367: Getting the Most out of Your Insurance with Colleen Giles-Harris
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You pay for insurance, but is it protecting you? Running a business means we have to understand the risk we take on with the services we offer. As your business changes, so too do your insurance needs. Colleen Giles-Harris, Underwriter with Pet Sitters Associates, joins the show to walk us through the questions we need to ask about our businesses to make sure we are covered. She explains where the homeowners insurance comes into play during a claims process and why it matters the kind of pets you’re caring for. Colleen also shares how to properly document for a claims process and how to approach minimum-level of care concerns.
Main topics:
Duty to Defend
Breed limitation?
Minimum levels of care
Documentation
Getting dropped?
Main takeaway: To get the most out of your insurance, know your business and the services you want to offer.
About our guests:
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:
PSA Headquarters – info@petsitllc.com; (715)450-9513
Colleen Giles-Harris – Colleen_Giles-Harris@rpsins.com; (715)852-1282
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
insurance, dog, pet sitters, coverage, claims, pet, people, client, exclusions, policy, situation, business, cover, negligent, insurance policy, associates, services, negligence, colleen, animal
SPEAKERS
Collin, Colleen Giles-Harris
Collin 00:01
Welcome to pet sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter brought to you by time to pet. insurance for your business is always a big priority and a major topic and causes a lot of confusion among people who are just getting started or how it changes with their companies. So today, we are really excited to have Colin Giles Harris back on the show. She's with pet sitters associates. And she's here today to share some insights into how to get the most out of your insurance and some specific examples that come up from time to time. So, Colleen, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Could you please tell our new listeners or people who haven't been listened to those episodes in a while of who you are and what you do?
Colleen Giles-Harris 00:44
Hi, Colin, thanks for having me back. My name is Colleen Giles Harris and I underwrite and manage the insurance program for the pet sitters associates group. I started wear two hats, I work with the association to make sure that the members have the proper insurance coverages and the proper insurance options available for their businesses. And I also work with the insurance company to make sure that we're getting the right amount of premium for the program and working with them to make sure that the claims are being handled efficiently for the members of the association.
Collin 01:21
So when you say underwriter because that term, I know you you are an underwriter, that is where you are designing the programs and the policies specifically for what the members need. But also you said talking back to the insurance companies, what is that interaction like making sure that you are meeting their requirements and so forth.
Colleen Giles-Harris 01:42
So as an underwriter, typically, what I do is work with the insurance company to create coverage forms, and to create the necessary exclusions. A lot of times the program is just renewed year over year without any changes. But sometimes we'll have a claim. And we'll realize that we were covering something that maybe we didn't mean to be covering. So we needed to tweak the wording. Or maybe there's a new service that we are now wanting to be able to cover. So we want to add a new coverage. Or we find out that there's something new out in the world, like when COVID happened, there was a new exclusion that had to go on, we've always excluded communicable disease, but it had to be changed a little bit to make it more clear of what communicable diseases were. So sometimes I'm working with the insurance company to tweak the actual coverage forms, and also in regard to the premium. So at renewal time, our program renews annually every July, although members can join anytime throughout the year, and their coverage corresponds with the effective date on their member certificate, but the program itself renews every July. So usually in February or March, I start working with the association to determine if there's any changes that we feel are needed, and how we're feeling about the premium at the association level. And then I reached out to the insurance company to discuss that process, and determine if we need to take a rate increase. You know, nobody likes to have their insurance premiums go up. But sometimes the costs of claims go up, everything else in life is going up, right. So sometimes it is needed to take a rate increase on your insurance to make sure that the insurance company is getting the appropriate premium to cover the claims.
Collin 03:30
Right. Everything's in flux all the time. Unfortunately, that's kind of where we, we have to just embrace that sometimes it makes sure that we do still have that that appropriate coverage. But there are a lot of things about business insurance that kind of can be enigmas to some people. So I guess right off the bat here, what do you wish more people knew about business insurance?
Colleen Giles-Harris 03:49
Well, I guess just that they need it. One thing, I think there's a misconception from a lot of people that their other insurance policies provide coverage for their businesses. So maybe there's coverage within their homeowner's policy, for example, some homeowners policies do provide some coverage for in home businesses, either automatically or via an endorsement that can be purchased for extra premium. That's usually like 99% of the time, not enough for a pet care business. Usually, that's going to be good for something like maybe you're creating a little crafts at home and selling them on that seat. You know, maybe that kind of endorsement on your homeowners policy is going to be enough for that kind of business. But a pet care business has a lot of specific exposures, including wanting to make sure that you've got coverage for the animals, of course. So really, your homeowners policy is not going to be enough to cover a pet care business. And I think the other misconception a lot of people have is they think that if they only work for their friends and family and only To take care of pets owned by their friends and family that they don't need business insurance, because those people are never gonna sue that. And it might be right that if you're taking care of your friend's dog, and the dog gets hurt, maybe your friends not gonna sue you. But if the dog has really hurt badly, or your friend thinks that you were negligent, your friend might not be your friend anymore. And suddenly, you do have to pay for those bills. Or worse, your friend's dog while in your care injures a third party person, maybe they bite somebody at the dog park, that person is not going to care that you're rocking your friends, dog. So you need to have insurance to cover those kinds of scenarios.
Collin 05:41
Yeah, that's what the one I was immediately thinking about, I'm sure your your mother, your father, your brother might not see you. But it's what happens when the dog is starts interacting with that third party. And that gets into us doing our best to fully understand how much risk we are actually taking on as a business. And I what I see a lot of times is when people go, Well, I'm only doing this part time. But so once I get really busy, that's whenever I'll get it. And those kinds of statements always terrify me because it just takes one incident to now all of a sudden completely change
Colleen Giles-Harris 06:16
everything. Exactly. There's nothing I'm not a lawyer, I should make that very clear. I'm not a lawyer, I can't give them any kind of legal advice. But there's nothing in the law that I'm aware of that says, Well, if you you know, only work 10 hours a week, then you're not liable for things, you know, there's nothing like that you're as soon as you take on the responsibility of somebody else's pet and they're paying you or even if they're not paying you but you're taking on that responsibility for that animal and something happens, you're more likely than not going to be legally responsible.
