company would reimburse them accordingly. So there's two reasons for that one, if you pay the vet bill, and for some reason the claim isn't paid in full, maybe it's determined that you weren't negligent, so we only pay $1,000. But the vet bill was actually a $2,000. Or tragically, it's you know, $20,000 vet bill on a claim Mexico to $15,000, or whatever the case might be. You don't want to get stuck with out of pocket expenses that you weren't prepared for. So it kind of by you not paying it takes that off of the table. And then secondarily, there's a thing called voluntary payments. And this is not really an insurance thing. It's actually more of a legal thing. I'm not a lawyer. So I make that very clear. I'm not an attorney. I don't play one on TV, but how the voluntary pay thing works is that if you make a voluntary payment on a claim when it's not in an emergency and you haven't spoken with the insurance company, sometimes the insurance company is forced to deny the claim, even when they legitimately want to pay. And the coverage would have been there this voluntary payments law or provision jumps in and says, No, you can't because you paid you shouldn't have. Some states are much stronger about it than other states, like I know, like, like California, for example, is really picky about the voluntary payments thing. So I try to tell all members, regardless of what state you're in, you don't want to pay unless you absolutely have to. And I get sometimes the owners don't like that. They're like, well, I don't have the money to come up with this. I'm sorry, you need to pay and they will reimburse you. That's just kind of how it's gonna work. Something really important thing on the claims. Also, with the claims how the deductible on our program works, some people will ask about that. The only deductible on the petsitter program is the $500 off leaf deductible. And that only comes into play when a client pet is voluntarily released from his leash outside of the fenced yard of the pet owner, or the pet sitter if they have the pet daycare and boarding coverage. So the most common scenario is that an off leash dog park or an off leash beach, something happens there's a $500 deductible. So if the pet sitter pays the claim themselves, because it was an emergency, and the owner was out of town, the insurance company will reimburse the petsitter minus that deductible. So if the claim was $1,000, pet sitters just gonna get $500 back, there's gonna take the deductible off, right. But if the pet owner pays, the insurance company would reimburse the pet owner for the full $1,000. And then come to the pet sitter and ask the pet sitter for the $500. Right. So that's kind of a unique thing to keep in mind with that deductible. And obviously, the best way to avoid the deductible is don't take the dog off leash, but a lot of people do enjoy the dog parks and the off leash features, which are totally, totally fine. It does not negate coverage, it doesn't affect your coverage, there's just the deductible.
Collin 32:13
You know, you touched on a little bit there about how awkward it can be sometimes to try and communicate these policies and these procedures to our clients as well, especially when it comes to things like voluntary payment or making promises about things because you know, many of our clients are like family to us. And we really want to make sure that they're taking care of it. But you're right, we do have to rein ourselves in a little bit when especially when communicating and not over promising and making it seem like it was our fault. And we start leading in debt to these roads where people can start asking questions, and it's, it's not being cagey. It's just making sure that we are appropriate in our response, and that we are going to give them the best possible outcome in the end.
Colleen Giles-Harris 32:51
Yes, that might be a good reason. And I totally get that. But there might be a good reason why to look at having a good waiver or contract. And again, not an attorney, I can't tell you what to put in your waiver or your contract. But having a good waiver or contract that all of your clients have to sign. One is just a good legal thing to do anyway. But it also gives you the opportunity to have a conversation in advance. So hey, Mr. client, this is how it's going to work. Yeah, obviously, I'm hoping nothing happens, I'm going to do my absolute best to keep fluffy, safe, and not let anything happen to fluffy. But if something does happen, I'm going to expect that you pay for the vet bill, and then my insurance company would reimburse you accordingly after the claim was investigated. You know, it's not a fun conversation to have regardless, but maybe having it in advance would make it a little less uncomfortable later on is something to think about. Or even if you have that in your contract, you know, and you hope that they read it before they sign it. Obviously, a lot of people don't necessarily read their contracts, whoever reads the like terms of agreement on your Apple phone, right that things like 35 pages, no one reads that we'll just scroll through and click Yep. But hopefully, their contracts not that long. And people actually read it until they understand, you know, what the expectations are everybody involved.
