Cleaning Business Life
Episode #55 - Costly Slip-The Importance of Liability Insurance with your Cleaning Business
Have you ever wondered what happens when a simple cleaning job goes disastrously wrong? Picture this: a beautiful chandelier crashing to the ground, leading to a staggering $45,000 claim. Join me, alongside the insightful Kimberly Gonzalez, as we unravel the world of liability insurance and the often overlooked, yet vital role it plays in safeguarding your cleaning business. From sharing my nerve-wracking personal stories to discussing best practices, we delve into how to protect your assets and keep both employees and clients out of harm's way.
Safety is no accident, and in this heart-to-heart, we tackle the nitty-gritty of safety protocols, from the handling of hefty furniture to the specific dos and don'ts of product usage on various household surfaces. Who knew that something as simple as a misplaced oven cleaner could strip away a countertop's finish or that expensive appliances and pets could be at risk from certain chemicals? We've got the lowdown on how to navigate these dangers with care, as well as how to approach cleaning homes that house high-value items with the precision and respect they require.
Wrapping things up, we can't help but chuckle at the oddities of insurance policies, like why your landlocked cleaning business might be covered for marine accidents – go figure! Despite the laughter, we know that the topic of insurance is no joke. We ensure you walk away with an understanding of when it's wise to file a claim, the difference between accidental damage and negligence, and why having an emergency fund can save you from hiking up your premiums. So, why not pull up a chair (carefully, of course) and join our conversation? It's an episode packed with humor, cautionary tales, and indispensable advice for anyone with a mop, a mission, and a business to protect.
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Questions? Feel free to reach out!
Kimberly Gonzales: info@purevergreen.com
Shannon Miller: cleaningbusinesslife@gmail.com
Join my FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1583362158497744
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIjMz_-9YyiFvNVIgb61iYg
To order All-Natural Cleaning Products: www.PÜREvergreen.com
See Shannon's latest courses: www.KleanFreaksUnversity.com
Have you ever wondered what happens when a simple cleaning job goes disastrously wrong? Picture this: a beautiful chandelier crashing to the ground, leading to a staggering $45,000 claim. Join me, alongside the insightful Kimberly Gonzalez, as we unravel the world of liability insurance and the often overlooked, yet vital role it plays in safeguarding your cleaning business. From sharing my nerve-wracking personal stories to discussing best practices, we delve into how to protect your assets and keep both employees and clients out of harm's way.
Safety is no accident, and in this heart-to-heart, we tackle the nitty-gritty of safety protocols, from the handling of hefty furniture to the specific dos and don'ts of product usage on various household surfaces. Who knew that something as simple as a misplaced oven cleaner could strip away a countertop's finish or that expensive appliances and pets could be at risk from certain chemicals? We've got the lowdown on how to navigate these dangers with care, as well as how to approach cleaning homes that house high-value items with the precision and respect they require.
Wrapping things up, we can't help but chuckle at the oddities of insurance policies, like why your landlocked cleaning business might be covered for marine accidents – go figure! Despite the laughter, we know that the topic of insurance is no joke. We ensure you walk away with an understanding of when it's wise to file a claim, the difference between accidental damage and negligence, and why having an emergency fund can save you from hiking up your premiums. So, why not pull up a chair (carefully, of course) and join our conversation? It's an episode packed with humor, cautionary tales, and indispensable advice for anyone with a mop, a mission, and a business to protect.
Top 1% Podcast About Influencer Marketing, Creator Economy, Social Commerce and more.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Coaching Conversations in 2024In 2024 we're going to be going to monthly themes and I would also encourage you to...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
MAHD House Bar TalkJimmy and Gito just talking about things going around at MAHD House Bar & Grille...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Questions? Feel free to reach out!