Collin 06:51
Yeah. Well, you mentioned homeowners insurance, or renters insurance. And people may listen to this and go Well, I don't want to carry the insurance policy. So why can't I just demand or require my clients to carry those policies and have them on hand is that would that be enough? Well, I
Colleen Giles-Harris 07:10
do think it's a good idea to ask your clients to confirm that they have a homeowner's or renter's insurance, but partially to protect you as the pet sitter, if you get injured by a client dog, they bite you. Or maybe you fall down the front steps at your client's house, you want them to have homeowners or renters insurance to help cover your medical bills. So I do think it's a good idea to make that a requirement. I don't think it's a mandatory thing. I don't tell all of the pets that are members to do that. But I don't think it's a bad idea. But that's not gonna protect you. If you're out walking a client dog. And again, that dog bites a third party person, you are likely going to be held at least partially responsible, if not completely responsible, because that dog was in your care. Sometimes, the homeowner's policy of the dog owner does get involved. So let's say there's a really bad dog, but we're talking hundreds of 1000s of dollars. Sometimes the court will deem that the pet sitters 50% responsible, and the pet owner 50%, responsible or 6040 7030, whatever, you know, sometimes they break the percentages down. So sometimes the homeowner's policy does get involved. But the pet sitter is usually also found at least partially responsible because the animal was in their care. And we've had situations where the pet owner did not have a homeowner's or renter's insurance, or their dog was excluded for one reason or another. And then the pet sitter ends up being pretty much 100% responsible because there's no other insurance to go after. So a lot of times that can kind of come into play as well.
Collin 08:51
So it's it's a way of, as you said, not a bad idea, looking at all the protections, all the risks that you're taking on, but also understanding that at some point there is responsibility on our ourselves to make sure that we are protected and covered. If those situations do arise, correct?
Colleen Giles-Harris 09:07
Correct. You ever want to end up in a lawsuit and not have insurance or, or at least at minimum, an insurance company that's going to defend you. Most insurance policies, there's a duty to defend. So even if you are not found that you were actually negligent in the situation, the insurance company has a duty to represent you in court. So sometimes just the defense costs alone are a really important thing to have. Speaking of that, one thing I do recommend the pet sitters associates insurance policy, our defense costs are outside the limits of insurance. If you are not a member of pet sitters associates, I recommend that you check on your insurance policy, or check with your insurance agent to see how your defense costs are covered. Some insurance policies the defense costs are inside the limits. And what that means means is if you have a million dollars for bodily injury coverage, and the claim is $800,000. But you go to court and you have $300,000 of defense costs that $300,000 is taken out of the million, so all you have left is 700,000. And if the court says the costs are 800, you might get stuck with that extra 100 out of your own personal pocket. But ours for pets or associates, the defense costs are outside the limits. So even if there's $300,000 of defense costs, that full million dollars is still available for the bodily injury claim. And I think that's a really great benefit. So it's something worth checking on to see how your insurance policy is written.
Collin 10:51
And remembering that the business insurance that we're talking about here is to cover more than just injury to the dog in damage to the home, or third party interactions here, there's so much more that goes into these kinds of policies that we need to be aware of. And that can be pretty daunting, just firstly, coming into the industry or maybe sitting down. And if you've if you have insurance, and you really want to put yourself to sleep at night, read the policy coverage in full and just and you'll be really enlightened to everything, it can be really, really overwhelming. I know. So how would you encourage people to to get started trying to understand what they actually need? And where to go for help? I guess really?
Colleen Giles-Harris 11:37
Well, I do think it's a great idea to read your insurance policy, but most people, to be honest, I do I recommend it. But we I know people don't. At minimum, I would flip through and look at the titles of the endorsements and the exclusions. And then you know, if something doesn't make sense to you look at it closer. If you're a member of pet sitters associates, we have a very detailed FAQ page. And you can always reach out if you've got a question that you don't understand, or that isn't addressed on the FAQ page. If you aren't members of pet sitters associates, that's what your insurance agent is for that person is a professional, and I'm reached out to that person and ask them questions and what your policy is. But just to get started, I would look at you There's various petsitting associations, obviously, I'm a little biased. I like pet sitters associates, but there are other ones out there. They're all very comparable. You know, most of them don't have anything that's extraordinarily different than the others. But it's worth looking at the various ones and figuring out which one fits with you best. And also just which one are you most comfortable with? I mean, pet sitters associates this year is going to be celebrating its 25th anniversary, they started in 1998. And I think that is something important that we've been around a long time, there's a knowledge there, there's an experience level, I've personally been involved since 2003. But there's other associations that are newer and have just formed in the last five years or so. And I'm not saying anything negative about them. But you know, they haven't been around quite as long. So sometimes, having working with an association that has that experience, and that, you know, as experienced with a variety of claims can be a really helpful thing.
Collin 13:27
Okay, because of the, like you said variety of claims, there's a large diversity of things that can happen. And I think for us, what I do is look at where we look at the exclusions, I think that's a really good place to start. If nothing else, go look at your exclusions to see, am I operating outside of my current parameters of where it should be? And you may be surprised about what's in there if you've never done this before, and you've never had a conversation with an insurance agent is from a business perspective looking going, Oh, what am I actually covered for? And really start thinking about, Okay, well, you can put together in your mind of oh, well, this client asks me to do this is that actually a cup is this client has this kind of pet is that actually. And really, once you start thinking that way, you'll you'll start to really understand a lot more about the risks you're taking on and really where that liability lands. And it's not to scare you into not doing certain things, but just going in with full head knowledge of what you're actually taking on is really a good place to move forward
Colleen Giles-Harris 14:33
to comments on what you just said, One, I think I agree looking at the exclusions is really important because one of the things that's confusing about insurance and really confuse the heck out of me when I first started reading insurance policies was one form provides you with coverage, and then another form takes that away. So there's like you read if you read just the one form, it's like, oh, okay, but you don't realize that 20 Page pages later in the policy, there's an exclusion that now takes that away from you. So that is a really important thing to look at. And then the comment on the variety of services that you might be providing, I highly recommend that if you are offering anything out of what you consider traditional pet sitting dog walking services, it's good to look and make sure that you've got that coverage with pet sitters associates, our program is designed on an ala carte basis. So the basic membership provides you with coverage as a traditional Pet Sitter dog walker, going into the client's house, feeding the pets, putting them out in the backyard, going for walks, taking them to the dog park, administering medications, those kinds of things. But then we have optional coverages that you can add on if you are offering pet daycare and boarding services. Or if you're offering dog training or pet grooming. Then we also have optional coverages where you can increase the limits for the animals in your care. And you want to make sure that if you suddenly, especially if you start offering something in the middle of the year, I think that's something that happens a lot. You join pet sitters associates or you purchase your insurance policy, and you only offer a handful of services. And then six months later, you're like, Oh, I'm gonna start doing this too. And you don't think about your insurance, maybe your health coverage, maybe you need to add something else on maybe that's not going to be covered at all by the program you're in. And suddenly, you have exceeded the scope of the program. That's how I usually phrase it with that service associate. So you are suddenly you're opening a boarding facility that has 20 kennels? Yep, now you're too big for us. I mean, we just, were not designed for groups that are that large. So you have to think about those things as your business grows and develops, either look at the website, or reach out to Elizabeth at PSA headquarters. And if she doesn't know the answer, she sends you over to me. So those kinds of things, it's always better to ask, and I absolutely guarantee there are no dumb questions. So I would rather have you asked to call me or email me and have my response be? Well, this is on the website, then do not ask that question. And then I hate it. I hate it so much. When there's a claim and someone doesn't have coverage. It just, like hurts my soul. If it's because they didn't purchase the necessary coverage. It happens all the time where we have a claim at the pet sitters house. And they didn't purchase the pet daycare and boarding coverage. Yeah. And as soon as I see the claim, it's just like, oh, no, I hope it's not big. Yeah, so it's always better to check in to ask them to wait until there's a claim and then get the really bad news that you don't have the coverage.