Collin 34:17
Now that's a really good point of having that that that waiver that at least some some verbiage in there about how those kind of situations will be handled so that it's already out there. And in the heat of the situation, you can literally just copy and paste that text from your policy and send it to your client. So you're not having to come up with the word right, they're already there. And it does, again, it gives them an answer. And you can point back to well, you know, this was signed, and this is how I'm going to handle it until something different, you know, needs to take place.
Colleen Giles-Harris 34:45
Yeah. And that he did that moment. There's a lot of emotion involved, especially if a dog has been seriously injured, or tragically died. There's a lot of emotion and being able to have a cookie cutter response is a good thing. You know? Be able to just simply if this is what you signed, this is how we're going to proceed. And I have submitted this to my insurance company, and I'm going to get back to you as soon as possible.
Collin 35:11
We're gonna have a copy and paste that in the notes file, so we can just, you know, we're talking about specific insurance for our business. And, and, and many of us are familiar with other forms of insurance. And so I was curious how you would describe or, or how does having business insurance fit in with the other insurances that are in our life like personal insurance, homeowners or car insurance? What role does that have in in protecting us? And how does it overlap or not with those others?
Colleen Giles-Harris 35:45
Great question. So they do sometimes overlap a little bit. homeowners or renters insurance, which is personal insurance versus a commercial general liability policy that you get for your business are very different. And but also similar in some ways. So a homeowner's or renter's policy providing you with personal liability. If somebody comes to your house, and they trip and fall on your front staff, or you have a party and they fall on the stairs, that's going to provide you with personal liability for somebody who gets injured in your home. Your personal liability also extends to injuries that you might cause outside of your home or injuries that your animal might cause outside of your home. You do want to make sure you look at your homeowners and renters policy closely because sometimes they do exclude animals, especially sometimes certain breeds, I'm very against that. Personally, I think that, you know, pit bulls and Rottweilers can be fantastic family pets, and sometimes little Chihuahuas are like, you know, evil little things, you know, the Rockefeller trot was do, you know, I think that unfortunately, it's certain breeds that are demonized. And so you want to make sure that especially if you have a quote unquote, aggressive breed that your policies, not excluding it, because sometimes people don't look that closely. So make sure that you don't have that issue. But assuming you don't have an exclusion, your homeowners or renters policy should provide coverage for injuries caused by your personal pet, when they're with you, when they're with a pet sitter, or even when they're at large. So if my dog runs out the front door, and she's off leash, she runs out and she attacks my neighbor walking down the street, my personal liability that I get through my homeowner's policy can provide me with some coverage for the injuries that she caused. Just as an FYI, if you do have an aggressive breed, and your homeowners or renters policy excludes them, or if you have a dog that has a history of biting, so your homeowners or renters insurance excludes them. There are animal liability policies that you can purchase specifically for that. So you would have a separate policy. Usually it's got a lower limit. But it's providing you with something that was absolutely better than nothing. But those are available, and you can Google it, you know, specialty insurance agents to provide options for animal liability. So that's just an FYI. But then your commercial insurance is providing you with coverage as a business owner, when you're taking care of other people's pets. So it's kind of a separate thing there from an auto liability insurance perspective. A lot of people do drive their personal car when when doing business. And I'm not an auto insurance expert, I don't really want to go too into detail on that, because it's not something that I am super comfortable with. I understand how my own auto insurance works. But but there is some coverage. Obviously, if you are also driving your car for work, our policy provides coverage for the animals that are being transported. So we do provide coverage for pet taxis or pet transporters that go up to a 200 mile radius. We do not cover people who like go cross country, but 200 mile radius is our maximum. And it's just for the coverage for the animals are for lack of a better term, the cargo of the animals being transported. And the limits that we talked about what for for the animals is going to be the same in your car. But we do not provide coverage for car accidents. Like if people get hurt. Or if you you know run over someone's mailbox or something like that we're not covering that that's gonna fall under your personal auto insurance.