Kimberly Gonzales: info@purevergreen.com
Shannon Miller: cleaningbusinesslife@gmail.com
Join my FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1583362158497744
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIjMz_-9YyiFvNVIgb61iYg
To order All-Natural Cleaning Products: www.PÜREvergreen.com
See Shannon's latest courses: www.KleanFreaksUnversity.com
This show is brought to you by the Maids Network. Want to get serious in your cleaning game? Join my group. It's one of the larger Facebook groups just for cleaning business owners. I look forward to seeing you there. Welcome back, everyone. Welcome to Cleaning Business Life. Today, I am with my wonderful co-host, Ms Kimberly Gonzalez, and we are going to talk about what should happen should you need to file an insurance claim or if or when you should file an insurance claim, and I hope to God you know both Kim and I strongly suggest that you carry at least general liability insurance.
Speaker 1:Please don't come to us later after you've had a blunder and go. What do I do?
Speaker 2:I'm laughing because it's like like I would hear it all the time, like, oh, I don't have insurance, or I can't afford insurance, and I'm like you cannot afford not to have insurance for your business. Like that should be like. Once you get your LLC or you start your business, that should be the first thing on your list.
Speaker 1:Budget for it. Yes, Please don't tell me you can't afford it because you're not going to be able to afford the first thing on your list. Budget for it. Yes, Please don't tell me you can't afford it because you're not going to be able to afford the claim and the firing and the suing that happens after because you chose not to have. And legitimately it's still pretty affordable considering what it does cover. It's five or six hundred bucks for the year. Think about that down into monthly payments. I'd be what? 50 or 60 bucks a month, I mean it's not too terrible right now and you think about.
Speaker 2:Let's say you go to a job and you the job, like you're going to make, let's say $200, even 150 to 200, let's say $200, $200 for that clean, and you break something and that was over $400. Like, let's say you broke the sliding glass door. Let's say you broke the shower door or something that was big. Think about that, Like that's your whole check right there. So always be prepared for having your insurance, because it may cost you more than what your insurance payments are.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:And every time we bring up insurance and I know I've brought this story up before. I think of the person who was in the older house and the homeowner wanted her to get the spiderweb that was hanging off the chandelier. And the chandelier was from the seventies and it had these really long panes. It was a beautiful, like art deco piece. It could have been older than the 70s but in any case it wasn't secured to the ceiling very well. It had been sitting there probably 50 years and she inadvertently hit it at the right angle with the high duster and the whole thing came down. Now, hypothetically, we can go over the mechanics of that. And no, it probably wasn't the cleaner who caused it to fall. It just happened to be that she touched it, so she was blamed. But then the the chandelier fell straight down 20 to 25 feet and down to the bottom of the stairs and they had mirrored foyer landings that went up the stairs. So it's it's a long cylinder, um chandelier. It hits the ground, several pieces impale the stairs and everything else, but then they bounce off of the floor and they impale the mirrors, um, that are on the bottom in the landing and one of them actually impaled one of the workers who was supporting the ladder. She got impaled right here in her shoulder, missed her lung, thankfully, and all of this for a spider web. It ended up being like a forty thousand dollar claim and I you know, thank god, she you know in a workman's comp claim the person had to have emergency surgery. I mean, all of this went down all over a spider web.
Speaker 1:I will never forget that story for as long as I live. And it was. It was about forty five thousand dollars just for that part of it, the general liability part, and then that the workman's comp. I don't remember she had mentioned how much her workman's comp went up and it genuinely was. I'm trying to do a good thing here for this homeowner and make them happy. And she ended up getting sued in the whole. I mean, it was a whole, can you?
Speaker 2:imagine not having insurance for that. Can you imagine if you did not have insurance? It just takes one time you guys, one time, and Shannon and I see it all the time in the groups. It just takes one time for an incident to happen Fall back up the stairs, anything could happen. So always have insurance. It's worth it. We're going to tell you that again. So if you guys are listening right now and you don't have insurance, please go get insurance today. Put it on your priority list, make it the top priority. So have you had to file an insurance claim before, shannon?
Speaker 1:Thankfully we were always. We had safety meetings and we went over protocols on you know, doing certain things that were high risk. Like we never went over a four foot ladder In the beginning of my business, we crawled all over everything. You know, nine foot ladder, we'd have it dropped off, or 12 foot ladder and we would crawl up in the pot shelves and the soffits and we would do all kinds of really wild, crazy things.