Collin 17:50
Yeah, and it's again, sometimes you can be on the websites reading through stuff. And it's confusing and going does this apply to me? Does it? How does this apply to me? And just asking those questions, because you mentioned a lot of people add services midway through are interested in new services. And I know a really big one in the last couple of years has been dog adventure hikes, right? So in these services, there's multiple ways to run this. But I know kind of when we talk about this, it's you go around and you collect all a bunch of dogs in a car, you know, five, six or more. And then you drive them to a hiking trail in your area. And you spend four or five, six hours out hiking, and then you bring them back for the day. When, when, with that kind of service. Colleen, what other things should we be thinking about? Or, you know, you and you mentioned increasing limits? That was one where I thought, well, maybe the basic limits aren't going to be enough for that because of how kind of extreme that that situation is.
Colleen Giles-Harris 18:45
That is a very common new thing that we are seeing quite a bit within the petsitter associate's program. There aren't any optional coverage that would be required for that. A couple of things I would point out to somebody though, one, we do have a $500 off leash deductible. The only deductible on the pet sitters Associates Program Policy is the $500 off leash deductible. And it only comes into play when a client pet is voluntarily released from its leash outside of the confined fenced yard of the pet owner, or the pet sitter if you have the pet daycare coverage. So if a dog just slips the leash, or they're like a little Houdini, and they get out of their harness, that's an accident, there's no deductible. What if you consciously choose to take a dog to the dog park and take them off their leash or to go on an adventure hike and take them off their leash or go to the off leash, beach or whatever there is a $500 deductible if that dog gets hurt. So that's something I always like to remind people in those scenarios. Also, our policy does provide coverage for the transporting of pets in your car. But we do not provide any automobile liability coverage and there's no coverage for injuries. to people or property in a car accident that's going to fall under a commercial or personal auto policy, we're only going to cover the animals if they are injured in the car accident. So it wouldn't hurt to check with your personal auto insurance to make sure that there's not a problem with this. And there's usually not some pet sitters choose to get a commercial auto policy, because they are driving it for their business. Also, that sometimes there can be issues if you're having your employees or independent contractors drive animals for your business. So that's something that you want to look at from an auto liability perspective. And that's not really my area of expertise, auto liability. But I can say that that's something you want to look into with your insurance agent, if you're going to be doing that, especially again, if your employees or independent contractors are going to be driving the client pets around, definitely worth the conversation to have with your auto insurance agent regarding the extra limits of insurance, so again, I'm always talking about pet sitters associate, so other associations and other insurance policies might be different. But our policy automatically provides up to $1,000 of coverage for injuries to a client that regardless of negligence or legal liability on the part of the pet sitter, or up to $15,000 of coverage per occurrence. If there is some negligence or legal liability on your part, that $1,000 of coverage, we call that the veterinarian expense coverage. And that's a really special thing that you get through pet sitters associates because normally, insurance doesn't kick in unless you're negligent or legally liable. So a lot of insurance policies are not going to have that no negligence or no fault $1,000 of coverage, we now in the last couple of years have offered an optional coverage called expanded coverage for client pets, it's an extra $50, that increases those limits. So you go from $1,000 to $2,500, where negligence is not required. And when you when there is negligence, it goes from $15,000 to $25,000 per occurrence only for 50 bucks, we had a lot of people asking for increased limits. And we didn't want to increase the limits on the basic membership, because we would have had to increase the premium to everybody. So instead, we offered it as an option. And about 20 to 25% of the members choose to increase those limits. And if you aren't going to be doing something unique, like adventure hikes where you do feel like maybe there's a higher risk verse situation, maybe you're taking those dogs to places where there's rattlesnakes, because we have had rattlesnake bites. Or if you feel like there's a risk of those animals getting into a fight. And that situation, it might be worth the extra $50 to increase your limits.
Collin 22:57
One and just remembering you know, in this situation, if you've got 10 dogs off leash, and they do get you know, into rattlesnake den or a bear or a mountain lions or these kinds of things are run through cactus patches, all of a sudden, you've got this extra liability now that you have on your hands. And that's where we need to be thinking about kind of worst case scenario, all everything happens all at once. Do I have enough for that? And really not being afraid to to add some zeros to those numbers as we try and figure that out.
Colleen Giles-Harris 23:31
Yeah, it's the worst case scenario. I mean, my I'm very paranoid, my husband says that I'm like a massive party pooper because all I do is see the risk everywhere and everything fun to me, equals somebody getting hurt. But I do think that it's better to have that mindset sometimes than to think that the world is full of rainbows and puppy dogs and nothing bad's ever gonna happen.
Collin 23:54
No. And we talked a little bit about exclusions earlier. And I want to circle back to that because I know a lot of people on their businesses say, you know, they'll take care of all pets great and small will care for them all or whatever, you know, things like that. But are there exclusions for just focus on dogs like kinds of dogs service dogs? Do Are there limits generally that we need to be aware of or ask questions about when it comes to to just dogs and whether we can actually take them on or not.