Collin 39:38
Again, that's where this gets kind of confusing of where things are going to fall and where they're not going to fall. But you know, taking each of your policies or at least outlining a little bit about what those are going to contain or what man at what risk those are trying to manage at least helps you operate and run your business a little bit. So you know where each of these are gonna fall in the buckets. When and if something were to happen.
Colleen Giles-Harris 40:00
For sure, I mean, we all buy insurance hoping we never need it. One thing that I have had people ask me about over the years are some homeowners or renters policies have an option where you can endorse on like an office policy or an at home business policy. And it's usually really inexpensive. And people are like, Oh, well, I operate out of my house, you know, I don't have an office. I'm a pet sitter, I work out of my home or I have dog daycare at that my home, can't I have an at home endorsement added onto my homeowner's policy that will cover my business? And the answer's no, really, those are going to cover like an office exposure. You know, so if you I don't know, I'm trying to think of is, like I work out of my house right now, because of the pandemic. And I haven't transitioned back into the office yet. So I could have an office policy, if I was having clients come over to the house to talk to me about insurance. And that kind of endorsement would be just fine for that. But as a pet sitter, your biggest exposure is injuries to those client pets. And that is not going to fall under a traditional office policy. And it's probably also not going to cover if those client pets injure somebody. So an office policy or an at home, work at home endorsement onto your homeowners policy is really not going to be sufficient for pet sitter. It's just not quite what you need. So I get that question quite a bit,
Collin 41:27
you know, maybe many pet sitters are kind of in an expansion phase right now, where they're bringing on employees or being on independent contractors and staff members. So how does insurance work when we start bringing people on, on staff to start working for us.
Colleen Giles-Harris 41:42
So with the pet sitters associates program, we look at the from an insurance perspective, an employee and an independent contractor exactly the same, I don't really care how you pay your taxes or anything like that, you know, traditionally, you know, an employee is going to get a W two and an independent contractor, it's going to get a 1099. There are different criteria that come into play when you classify them, and you can Google it. But basically, like an employee is going to get a lot more direction from you, you're going to make their schedule, you're going to provide them with training, you're going to provide them with any tools that they need. Whereas an independent contractors can create their own schedule, they're going to do their own training that much more independent. And from a pet sitters associates perspective, we don't go into any of that. I don't ask somebody, you know, did you train your employee? Or did they train themselves, I don't really care, because from an insurance perspective, they're gonna be the same. Yeah, but that's really an FYI, from, you might want to look at in your state and see if there are classification differences so that you're not breaking any kind of tax laws. Now, I'm an attorney, and I'm not a tax professional. I barely understand my own taxes. But something maybe you want to look at for yourself so that you understand that you're doing it right, and you're not breaking any rules there. But from an insurance perspective, we look at them the same. The one sort of difference within the pet sitters associates program is if you have an independent contractor, and they're also a member of pet sitters associate, they have their own membership, we don't require that you pay the extra $9 to list them on your membership, any claims that would occur, we just put under their membership. But if they either don't have insurance at all, or they have insurance through somebody other than pet sitters associates, you have to pay the extra $90 to list them. And obviously, all employees need to be added for that $90 because they're obviously not going to have their own insurance or an employee. But that's the one sort of caveat, we started doing that pretty much right from the beginning, because we felt like we were double charging, it wasn't really fair to have somebody get their own pet sitter membership, and then make somebody else pay to also insure them, it just didn't seem fair. Right? So if you have if you're a pet sitter and you have five independent contractors, a way that you can keep your costs down, is requiring that your independent contractors also join pet sitters associates, then they all have their own insurance, they have insurance that they work for, you have insurance and they work for themselves, or they work for somebody else. So that's good for them. And it's a great Association. It's a great policy, so it's good for them. But it's also good for you because you didn't have to pay that $90 for each 505 of them. You saved that money by just making sure that they had membership through pet sitters associates, so it's a nice little option for people.