Speaker 1:And then as I grew and expanded, it wasn't just Shannon up there in the soffits, it was other employees and I looked at, I started to compare, because workman's comp insurance is not cheap, especially depending on what state you're in. And if they said that if you stay below a four-foot ladder your insurance premium would be half, I'm like, boom, no more ladder work. We thankfully have never had to. But I've had workman's comp claims in the other industries that I have worked in. I come from the hotel and restaurant industry and I worked in that industry for over 22 years. I've worked every position in the house and we had workman's comp claims there, so I know what to do if you were to have to file a claim. Now it's a little different when you're a business owner and you're trying to figure out. You know, they hand you this stack of 87 pages and go here's your policy, make sure you read it, and you're like, yeah, I'm sticking that in the file.
Speaker 2:I'll read it later. I've never had something happen and you're like where's that file?
Speaker 1:Where's the 87 pages? I've never been here somewhere. You're thumbing through whatever and you probably mislabel it in. You're panicking because someone's bleeding out or they're on their way to the hospital. Where is it? Where's the workman's comp policy?
Speaker 2:I think through the pages trying to find it.
Speaker 1:So if you have a good insurance person and I know a lot of things are online now and you don't have insurance persons very much anymore Educate yourself on what the process is. God forbid you have something happen Like if you have a workman's comp incident. What you need to do, there is a protocol that has to be followed within a certain amount of time frame. And if you do not follow the protocol for example, if you have an employee who's high then you're going to pay workman's comp for someone who is high when it was actually their fault because they were high on the job. So make sure that you are going through. Bullet point one, bullet point two. Where do I have to do three? Where do I have to fill? I have to fill out this, you know triplicate. It's usually nine or 10 pages and it describes the incident and then you have to have statements, witness statements and the whole deal, and then sometimes there's police reports filed, sometimes it's not. There's all kinds of things that you have to follow in order to get the claim. Now the general liability element of it is a little more complicated.
Speaker 1:Workman's comp is pretty cut and dry. It's usually for injuries. There's a protocol you follow. It's pretty. A, b, c, d, e, f, g, general liability I believe this has become more gray than before is a little more harder to understand. Like what? What do I? Why do I need this right? Why do I need this general liability insurance? It's an extra thousand dollars a year that I'm paying for and it covers me for blah, blah, blah, but then when you finally have a claim, it doesn't cover that because it's considered gross negligent what you did or what your cleaning tech did. What kind of incidences did you have, ms Kim?
Speaker 2:I didn't have any, luckily, knock on wood Right. I like, like you, put your hand on the Bible. I'm like it did not happen. But I will say the reason why a lot of my insurance claims and workers comps did not happen is because, like you, I put systems in place, I did trainings, like so we did safety trainings on different ways that you know how do you go down the stairs, like we had.
Speaker 2:We told our customers, our customers, that my cleaning techs will vacuum going up the stairs. We do not go back down the stairs like going backwards. You know, we talked about the whole four foot ladder, like my insurance, and I would just say, hey, in my agreement we do not use anything higher than a four foot ladder because my insurance company will not use it. We do not move furniture. So if you want your furniture vacuumed under, you have to move the furniture for our insurance. So I had all these things in place and I think that really helped. And safety, like doing constant safety training, I think that helped, like that was the reason why. And then I would reward my, my employees. So if we didn't have anything that broke or anything that was like that we did, you know, a reward thing. So we had like a party and I'd pay for a big old lunch and stuff so and I know that I do that at Costco too. So Right.
Speaker 1:If you have X amount of days where you're injury free or accident free, then they reward you. The only incident I could think of that I had with general liability and this is why we don't pull out refrigerators anymore is we did a house and we weren't even the last ones, but we happened to be the ones that you know were to blame. So we pulled out a refrigerator line and somehow or another, the line got pinched. It was an extra long line. I've never seen a long water line. There's a lot of reasons why they don't put extra long water lines on the refrigerator because they can get run over, they can get pinched All kinds of things happen.