Colleen Giles-Harris 24:24
So looking at dogs specifically within the pet sitters associates program, we do not prohibit any specific kind of dog or any breed of dog. However, I do recommend that pet sitters follow the rules and regulations of their city, county and state. I personally love pit bulls. I have friends who have pit bulls, and I think they're wonderful dogs, but they are often the one that is targeted. So sometimes you see that like a village prohibits pitbulls and I would not recommend them that a pet sitter take care of a pitbull in that village because It's illegal for that dog to be there. You know, it's not going to prohibit your coverage because there's no exclusion. But I'm sort of a rule follower. So I feel like maybe you shouldn't be doing that because that dog is technically illegal. The same thing with Wolf hybrids. If you have that situation, you might want to look and see is that illegal dog to have in your city or county. The other thing about aggressive breed dogs is we talked about this earlier, I would recommend if you're working with an aggressive breed dog, to confirm with the client that they have a homeowner's policy that provides coverage for that dog. Because if that dog bites you as the pet sitter, and especially if it's a bad bite, your best course of action is going to be go back to your client and ask them to submit a claim under their homeowner's policy. And if their homeowner's policy specifically excludes their dog because of the breed, or because maybe that dog has a bite history themselves. Now you're really in a tough situation, and you're going to court and all of that stuff, you have to sue your client, very uncomfortable and awkward for everybody involved. So I would suggest that any kind of aggressive breed dog and those are typically pit bulls Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Akita does Dobermans, mastiffs. And there's probably others. I can't think of off the top of my head. But any kind of aggressive breed dog, I would recommend that you make sure that your client has a homeowner's policy that provides coverage and know what you asked about dogs. But I will take that a step further, if you're asked to work with an exotic pet, or with a farm animal. So our policy does provide coverage for farm animals as long as they are not consumed or sold for profit. It's totally okay if you have chickens in your backyard, and you as a family are eating the eggs, or even if you're giving the eggs away to people. But as soon as you take those eggs, and you're now selling them at the farmers market for profit, that's not really a pet anymore. The same thing with even if you've got a pet goat, and you're milking it for and you're drinking the goat milk yourself, it's fine. But if you're selling the goat milk, or if you've got towels and you're actually going to sell them for slaughter, those aren't pets anymore, now we're talking commercial farming situation. So we do provide coverage for some farm animals. But if you are asked to cover depicts it for a farm animal or an exotic animal like a monkey, you might want to make sure that the homeowner's policy provides coverage for that animal in case you get injured. I would also add to that the caveat, the caveat of if you are uncomfortable taking care of that pet, there is nothing wrong with saying no if you have no experience with monkeys, even though Believe me, I think it would be awesome to take care of a monkey. I have never worked with one I don't know where to start. I probably am not the right person to care for someone's monkey,
Collin 28:11
right again, knowing those limits and where you're comfortable in. And we've had we've had people reach out to us who are breeders who want us to take care of dogs to their breeding for sale of those pups. We've had people who have reached out to us we've had a couple trainers who train home defense dogs like dogo, argentinos and bucer ons and things like that where the dogs are bred and trained for these defense situations in those two dog breeders and trainers where the dogs are bred for not just working dogs, but like home defense or personal defense. What kind of questions do I need to ask about that? Or is that just a go back to the homeowners insurance policy to double check?
Colleen Giles-Harris 28:53
I do you think the homeowners insurance policy is a good place to start dogs that are being bred or show dogs or service dogs. The one thing you want to keep in mind is the limits of insurance that are available. And again, I'm talking pet sitters associate. So if you do not have insurance or pet sitters associates, make sure you look at your own policy. But a dog that's being bred if that dog dies, there could be considered a loss of income. So there's not just the value of the dog themselves. But is there a loss of income situation because this dog was being bred? Is that going to be covered? Or is that not going to be covered? Are the limits available enough? Do you want to purchase the higher limits if that's an option for you with your insurance? I mean, they would look at those kinds of things. The same thing with a service dog. Or if you you know a lot of times like a canine officer is obviously living with the Cuban police officer their handler and if you're asked to pets that that canine officer dog that's a pretty high valued animal. I mean, I think I think they're 20 30,000 Dogs dollars easily. You know, I've been involved in fundraisers and stuff like that for those kinds of things. So I do think maybe you'd want to stop. Do I have enough insurance if something bad happens to this police officer? Basically, because they're considered a police officer? The question, I'm the dogs that are being trained for home defense, I'm gonna be honest, that makes me very nervous. What if they bite you that dog is potentially has some aggressive nature to it? Yeah, we do not provide coverage for people who are doing that kind of training. Sure. So we do have an optional coverage that can be added on for dog trainers, but we specifically exclude dog trainers that train police dogs, attack dogs, guard dogs, that kind of thing. We are not covering that as a trainer. Yeah. So there's no exclusion in regards to petsitting those dogs. But it makes me nervous.
Collin 30:58
Oh, no, I thought of discussing with him and knowing that they're trained, and they're all great and whatever. But there was that thought in the back of my mind going, Yeah, but what if, right, they're trained for this exact scenario of Stranger in home at weird hours like that. So it's incumbent upon us as the business owners to think through the risk we're willing, that we personally are willing to take on it gets back to that training, the experience, and then what we're able to take on with the insurance policies and limits.
Colleen Giles-Harris 31:26
Exactly, I think that you do need to look at your own comfort level. And it really is okay to turn jobs down. I know that that's difficult in this economy to turn down a job and I get that. But if I'm a big believer in intuition, and if that little voice in your head is telling you that maybe this isn't the right thing for you, then maybe you should listen to that.
Collin 31:50
Have you heard of our friends at time to pet Claire from acting critter sitters has this to say
31:55
time to pet has honestly revolutionized how we do business. My sitters can work much more independently, because they have ongoing access to customer and pet information without relying on me, I save hours upon hours of administrative time on billing, processing payments and generating paychecks.
Collin 32:12
If you're looking for new pet selling software, give time to pet a try. Listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com/confessions. I know we're talking about care hear and kind of in policies are there are other requirements for policies that we need to be aware of for like minimum care requirements before that are necessary for us to take on a client or not. And I'm specifically thinking a lot about, like what like visits every 24 hours, or a lot of cat clients will ask us, can you come by every three days? Or those kinds of visits? Or what should we be thinking about from an insurance perspective when we get those requests?
Colleen Giles-Harris 32:55
So that's a great question, our policy does not go into that level of detail, because obviously every situation is going to be different. So we don't have anything actually in the policy wording that requires a certain number of visits in 24 hours. Especially because sometimes we have situations where pet sitters will split the job, and we'll talk I can talk about that a little bit too. But I would if if your client is asking you to come less frequently than what you feel you're the professional you have experienced as a pet sitter. So if they are asking you to come less frequently than what you feel is necessary. Again, maybe turn the job down. If you really feel like this is not the best thing for the animal, the animals should come first in my mind. But if let's say they want you as a cat, and they say we only want you to come once every 24 hours or once every other day, I would recommend getting that in writing. I'm a big proponent of documentation. And if you have something in writing from the owner, stating the fluffy only needs to be checked on once every 48 hours. If something happens during the 48 hours that you were not there, I think it's pretty easy to say that that's not your fault. You came when they were You were told to come. It's not really your fault. That's something that fluffy fell down the stairs and laid there for a day because no one checked on it. You were following the guidelines. So I would recommend that if you are asked to split a job, either with another professional pet sitter or with like a neighbor or family member. Again, you want to get that in writing. So let's say that the situation where they want you to come at lunchtime, and then the neighbor kid is going to come in the evening. You want to get something in writing from the owner stating exactly who was coming when and what the requirements are of each individual person. And then everyone involved should have a copy of that documentation. So that if you come at noon and you're not coming again until the next day at noon, if something happens in between those two visits? Again, you have the documentation to show, is that really my fault? Because that neighbor kid was supposed to come at six o'clock. And that's not really my fault anymore. Oh, I think having that kind of documentation can be really good. The same thing, if you know there's going to be another person accessing the house, if they're going to have a cleaning service coming in during the day, or if they have contractors or construction happening during the day, when you're sitting, having that in writing can really help. Should something happen?