Collin 44:39
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Colleen Giles-Harris 45:53
So I'm a commercial general liability policy like you get through pet sitters associates, it's going to have some common exclusions that all of them are going to have like expected or intended injury. It's obviously something that happened prior to the beginning of the policy is not going to be covered. If the dog got injured yesterday and you join tomorrow, I'm gonna cover that. We're also not going to cover war or terrorism, pollution, sexual abuse and molestation, cyber liability, communicable diseases, workers compensation, automobile liability, those are kind of standard exclusions. And that's just some of them. There's obviously lots of random exclusions that get pulled on nucleolar or unmanned aircraft for not covering drones. I mean, there's just like lots of random exclusions that just automatically get pulled in there, that don't really apply to their policy. But they're just there because I have to have them right. The most common things that I always like to make sure people know aren't covered, are injuries to the pet sitters themselves. So injuries to the member employees, independent contractors, incidental helpers and family members. If you get bit by a client pet, we are not covering your injury. The bodily injury coverage is for third party people. If you do get that, your best course of action is to ask the owner of the dog that you just submit a claim under their homeowner's or renter's insurance. I'm not a personal lines, insurance experts kind of talked about it already. But the majority of those policies are going to provide them with some coverage for those injuries. And if they don't have the proper insurance, they're probably still legally responsible. So they're gonna have to find a way to help you out. I mean, that's just how it's gonna gonna work. If you do get better, that's going to be your best recourse. If you have health insurance that might also cover your medical bills, if you get hit by a client that we're also going to provide coverage for injuries to your personal pet, as the pet sitter or your employees personal pet. So if you have a dog daycare at your house, you purchase that optional coverage. And you know, Fido comes over for the day and Fido bites fluffy, who's your dog, we're not going to cover the injuries too fluffy, because he's your personal property. And we're not providing coverage for your personal property, we're also not going to cover if Fido the client dog damages your couch, that's your personal property. So we're not going to cover that. And we're also not going to cover injuries caused by your personal dog fluffy, to Phyto, the client dog because that's your liability. You've chosen, chosen, you've chosen to bring the client dog and your personal dog together. And, and you've increased the liability exposure by bringing your personal dog into the situation, it's totally fine to do that people do it all the time. But we're not going to cover injuries to or injuries caused by your personal pet. I already mentioned the automobile liability, but that's a big one that people will ask me about a lot. Again, we're going to cover the dog if it gets hurt in a car accident, but we're not going to cover bodily injury or property damage caused by your car. That's auto insurance. And those are kind of the big the big main ones that come up with the most.
Collin 49:16
Right Well again, this separation between our personal liability and the business liability. And when we run our pet sitting businesses, sometimes it can blur the lines a lot because it at least in our minds, because well this is my business this is it's all personal to me, but not understanding the difference between injury to me versus injury to the client that I'm walking and those clear delineations that exist between insurance policies and so yet again, another reason to outline all of the risks that were exposed to and going okay, my covered here, my covered here, my cover and not relying on the client to have the proper coverage for their insurance policy, whether it's homeowners or renters, because, you know, some people don't have that they choose not to carry that for whatever reason and it We don't want to be relying on that as a when we're operating our businesses.