Speaker 1:But for some reason or another, we were doing this house it was a remodel and because my employee admitted that they were the last one to touch it and I really still, to this day, don't believe I can hear my dog that we were the last ones to touch it. I think maybe a contractor went in there or maybe the homeowner did, but it, um, it caused the line to be pinched, which for some reason, there was some sort of trigger mechanism in the refrigerator line and it leaked and it ruined the floor and it was a $35,000 claim Plus I got yelled at and all the other unpleasantness that happens when bad things go wrong.
Speaker 1:But after that we made a policy change and we still, to this day, will not. If you want the behind of your refrigerator done or your oven, you, as the homeowner, need to pull it out. Yep, that's what we said too, and we will. We're happy to do that If, if, because we don't all, we're not all small, we if, if. You know, if my girls can't get back there, then they can't get back there. That's the reality of it. If they, if they're not, if they can't get back there, they can maybe take a vacuum and vacuum it up. But if you're having a cow because a cleaning tech can't get behind the refrigerator because the area is so small, and you go, how did they get the refrigerator in here anyway.
Speaker 2:So that's the thing with me and have that stuff in your agreement, you guys. So when you guys do your agreement, make sure that you have it written out in your agreement. About moving the furniture, like I did about hey, you want your couches vacuumed under, then they need to be moved. If you want for move in and move out cleans or for the a la carte, you know, if you wanted the extras, you have to move out the fridge and you have to push it back.
Speaker 1:So if somebody has to be there to push it back, same thing, cause we won't do it, we won't, we won't touch it, cause you can scratch the floors.
Speaker 2:You know, I've seen it several times like where people move the furniture and they scratch these beautiful floors and then, guess what? They have to file an insurance claim because that whole wood floor. Let's say, you know the flooring, the wood that they used was, you know, 10 years ago. And guess what? They need to find the wood that matches throughout the house, right? So guess what you're gonna have to replace it to have it matched throughout the house.
Speaker 1:So or it's rosewood imported from brazil that took 18 months to get in, like this whole dynamic there. And it happens too with um. What's the old school flooring that they used to put in everything in the 80s?
Speaker 1:vinyl vinyl yes, um, if you have a little old and put in everything in the 80s Vinyl, vinyl yes, if you have a little old and this typically is in the older homes with little old ladies and they want you to get behind the refrigerator and the refrigerator has been sitting there so long it inadvertently rolls. It will actually stick to the floor and you're not realizing it when you're pulling out.
Speaker 1:You're tearing the vinyl, you're tearing the vinyl, and once it's torn, the whole piece of vinyl has to be replaced. Not only does it smell, because there's gases that have been stuck under there forever, but the whole thing tears. And then nine times out of 10, even though vinyl is indestructible most of the time you can't find the same kind of vinyl as a footback, then you have to pay someone to install it. I mean, it's a whole can of worms, so do you?
Speaker 2:when I had the vinyl. I had the vinyl in our bathroom for this house that we live in, in our bathroom, and there was a an incident. Um, I won't go into details with my husband, but there was an incident where, um, the whole toilet, uh, the back part of the toilet, where you know holds the water, what is that called? You know, the tank, the tank for of the toilet, where you know holds the water, what is that called? You know, the tank, the tank for the water toilet busted like he broke it and water went anywhere everywhere and we had vinyl. So we had that old, old vinyl like from the original from the house, because our house is 24 years old, so it was like the original vinyl and so we had to like it. Water got underneath because the vinyl was kind of lifting. Anyways it, it ended up getting underneath it. So you ended up having to replace it all because you can't find it anymore. So, yeah, it's vinyl.
Speaker 1:It's amazing to me, but yes, it's. So use caution when you are having to put your systems in place for safety. So obviously no, no more pulling out appliances, we just won't do it. Trash compactors same deal. We won't pull out those. I know people are like you can just get back there. I'm like no, not happening, sorry. Ovens same deal. Most ovens now are on rollers and they're pretty easy to move.
Speaker 1:But don't take the chance, because you have to remember, if you want to work on your business instead of in it, you have to have systems in place that your cleaning techs have to follow, and if you have 1099s, you should have a whole education process in case they don't know and you can do that with a meet and greet, or you know, would you pull out an oven if someone asked you to do it? It's like a trick question, right? Because then you can give them what your policies in place are and they can understand that way too. There's a whole different element that you do because you have to protect your nest egg, right? You guys hear me talk I'm preaching it from the choir that you have to. You know you want to build something that you can either sell or give to a family member should they want to take over the empire that you have created. So, and the only way to do that is to create systems in place that are for safety.