Collin 35:32
Well, I want to stick with the documenting documentation process here. So in that in that scenario, would would text messaging suffice? As long as we save those or screenshot those and put them somewhere? Or does this need to be a formal letter email? What makes good documentation as a business for these kinds of things?
Colleen Giles-Harris 35:52
Well, the more documentation, the better. Again, I'm not a lawyer. So I don't really know in a court of law, you know, Judge Judy always wants everything to be signed, right? So it probably wouldn't hurt if it's actually part of your contract, if you want it to be signed, or if it's part of your contract that's being amended. So maybe the last time you had the contract with the person, it was your traditional contract. And then the next time they said, We're gonna have the neighbor kid come in the afternoon, we actually I would recommend amending the contract and having it resigned. Because I think that could help if it's actually like a contractual thing. I think text messages are better than nothing. And I'm certainly not going to go to the level of saying that everything that you talk about needs to be signed. But if there's text messages that you send a text, they reply confirming, you want to keep those screenshots, or whatever you need to do. Emails, the same thing, make sure you keep those emails, you know, that sort of the rule of thumb and law is seven years because someone could come back seven years later, and sue you. Yeah, I don't know if you need to keep stuff for seven years or not. That's sort of the traditional rule of thumb for tax documents and all that kind of stuff. So probably wouldn't hurt. Someone might come back and sue you later. Typically, if an animal was hurt, you know about it within a couple of years. I know pretty fast.
Collin 37:18
Yeah. Well, yeah, I'd say,
Colleen Giles-Harris 37:21
lawsuits that come in late. I mean, just a couple months ago, we had a lawsuit that came in for an incident that happened a couple of years ago, where the dog had had injured somebody on the sidewalk, the pet sitter didn't really think that the person had been injured that badly. They exchanged contact information, they never heard anything ever again. So the pet sitter didn't submit a claim. And then, two years later, the injured parties sued the dog owner, who then in turn came back to the pet center. So you do want to keep stuff for a while. And that's, I mean, honestly, it's a rarity, that it's two years later, but it does happen. So it's good to have that documentation. And you know, keep it for a while.
Collin 38:03
Because, you know, know what happens if it was a minor bite, and then two years a year goes by, and all of a sudden, they have, you know, their trouble having trouble with their hand, or that's it's painful. And it's a lot of these things can manifest years down the line. And then somebody goes, Oh, didn't that didn't get bit by that dog one time and they go, Oh, my gosh, you're right. And it can go from there. So keeping things having things with timestamps and date stamps, you know, it's one thing about photos, I love to take photos, but I know, you can mess with metadata on photos even so here's where that little bit of paranoia comes in, of what's something in the photo with a date and timestamp that, that that is going to be there. So that I can prove when the damage took place, how it happened and everything like that two,
Colleen Giles-Harris 38:41
photos are great. I get very confused by the technology of how people can manipulate the photos. But I do think that if a claim occurs, taking photos and getting witness statements, getting contact information from everybody who was around, that's really important. So like, if you have a dog bite incident at a dog park, you want to make sure that you get the contact information for anybody who was a witness, because that could come in handy later, maybe we'll never need to talk to that person. But maybe we will. So get their name and phone number. Take photos. If the dog damages something inside the client's house or you break something inside the client's house. snap a quick photo. You know, we all have cameras on her phone, take a quick picture. Especially if the you know the owner comes home and they throw that item away. And they're like, Oh, do you get to replace that teapot? You broke? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't have a photo of it. Or what kind of teapot was it? Oh, I threw it away. Um, okay. So are they clean something up right away, you know, you spilled something on their rug. And you know, if they call you three months later and say oh, by the way, I had to hire a professional cleaner to come and clean that I want you to reimburse me. Well, maybe having a picture of that initial damage would come in handy.
Collin 39:57
I think about that a lot for dogs who have diarrhea. on carpet of going, we need to take a before and after photo, not just one photo, but from multiple angles with lights on with lights off to document, how much cleaning was done, what was the state of it when we left, and then sending that to the client at that time to can help a lot so that I know, just for us, we don't want people to be surprised about things that they walk into if we say, oh, there was a mess, but we got to clean? Well, my definition of clean is very different than a lot of people's definition of clean. So I want you to set those expectations early so that we can have that conversation before they arrive. And what could need to be necessary to move forward on.
40:35
That's very smart.
Collin 40:36
Now, I did want to ask about this, because we kind of talking about like exceptions and things like that. And I do see a lot of business owners who kind of use insurance as a scapegoat for denying coverage or not denying coverage, but denying service to clients. So they'll say things like, Oh, I'm not going to Job share, or have somebody come in because my insurance doesn't allow it when really, they're just saying that because they don't like that, or they don't like the policy. And so I was curious about kind of what this does is an industry as far as damaging people's perceptions, or how that shapes people's perceptions of an industry when we do that kind of
Colleen Giles-Harris 41:18
practice? That's a good question. I'll be honest, I have recommended to people that they use that as an excuse sometimes, you know, because maybe they are uncomfortable admitting that they're scared of pitbulls, you know, so if you don't want to admit that to the person, or you're scared of their monkey, and you want to use the excuse that your insurance doesn't cover it, and the clients never going to call and ask us. So there's part of me that says, that's fine. You know, if you want to use that as a scapegoat of why you can't take that job, I don't really think that it hurts the industry, the petsitting industry or the insurance industry, because I think that sometimes people are just, they don't want to hurt someone's feelings, you know, so I kind of get it. But at the same time, I tend to be like an Uber honest person. So I would personally be more likely to just say, I'm uncomfortable with that. I don't like the idea of job sharing, because I'm not then in control of the situation. It's just not something I'm comfortable with, it would be better if you talked to another pet sitting business, and I can give you some recommendations, I have some friends, maybe reach out to them and see how they feel about it. Or maybe, hey, I can do the job sharing, but only if the other person is my friend because I know them and trust them. Or it might be with the monkey or the pit ball or something. Just be honest, I know pupils are wonderful dogs, and I know that it's a stereotype but I'm nervous about them. Or I'm nervous that your dog is just so large and strong that it's going to pull me over, then it just makes me nervous. I'm sure that your dog is wonderful. But I'm not the right pet sitter for you. I tend to be a very honest person. But I also can understand where maybe you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. You know.