Colleen Giles-Harris 50:03
Absolutely. I don't know, it may, it could be awkward, but I do know that some numbers in their contract or waiver with their client, ask them to confirm that they have on, you know, homeowners or renters or animal liability insurance for their pet. Yeah, especially if the if the animal is an aggressive breed, or a unique animal. Sometimes I get really weird phone calls from people like, Oh, I got asked to watch a wolf hybrid. Or recently, I got someone who asked me if it was okay to watch a monkey. And as long as it is a pet, and legally allowed in your city, county and state, it's covered under our policy thinking was farm animals. So we're not going to cover a cow that's meant for slaughter, or chickens that are used for eggs, those are farm animals. But if you have a pot bellied pig, or a goat, or a horse that is considered someone's Pat, we're going to cover that under the regular policy because that is a pet, but not a farm animal and a monkey. Totally fine, as long as it is legally allowed in your area. So you know, I got, we go watch friends. And there was the episode of friends where Ross's monkey got up, got loose and escaped. And we found out that it was illegal. He wasn't supposed to have that monkey. So you would not want to pet sit, Marcel, because that would be illegal, and that you don't want to be doing that. But if your area allows monkeys, and some do totally fine. But I also like to remind people, when you do have situations where you're being asked to watch something unusual, like a monkey or a wolf hybrid, remember that there's no coverage if you get injured. And sometimes you're not comfortable in those situations, and they can feel your fear, they can sense your fear. It's also okay to say no, no, I think especially in the current economy, people don't want to turn jobs down. But if something about it makes you uncomfortable, if that little voice in your heads going, I don't know about this, you know, maybe it's okay, just to say this isn't the right petsitting job for me. And I even tell people sometimes it's okay, if you tell the client that your insurance that it's not okay, because they're never gonna call and ask me. What's up if you want to make me the bad guy and say, Oh, yeah, my insurance doesn't cover monkeys. They're never gonna know. So use me as the excuse, that's fine.
52:29
Well, and I think,
Collin 52:31
as when we're running our businesses, you know, very few of us look to run immediately to the city or county ordinances to see what animals are not allowed, right. Like I we, Megan, and I didn't do that when we first started operating. Why would you? But you're right, every now and then. These requests are gonna come in. And it's you. I love how you laid that out. It's twofold. Is it legal to have that pet? And are you comfortable with taking care of that pet night, I think the comfortable one really Trumps a lot of that it could be perfectly legal. But if you're not comfortable, don't go near it. And don't even try because you are going to probably end up in a world of hurt. And you know, things can go bad things can happen from that, especially when you're not comfortable. And you're nervous. And you never know what's gonna happen at those kind of interactions.
Colleen Giles-Harris 53:16
Yeah, like, Who wouldn't want to hang out with a monkey all day, but at the same time, like us? I don't know if I want to do that. I
Collin 53:22
was wondering if you could give us a real world example of how the policies that we've described could work. And because you know, sometimes it can be hard to understand all the moving pieces, when we're just going term by term and definition, by definition, but but what's a real world example that you've that you've experienced, or had come across your desk that kind of highlight some of these points we've been talking about?
Colleen Giles-Harris 53:45
I'm kind of going to repeat myself a little bit, because this is the example I use most often. But he was the pet sitter are walking a client dog down the sidewalk, and you come across the lady who's walking her personal dog. This happens all day long, right? When you're walking dogs, there's other people walking their dogs do. So the two dogs interact. And they both get injured. I've already talked about the the coverage for the client dog, it's going to come and die there. Were they were you negligent or you not negligent? Did you have control of the situation? Should you have stepped aside? Where's that coverage going to come into play for the client dog, but for the other dog, there's gonna be up to a million dollars of coverage for that dog's bodily injury because they're considered property. If that lady puts her hand into the middle of the fight, and she gets injured, is up to a million dollars of coverage for her bodily injury. If you get injured, there's not gonna be any coverage under our policy. And that's a pretty straightforward common example that we see. I also see a lot of situations where