Article & Content Library

As political tensions remain high, employers may increasingly encounter workers who want to wear pins, shirts or other items expressing political or social views.

A recent National Labor Relations Board ruling provides important guidance on when private employers may enforce dress codes that restrict such messaging.

California has approved a statewide Zone 0 wildfire standard that establishes requirements to reduce combustible materials immediately around homes and commercial buildings in areas with elevated wildfire risk.

Zone 0 covers the first five feet around a structure, an area that can play an outsized role in whether a home ignites during a wildfire. Research has found that maintaining an ember-resistant area around a home can significantly increase its chances of surviving a wildfire.

If you live in a wildfire-prone area, you'll want to bone up on these new rules to help secure insurance coverage and avoid state penalties.

The "Monday morning surprise" — the term for when an employee approaches you on the first morning of the working week to report an injury he or she sustained at work on Friday — can be a dreaded situation for an employer.

The Monday morning surprise comes with several questions. Is the injury truly work-related?

Could it be a case of cumulative effects? Was this an injury sustained over the weekend, on the employee's personal time? Do you have evidence to prove it?

While your house is probably well covered by homeowner's insurance, does the same apply to other structures such as a gazebo or a deck?

Find out before something happens how well your policy protects the valuable structures on your property besides your house. Here's what you need to know. 

Whether you own and insure your office or other business property, or insure the office or building you rent, you will obviously want to make sure that you have an automatic sprinkler system or some other fire detection or suppression system in place in case of fire.

But what happens if there's a fire in your building and your sprinkler system fails? Well, when you make your insurance claim you could be in for a nasty surprise if your policy contains this clause.

Artificial intelligence is supposed to save employees time by taking mundane tasks off their plates and helping them work more efficiently. But a new study suggests workers are spending nearly as much time supervising AI as they spend getting useful work out of it.

The report found that employees spend 37% of their AI-related time "botsitting" — checking AI's output, correcting errors, rerunning prompts and providing missing context. What should an employer do?

Older commercial buildings can offer character, desirable locations and architectural features that newer properties often cannot match. But as these buildings age, they can also become more difficult and expensive to insure, particularly if they are historic buildings located in an older part of town.

Insurers typically look closely at a building's condition, maintenance history and critical systems when deciding whether to offer coverage and at what price. Deferred maintenance, outdated electrical or plumbing systems, aging roofs and structural concerns can increase the likelihood and cost of a claim.

Rapidly rising commercial building construction costs could leave your facility underinsured if you haven't increased your insurance policy's replacement cost limits lately.

Your policy has a maximum amount it will pay to rebuild your building, and that limit should reflect current construction costs. Otherwise, the policy may not cover the full cost of rebuilding after a total loss, such as a fire that destroys your facility. Whatever the insurance doesn't cover, you would have to pay out of pocket.

Helping someone else can make their day a little better. It may also do something good for your own health.

Research on giving and volunteerism suggests that helping others may support mental and physical well-being. Volunteering can provide a sense of purpose, create opportunities to be active and help people build social connections, all while strengthening their communities.

And giving does not have to mean writing a check.

Commercial drivers are facing a more stressful and unpredictable environment on U.S. roads as distraction, reckless driving and unsafe behavior around large vehicles increase, according to a new survey.

The survey found that 77% of commercial drivers believe passenger-vehicle drivers are more distracted than they were a year ago.

For businesses that operate fleets or employ commercial drivers, the findings underscore the importance of driver training, safety technology and engaged management, all of which help employees manage risks they cannot always control.

A federal appeals court has struck down a Fed-OSHA rule requiring employers to record certain work-related mental illnesses, a significant change that human resources and safety managers should watch closely.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled July 21 that the Occupational Safety and Health Act does not give OSHA the authority to require employers to record work-related mental illnesses on OSHA Forms 300 and 301. What does this mean for employers that post these forms every year?

As storms become more frequent and severe, more areas once considered safe from flooding are now exposed.

Many homeowners, condo owners and renters in an area that's considered low risk by the Federal Emergency Management Agency may not have flood insurance. However, if a residence floods, standard homeowner's, condo owner's or renter's insurance will not cover the damage because flooding is specifically excluded from coverage.