Collin 43:10
And we've we've we've said that as well, we I mean, we've went but mostly when we knew for a fact that our insurance excluded certain things of going, this is not something that we can take on a because we're not comfortable. But also we try and give multiple examples of this. It's when people say things like, Oh, it doesn't cover this. And it's like, Well, did you read your insurance policy? And like, well, I have no idea like, well that I would do that first, instead of just taking someone else's word for it. Because that can also propagate. If people here insurance doesn't cover certain things, and they just assume there's doesn't either. So they deny service to these people, when maybe other things could come up. So I think just just really knowing your policy is the best place to start. So you can with confidence, say when or when it doesn't apply?
Colleen Giles-Harris 43:55
Yeah, and I do think that using that excuse, which again, I'll be honest, I have told people, it's fine to say that, if that makes you more comfortable in this situation. I think that the challenge of that is, is if you advertise on your website, that you're a member of a certain Association, or that you get your insurance or somebody now your client, they're going to believe you that your insurance doesn't cover it. And now maybe they're not going to reach out to another pet sitter in your area because their website shows the same insurance. So you've just lost the job for somebody else who maybe would have been comfortable taking it. But the your client just assumes that they're going to have the same problem. Right. So I do think that that could be a negative impact of you know, telling that little said
Collin 44:45
we have to be cognizant of that of just the broader implications for a lot of this stuff in our actions both as a as a company, how that impacts the the industry, but also how our actions impact the services that we're sending to the clients and you've mentioned a word can come up a couple of times now of negligence. And I am curious about what, when is something deemed negligent? Is that reflective on our training or background? Or? Or how is that really defined through the claims process?
Colleen Giles-Harris 45:17
Well, negligence is that you, there's a duty of care that you, as a professional are expected to have in that situation. And if you did not have that duty of care, oftentimes you're deemed negligent? Or if some other ways of looking at it are, what would a prudent or reasonable person have done in that situation? If they would have done something different than you? Maybe there's some negligence, if there's something that you could have done differently, that would have prevented that claim? That might be some negligence on your part. So that's kind of an easier way to look at it. Usually, when I'm explaining to like our summer interns how negligence works, I just simply say, Did you do something wrong? Or is there something you could have done differently, then there's probably some negligence in that situation, I think that's sort of the easiest way to look at it. From an insurance perspective, the negligence piece of it's important, but really more important is are you liable? So are you legally responsible for what happened? So maybe a an example to look at is my dog personally has torn both of her ACL. So I have a lot of experience with that. And it's one of the most common claims that we see are ACL tears. So if you're walking a client dog on the sidewalk, and the dog steps down off of the curb, they just stepped down funny, and they tear their ACL. Is that your fault? Did you do anything wrong? Is there anything you could have done differently to have prevented that injury? Probably not. I mean, I'm basing this on a hypothetical scenario. But you probably aren't negligent, there, probably nothing you did wrong, that caused that ACL tear. So within the pet sitters or associates program, because we have that automatic $1,000 of coverage that does not require negligence, you might still get $1,000 of coverage to help that client dog. Again, that's not going to be in every insurance policies that's special to pet sitters associates, not all policies have that. But if you're not negligent, they're only going to get that coverage or nothing depending on your policy. But let's say that same ACL situation happens while you were playing fetch in the client's backyard, and you throw the ball way too high, and the dog does one of those crazy jumps that dogs do, and then lands funny and tears his ACL. Although maybe there's some negligence, maybe you weren't being responsible in that situation, because you threw the ball too high for that dog to catch. You should know how to do that better your professional. Okay, hypothetical claim every claim is going to be paid based on the individual circumstances involved in that specific situation. There's my disclaimer. But hypothetically, there might be some negligence in that situation, because you threw the ball too high. So you're going to potentially get more insurance coverage. And I know, it sounds really weird that you get more insurance, if you're a negligent because some people feel like, you know, that's an odd an odd thing. But like I said, insurance usually requires negligence for there to be liability, and therefore, for there to be coverage. So you need to look at it from the perspective of both negligence and liability, more so than anything else.
Collin 48:50
So is there an increasing expectation on people as we become more more trained, more certifications, more more experience of well, is that I guess, is that applied differently to somebody who's been doing this for 10 years and has a bunch of letters after their name versus somebody who's just started?
Colleen Giles-Harris 49:12
Oh, that's a really good question. I don't know. I'd have to look back at actual claims and see how much that impacted things. But I do think from a perspective of, you're a professional, and if you are describing yourself as an expert in something, be that petsitting or something else, if you're an expert masonry contractor, there is a higher level of expectation in the work that you're going to do. If I hire, you know, some guy that's been doing masonry work for, you know, six months to put in my new sidewalk, versus the guy who is advertising himself as an expert and has a whole bunch of letters after his name. There is a higher level of expectation of that other guy, because he's been doing them a long time. So I do think the same thing could be said about pet sitters, you know, I don't know that it's necessarily the years in business, or if it's, you know, accreditations or classes that you've taken. But I do think that there is a level of care that is expected. A professional pet sitter, I definitely feel like I personally would have higher expectations of you, Colin taking care of my dog, than if I asked my daughter to do it. You know, she's not a professional pet sitter, she's doing me a favor. One, I wouldn't do that. Because I want professional pet sitter. I have a higher level of expectation from you, because you have experience, you own a business, you're a professional.
Collin 50:42
Yeah. And that's something for us to remember as well, again, of where this where that expectation, but I love that word expectations of we have through our marketing through our experience through our training, that raises the expectation of us, which means that there are more scrutinizing eyes on us and our work and our business. And whether it's the mr. own ball, or whether it's a little details throughout the house, that expectation that people view us more more harshly, I think when when we are putting ourselves out there that way. And that's another reason to make sure that we have everything lined out and that we are doing our best to meet and exceed those expectations. But also having the insurance to cover when when we fall short or when things happen. And to make sure that we are covered.
Colleen Giles-Harris 51:25
Everybody buys insurance, hoping that you never need it. Right you buy your auto insurance hoping you never have a car accident, you buy your homeowners insurance, hoping you never have a fire or a dog bite, or someone fall on your front steps. You know, we all buy insurance hoping that you ever never ever, ever need it. But you have to have it for not only the peace of mind, but sometimes it's a requirement. So some cities require pet sitters to have insurance or some parks, you know, in the Marin County area of California, which is the San Francisco area. If you are professional pet sitter and you are walking the dog in a city park, you are required to have insurance and they actually require that you provide proof of insurance. So different areas are different and those requirements. But yeah, that's definitely I have a lot of anxiety when I find out people who don't have insurance, you know, taking us back to the beginning of the conversation. We're like, Oh, my only take care of my friends and family know, my insurance. You need it. It's not that expensive either. I mean, like the pet sitters associates basic insurance, if all you're doing is traditional pet sitting and dog walking, and you don't need any of the extra ala carte options, it's less than $200.