two dogs are playing together at a dog daycare, so someone's purchased the optional dog daycare coverage or at the door Ark and they're just innocently playing and one of them gets injured because they played a little too rough. Oreo two dogs go after the same ball at the same time. And one of them scratches the other one or accidentally bites the other one. I think a lot of people think it's only going to be one aggressive situation happens but it doesn't have to be a lot of times it's just playing to rock or one dog misreading the other dog. So we see a lot of situations where or two client dogs interact and they get hurt. We also see a lot of unusual things that are just like, you know, the dog kennel wasn't latched properly. So the dog got out in between petsitting the and chewed up our Rog or pooped all over the house or got into the garbage and ate it and then got sick because they ate something that shouldn't have eaten. So things like that, that are just oops, you know, I thought I latched it correctly. Obviously, I didn't do it on purpose, but I didn't match it or, you know, the dog was amazing and somehow got out of that kennel. And and, and damage something. You know, it's really important to document the expectations of the owner. So great to have a checklist of some kind that you go through. So you know, maybe you've got a dog where, you know, my dog's name is Gert, Gertrude, and my sister's dog's name is Bella. And let's say that Bella was allowed to free range of the house, no limits whatsoever. But Gertrude has to be locked in the bedroom. That's the only place she's allowed, you need to make sure that you very specifically have that written down. And you know which one is which, which sometimes is more difficult with cats because I think sometimes cats look girl similar. So like which ones which but make sure that you know which dog is which. So when you leave you follow those requirements and don't accidentally put Bella in the bedroom and let Gertrude have free range of the house. And now Richard chews up the couch, or gets into something that she's not supposed to be getting into having that kind of documentation so that you know what to do the same thing with medications, my dog, you know, she takes allergy medicine, definitely the end of the world that you forget to give it to her. But if you've got a cat that has insulin, and you got to know how much insulin to give, and how often I actually just saw a claim come across my desk earlier today, where the petsitter had been giving the dog or the cat and I'm sorry, insulin. And for a week, the owners were gone. And a new vial of insulin came in the mail. And he opened it up and he started using it. But he didn't realize that it was a different brand. And it was a different amount that was needed. So he accidentally overdose the cat, luckily, the cats fine and had to go to the hospital, but it's fine. And it was just an innocent mistake. He just assumed I was giving this amount before. So that's how much I'm supposed to give. So you know, making sure you're paying attention, you know, the expectations, you know, and you know what, which cat gets it. I also had situations where people have given insulin to the wrong cat. And it's like, oh, that's not good, because the cat that was supposed to get the insulin didn't and sec, and now the cat that wasn't supposed to get the insulin did and so, you know, you gotta have all that stuff written down. I mean, I can't remember what I did five minutes ago. So I mean, write down stuff. So you know what you're supposed to be doing?
Collin 58:27
Right? Well, yeah, it's it's, it's really, you know, we ask those questions for a reason, right? We ask them so that we can give the best care possible we ask them so that we know. But getting them written down and stored someplace that you can go back and refer to them because there are implications for not following those. Right? It's not just that they don't get the best care possible. It's serious injury can happen or they can get seriously sick from those and then we get held liable for those that for those mistakes.
Colleen Giles-Harris 58:55
Absolutely. And then it's a mistake. I mean, no one goes out to hurt and hoping to hurt an animal or to not take the best care possible. You know, everyone wants to do the best they're doing your pet sitters because you love pets, right? So no one wants to have anything bad happen and you have insurance. Like I said earlier, you buy insurance hoping you never need it. But when you have that rainy day, and that accident does happen, you want to hopefully be able to take care of everything,
Collin 59:25
you know, our insurance policies that you know, they cover a lot. They can kind of be these big hulking documents and coverages and we might not understand all it's in there. But we hopefully that they're they're doing the most for us. So how can we get the most out of our insurance and make sure that it's really working for us and covering us the best way possible?