Collin 52:38
Yeah, it's when you put into perspective of $200 a year for coverage, or 10s of 1000s of dollars out of your pocket for an accident or a bite or something like that, or even or even more than that. I know just touching back on people asking you for it. And we've been asked by apartment buildings and assisted living facilities, the to provide our insurance policy to them because we are operating on their property and they want to know who's there that they're covered that they are not taking on liability, because from their perspective, we are now we are foreigners in their homes, and they don't know who we are. And they need to know that we are accepting the liability and it's not on them now because they don't want that. So just having that on hand to provide them also helps elevate you as well, when people can ask or maybe they don't ask, and you can say hey, I'll go ahead and email you my insurance policy. So you know, and you have that peace of mind as well.
Colleen Giles-Harris 53:35
Absolutely. And personally, as a consumer, I like to ask her confirmation of insurance, my husband's really embarrassed when I asked the contractors for proof of insurance. But hey, they're coming on my property, they're putting a new roof on the house, I want to make sure they've got proper insurance in place. Something that I would encourage, I assume the majority of your listeners are pet sitters. But if you have pet sitting clients or just animal lovers who are listening as well, I do recommend that you ask your pet sitter or pet care provider for proof of insurance. It's if they get grumpy about it, that should be a red flag.
Collin 54:15
Well, and I think for one of those reasons is just the claim amounts in what what claims can happen. So I would like to get some idea from you about maybe how claim amounts have changed over the years to give some idea of what exactly we're talking about kind of where where this can end up.
Colleen Giles-Harris 54:33
The cost of everything has gone up. So veterinarian costs have gone up the cost to get something cleaned or fixed have gone up. So just inflation in general, the fact we all know we're all dealing with inflation right now at the grocery store and at the gas station. And that's also impacting the cost of claims. The we see such a wide variety of claims. You know, some of them are a couple $100 to To take the dog to the vet to get them checked out, maybe they sniffed up a foxtail in their nose, or they, you know, ate something out on a walk that they shouldn't eat, that's usually only a couple $100, right. But if the dog needs surgery, maybe they ate something that's now stuck in their intestines, and they need for long surgery, or they tear that ACL, or they something like that, that can be 1000s of dollars easily. Because of the limits of insurance that are available for the animals, you know, we max out so you know, the most rubber gonna pay is 15,000 or 25,000 update, purchase the expanded coverage for the animals themselves. So those are the maximums, the bigger claims that we see are going to be on the side of the property damage or the bodily injury. So some of the bigger claims that we've seen are things like a pet sitter was told to not use a specific bathroom, in the person's apartment use this bathroom, not that bathroom, and they use the incorrect bathroom. The toilet floods, causes flooding damages that apartment, plus the apartment below. And that can be 10s of 1000s of dollars easily, right. So that kind of thing. Or we see something, the worst ones usually are bodily injury. So when a dog bite to a third party person, those can get very large, very fast. And again, sometimes they're only a couple $100, a couple $1,000. And they're not that bad. But if the bike gets infected, or if they have to go to the hospital via ambulance, they need stitches, they miss work, they have to have physical therapy, they have scarring. So now that there's that issue, or they need plastic surgery, those can get into the hundreds of 1000s of dollars. One of our largest claims to date was a few years ago, actually, probably almost 10 years ago now. But the pet sitter was walking in the client dog, and an older lady was on the sidewalk, and the client dog didn't even make eye contact with her. But the dog jumped up, startled the third party woman, she slipped, tripped on the curb, fell and hit her head. And there was a brain damage issue. She was in like a medically induced coma for a while it was really, really bad. And the dog didn't even touch her. But, and ended up in a court situation. And it ended up being I want to say it was like $1.6 million is what the settlement was. And ended up being split 5050 between the pet sitter and the homeowner's policy of the dog owner. So our policy paid $800,000 for the injuries to that woman. And then the homeowners policy paid $800,000. And this is a little advertisement for a personal umbrella. If you have your own homeowner's policy, you might want to look and see what your limits of insurance are for injuries. If you're if your dog bites somebody, if your homeowner's policy only provides you with say $500,000 of coverage, you might want to look at seeing if you can increase those limits. Or if you can purchase a personal umbrella or access policy that will increase those limits so that you have more insurance for that or for a car accident. So I'm getting off topic a little bit, but I'm an insurance professional. So on a personal note, you might want to look at your personal insurance and make sure that you've got proper insurance in place to protect your personal assets in a car accident or something like that as well.
Collin 58:46
Yeah, well, while we're sitting here talking about protecting our business, we need to make sure that our personal life is also covered as well. So it's always a good reminder to it no matter what time of year is to double check your insurance, whether for business or personal. What's changed over those years do that good review of Have I not just for the business? Have I added services, chain services taking on different kinds of dogs and my specializing in something, but personally have I got a dog? I've got rid of a dog? Am I moved? Have I What have I done in my life?
Colleen Giles-Harris 59:14
That yeah, did you put in a swimming pool or buy a trampoline? Did your is your kid now driving? Yeah, and all those things. And, you know, insurance policies on a personal basis can change too. So you want to make sure that you look at your insurance policy when it comes in the mail to see if suddenly there's a new exclusion on there. Suddenly, your pit bull is excluded. You want to make sure that you're aware of that kind of change on your personal insurance and that you can look for other options for yourself.
Collin 59:42
Yeah, this discussion about about policy amounts and filling out claims and stuff. I think it's a perfect segue into a question about when we should be concerned to being dropped from coverage. I see a lot of people who go I don't want to turn that in. I don't want to file a claim because I don't want to be dropped, I'm worried about being dropped as a client or being dropped for coverage. How from from from US business owners? Is how, how do we navigate that of needing to file claim or wanting to file claim, but also being worried about being dropped from coverage?