Colleen Giles-Harris 59:44
Well, the best thing to do is to understand what your coverage is. So if you remember a pet sitters associate, for example, I would recommend that you read over the website we've got a lot of information on the insurance options page which explains all of the various optional coverages. And then we also have an FAQ page that explains insurance terminology. Again, the optional coverages or some claims questions, make sure you understand what you have and what your options are. I am so sad when I see a claim come across my desk. And it's not going to be covered because they didn't purchase the optional coverage that they need, that we tried to make it really clear that you need the pet daycare and boarding coverage if you have client pets at your house. And I see at least once a month a claim come across my desk where an incident happened at the pet sitters house, and they didn't purchase that coverage. And it just makes me so sad, because now that person thought they had it. Obviously, they didn't intentionally not buy it, or most likely, they didn't intentionally not buy it. But now they don't have the insurance that they need. So make sure that you look over what you have what is available to you and make sure that you have what you need. If you aren't a member of pet sitters associates, if you're a member of one of the other associations, I'm assuming they have similar stuff on their website. There's lots of associations out there. Or if you have an insurance, like an independent insurance agent, talk to him or her about what you have and what you do, even to the point where you're like, Oh, I probably don't need to tell my agent that I also do some grooming, yeah, you should tell your agent that you also do some grooming, you know, just to make sure that that is covered. And typically, you don't need to buy extra coverage if you're just getting the dog a bath. But if you're cutting their hair and their nails, you probably need extra insurance for that because you could cut off the end of their tail, or you know, you want insurance for that. So even if you think it's stupid to bring them up, or like, oh, they're gonna think I'm dumb for asking this question. Don't worry about it. I would rather have you ask a dumb question. And get that peace of mind. And let's have that conversation, then have you be worried that you don't have the right coverage? I'd rather have that conversation before the claim than after the claim. So don't hesitate to ask. If you're not sure if the websites not clear for pet sitters associates that the website is not clear. The first thing you should do is reach out to the association. more likely than not you'd be dealing with Elizabeth, who is their office manager. She's awesome. She's super friendly. She's been there for many years, she can answer the large majority of your general questions. What website questions, membership questions, some basic insurance questions, because she has standard answers that I've given her that she can say Colleen said this. If you have really complex insurance questions, she'll send you to me, but you know, start with Elizabeth. And her email address is info inf o at pet to sit LLC COMM And it's right there on the website. But she's a great resource to get the ball rolling, if you've got a question. But yeah, just ask questions and know what you have. Before you have the claim.
Collin 1:03:02
Yeah, that really does. You know, he say a lot of times, you know, knowledge is power. And it really is because we know we're operating our business with confidence that we're covered. And we can go into situations with confidence and understand fully where our liabilities are, so that we know when to say no. And we can turn away these things that are going to be exposing us to more risk than a we're comfortable with or be we actually have the coverage for and that really just just opens up us to operate our businesses differently than we do if you're in the dark about what you can or can't, you should or shouldn't be doing.
Colleen Giles-Harris 1:03:34
Yeah, man, it's your responsibility as a business owner could practice risk management, you know, you want to make sure that you are managing your risk and you are not putting more risk out there then you are comfortable with or that's being insured by your insurance policy. And that's a really important thing to be thinking about for your business. And asking those questions. If you're not if you're not really sure about something.
Collin 1:04:00
I did want to ask you this question about an association versus a traditional insurance company, because I think that may trip up some people when thinking and looking at the different options out there. What is that big difference between even even said that there are lots of associations out there? What's the difference between that and the insurance that I think many of us know or understand?
Colleen Giles-Harris 1:04:26
Absolutely. So the associations, there's a couple of things about them that really make associations really helpful for pet sitters. One is the cost. Typically, you can get a lot cheaper insurance through an association than you can through an insurance agent. The reason for that is this kind of the law of large numbers, we're able to keep the premium per member down because we multiply that by the number of members we have to get enough premium to the insurance company to pay that claim. So the insurance company in the end is a business people don't like to think of it that way. But they are. And you have, they have to be profitable in order to pay their claims and pay their staff. So by having a membership, that's 7000 members, they're able to keep the premium per member down, but still get enough premium to justify writing this kind of program. Whereas when you go to a regular insurance agent and insurance company, a lot of times has a minimum premium. In order to write a policy for a pet sitter, we need at least $500. So we need at least $750, whatever that minimum is, no matter what services you provide, we need at least that much, maybe we need more if you do other stuff, but we need at least $500. Whereas with an association, there's no minimum, because of the fact that there's so many members and added up together, they get enough premium to justify it. So number one, an association typically it's going to be cheaper. Secondly, an association typically is going to be able to provide some specialized coverages that you probably can't get through a traditional insurance agent, you know, you're always going to get the commercial general liability with bodily injury and property damage and personal advertising, that's pretty straightforward, you're always going to get the coverage for the animals, because if you don't, you've got a really bad insurance agent, that's going to be pretty standard and coverage for the animals. But with like pet sitters associates, you get that extra veterinarian expense coverage, which is the no negligence, you don't normally get that we've got coverage for lost keys. So if you have the key on the belt loop while you're out walking, and the keys fall off, and all the keys floating around the world somewhere, and the owners freaked out, that their keys floating around, you can get their home re keyed for up to $2,000 that you don't normally get through a traditional insurance policy. And you also are going to have specialized service when you have a claim our program, I can't necessarily say this is the case for all associations, but without ciders associates, the insurance company has a dedicated group of claims professionals. So they're always going to know what a pet sitter does and how the program works, though the coins process should be a little bit smoother. And finally, with Association, sometimes you get some additional benefits. And again, I can't really speak to the other associations. But with pet sitters associates, there's some discounts available. You know, there's some educational opportunities, you can get discounts to do kind of thumb stuff like that. And there's quarterly newsletters that give out tips and tricks and how to Is that helpful advice about that thing, and sometimes I write those articles. So they're, they're really awesome, because I write them a little, little tips and stuff that that come out, which I think is really nice. And if you don't remember pet sitters associates, please do read your newsletter articles. We write those to help you. And sometimes we're explaining things in detail like voluntary payments. Sometimes they're just helpful things about how to be a better pet sitter, but they're never very long. So take the time to read through them. We write them for a reason.
Collin 1:08:04
Colleen, I want to thank you so much for coming back on the show. As always, it's an immense pleasure, I learned so much. And thank you for encouraging us to understand our risks and understand how to go about managing those through having the proper coverage. I know it's a big topic, and you've you've already given out contact information. But could you remind us again, about where to go for more information and how to get connected?
Colleen Giles-Harris 1:08:28
Absolutely. So pet sitters associates website is pet CIT llc.com, which is P e te, si t T llc.com. If you want to reach out to Elizabeth For more information, if you've got questions that aren't answered on the website, her email address is info inf o at pets that llc.com
Collin 1:08:52
perfect. And I'll have those links in the show notes so people can click right to those again, Colleen, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Colleen Giles-Harris 1:08:59
Thank you, Colin, it's always a pleasure anytime.
Collin 1:09:02
How are you managing the risk in your business? I think knowledge plays a key role in this. Getting the proper training, knowing the city and local ordinances, understanding our policies and procedures goes a long way to mitigating any sort of risk that could be coming our way. Because we're one step ahead of it. We know what we will or will not say yes to because of our comfort level because of our expertise. and risk management. Yes does come down to having the proper coverage for our business and how we're operating. If you're transporting pets from place to place, if you're having them in your home, if you're going out on walks if you're doing an off leash things. All of those have inherent risks into them that first we educate ourselves about so that we can make those proper decisions. And then we cover ourselves with good proper business insurance so that when accidents happen when things do come up, we don't have to worry about it because we know it will be taken care of. We'd love to know your stories of dealing Dealing with insurance and how you have navigated the waters of the claims process and what some of the outcomes have been for you. You can send those to feedback at pet sir confessional calm or we're so on social media all over the place. We want to thank our sponsors time to pet and pet sitters international for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you so much for listening. This is Episode 201. And we've got so many more planned. We're really excited where we're headed, and we couldn't do it without you. So thank you so much. We'll be back again soon.