Colleen Giles-Harris 1:00:18
I absolutely understand that concern. I think we've all had a fender bender that we've paid out of pocket because we didn't want to submit it to our auto insurance, right? I think that's a pretty common thing where you just you don't want to worry about it. So you just pay for it, I totally get it. Every insurance company is going to be different. So again, I'm talking about pet sitters associates. But we do not have a three strikes in your out type of policy. When we non renew somebody, it's very subjective. I look at a variety of things, I look at how long you've been a member, how many claims you've had, how far apart they're close together? Where are they? Is there a pattern of negligence? Are they larger claims? Are they smaller claims, I get less concerned about like a small lost key claim, than I am concerned about a whole bunch of dog fights at your dog daycare, you know, if there's a pattern that starts making me think that this frequency issue is going to eventually create a severity issue, then I sometimes do have to look at non renewing you. And it's not something I enjoy doing. I don't like non renewing people, I feel like I'm firing someone, and I hate doing it. But I have to protect the program as a whole. So if I do have a member who I feel like has had excessive claims, and again, that's very subjective, I will send out a letter to them non renewing them. If you get that letter in the mail, and you don't understand why you're being non renewed, you can always call and talk to me and I will say this, in any case, did you get non renewed by your insurance company, call your insurance agent and ask why? You know, sometimes there's some wiggle room in it. I don't change my mind very often. But I have changed my mind. I remember non renewing someone a few years ago, and they called and they said, well, the claims that were involved, all involved, these two employees who no longer has, okay, so you know, let's reconsider this, though, never hurts to call and have that conversation, please don't call and yell at me. That's not how you're gonna get me to change my mind if you call and yell at me and call me bad names. But, you know, if you want to have a conversation never hurts. But it's hard to say what a person should do. If you know you've already had multiple claims, and it's something small, and you want to pay it out of pocket, I can understand wanting to do that. You know, but I also can understand, I mean, that's why you have insurance is to have claims, and something that might seem small. Now, if there's a possibility of becoming bigger, you don't want to pay a claim that could potentially become an issue later, because that caused a problem that you initially paid it. So it's one thing of like, you broke a vase at the pets at the client's house, and you're just gonna buy them a new base, that's probably not going to escalate into something more. But if the client dog bit the neighbor, you probably don't want to pay for their medical bills, because that could get worse. So I definitely any bodily injury claim, I think should be submitted regardless of the size, because that could become something way, way worse. Any bodily injury claim. I'm gonna say that, again, any bodily injury claim should get submitted to your insurance company. Yeah, I probably would say 99% of the animal injury claims should be submitted to them. Again, I can understand if you've had other claims, and you're concerned about it. But those also can become something more you think it's just a sprained knee. And now it's an ACL tear. You know, it's probably better to submit it. Yeah, maybe that, you know, broken item. If you're not, that's probably not going to escalate. But that's why you have insurance. So
Collin 1:04:02
yeah. Well, you said that phrase, you're trying to make sure that a frequency issue doesn't turn into a severity issue. I think that's an amazing perspective to view our business, how it operates and what is happening, because if you are submitting tons of claims, you really need to take a moment to sit down and ask what's going on? Why is this? Is it the two but is it is it the employees that I have working here? Is it our particular clients where issues just seem to come up out of nowhere? Look for those patterns, to protect yourself? Like that? That's where we need to be thinking of first and foremost first and primary of importance is, is there more I can be doing is there more training, oversight, it limits of of services that we offer, whatever that is. So it doesn't get to that point, but that the onus is on us really at that point to go, what is going on and ask those hard questions and look for changes that we need to make
Colleen Giles-Harris 1:05:00
In our industry, we call that risk management. So you want to look at the situation and see is there something I could be doing better to prevent this from happening again, I personally would look at every accident, every claim as a learning opportunity. You know, some accidents just happen. And there's nothing you could have done to prevent this, even if you made a mistake. You know, even if you weren't negligent stuff, stuff happens, right? Don't beat yourself up about it. Everyone has claims and it happens. But I would if you see the same thing happening over and over, or you feel like, we see claims where sometimes somebody accidentally gave a cat too much insulin. Or maybe you need to have better training on how to give insulin. Or maybe that's something that if you're not comfortable with doing, maybe you shouldn't be doing that anymore. So maybe having that risk management comm talk with yourself. And you know, it's a lot of self awareness, in which not everybody has, you know, being able to look at yourself and self critique yourself on how you can improve things.
Collin 1:06:08
Yeah. Or maybe man I have. I've had six dogs this year that might that I walked out of all head ACL injuries. What is it? What let's look at the breed of dogs look at the age of the dogs, but look at where we're walking, how we're walking, let's just ask those questions. And and limit where necessary. And that's like you said, that's, that's where that risk management comes in. And we do that every day, whether we call it risk management in our brains or not, I'm calling and I'm sure that you just have risk management signs all over when you're thinking about stuff. But most of us go, oh, I don't want to do that anymore. Because I felt weird about that. That was risk management. When you didn't take on that client. You said something was weird. And applying that in a more direct cognitive manner is where we start improves a lot of stuff about our businesses.
Colleen Giles-Harris 1:06:58
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that having that reflection is a good thing. You know, it's sort of I'm really worn off on my husband over the years, when we first started dating, every time I would see a rug that was flipped over at a store, I would stop and I'd fix it because that's a slip and fall hazard, right? I don't want someone to trip over that and hurt themselves. And after we'd been married for a few years, I started noticing that he was doing that drained you now.
Collin 1:07:34
That's great, more safe places. And you're so so pro tip follow Colleen and her husband as they travel around and you will avoid slip? No, I'm kidding. Think that's just those little habits that we build. And then we can educate others and clients and other centers in our area. And that's how we all get better is doing little things like that. Colleen, I know we have talked about a lot. And I really want to thank you for your time today and for sharing about how we can be better at understanding our risk management decrypting parts of our policies, and knowing when we need to really look at increasing limits and what that means for our businesses. But again, this is a big, big topic. And there's a lot involved here. So how can people get in touch with you ask follow up questions, or just just see where they stand with their insurance.
Colleen Giles-Harris 1:08:23
The best place to start for pet sitters associates would be their website, which is pet set llc.com. Again, that's pet sit llc.com. There's a lot of great information on the insurance options page, as well as the FAQ page. If there's any questions on there that you have more questions about, you can certainly reach out to Elizabeth at PSA headquarters. She's their office manager typically available from 11 to three, and she can be reached via email at info at Pet fit llc.com. If you have a specific insurance question, either if you are a member of pet sitters associates or not, you can certainly give me a call. My direct dial number is 715-852-1282. Again, that's 715-852-1282. I'm typically available from 730 to 430. central time, I'm happy to talk with you about your insurance coverage. I certainly will encourage you to join pet sitters associate that's the one I work with. But as an insurance professional, I'm always helping to try to give you some guidance if necessary.
Collin 1:09:34
Wonderful Colleen and I'll have those in the show notes and on the website so people can click right to those calling. Again. As always, thank you so much. This has been this has been such a pleasure.
Colleen Giles-Harris 1:09:45
Thank you, Colin anytime.
Collin 1:09:46
The key to getting the most out of your insurance is to know your business. understand deeply the services that you want to offer to the clients that you're after. Depending on those to things, your insurance will change, and the needs of your insurance will change and adapt over time as your company evolves. So always have your finger on the pulse of what you're offering and how you're offering it and to whom the offering is being made. And then that way you make sure you're always covered. And these kinds of questions come up. So no matter who you're using for insurance, come to them and explain to them in detail the kind of company that you're running, the kind of services that you're offering, and actually see if you're as covered as you think you are, because I know from lots of experience, and from talking with a lot of people that you'll be surprised about the exclusions that come up in this kind of service and in this industry. We want to thank today's sponsor, timed pet for making today's show possible. And thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend. We'll be back again soon.