Speaker 1:I believe and I'm trying to remember who it is there was someone in one of the groups. She had had general liability insurance and she had 1099s, and it was a couch. There was an upholstery to the couch, something happened where the to pay for the couch and she had insurance on her for her cleaning, but she didn't have insurance for her 1099s, which you shouldn't have because your 1099s should carry their own insurance and I don't think the 1099 ended up having insurance, so she ended up having to pay.
Speaker 1:It was a brand new couch. It was like two grand for this. I don't know why anyone would want to put a brand new, two thousand dollar couch inside a short-term rental for people to do things on that we won't address here. My face is turning red. So, um, make sure that you are understanding what the protocols are and that you are constantly reminding them of safety, safety, safety, safety, safety, safety. Like a broken record.
Speaker 2:When I products Shannon even your products.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how many times I've spoken to homeowners when they've sprayed stuff on stone or what's? The group that has a lot of subcontractors, it's the janitorial Facebook group and it's all contractors in there, and I mean this in the nicest way possible. You guys are hacks, I don't know how else to put it lightly. You guys, you don't know what you're doing, and I mean this in the nicest manner. When it comes to chemical safety, I've watched you guys recommend the most asinine things. You might as well just take battery acid and just squirt it all over the bathroom walls and hope for the best.
Speaker 2:I don't and I cringe when we see these things. You guys, I don't think you understand when you see it gives us like little mini heart attacks right Because you're.
Speaker 1:It's a if you're in this for the longterm, you're in this to teach someone to benefit themselves and not put harm to themselves or the product they're putting it on. There is a reason why toilet bowl cleaner is only for the toilet and the reason why. If you know how if anyone's watched that show I'm sure it's still on YouTube how it's made you can watch the one on how they make toilets it's porcelain. What is porcelain? Porcelain is glass, right, there's a clay base and then there's a glass overlay. So when you're putting the toilet bowl cleaner in there, it's sliding down into acid for porcelain. When someone goes use oven cleaner, that is an acid for metal.
Speaker 2:Oh, you can use oven cleaner in the shower. That's a big thing. Oh, you can use the oven cleaner in the shower. That's a big thing. Oh, you can use the oven cleaner in the shower. I'll help get rid of all the like breast and hard water and I'm just like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it takes off the final layer. It's an acid. You're putting an acid for metal on an acid that's only meant for like fiberglass, or if it's stone, you're taking the finish off.
Speaker 2:I would never want to stand on that as a homeowner, would you?
Speaker 1:No, and I've had even homeowners tell me well, we just use oven cleaner. I'm like don't tell, I don't want to know. Don't tell me, I don't want to know, I don't want to know.
Speaker 2:Or even like these cleaners that use the oven cleaner, like, and I'm I mean go for it. You know, I'm natural, so of course I don't use oven cleaner. But when you clean the ovens and they don't put something down underneath the oven and they have these wood floors and they spray the oven cleaner and it drips down into these beautiful wood floors and then it eats the wood floors, right, that can cause an insurance. So it comes back to the training you guys. So really be training.
Speaker 1:And you should. And while we're talking about, I was going to do a whole episode on just oven cleaning but you should have in your oven cleaning kit I'm not going to talk about all of the details of what that is you should have some sort of and you need to ask this when you're like we've had five oven cleanings this week, I don't random like I need my oven clean. It is because Easter's coming and I just included that Easter is coming and I'm like the kids have no school tomorrow. Oh no, so the wood floor thing is a good reminder. So you should actually have extra towels when you are spraying oven cleaner.
Speaker 1:And they have the new LVT floors or the wood laminate or whatever they've had installed in their kitchen, which looks absolutely beautiful, whatever they've had installed in their kitchen, which looks absolutely beautiful. You need to use due diligence to check to make sure that chemical does not end up on the floor. We had two this week and I had to physically go over because they were all freaked out and thankfully they were local on how to handle it delicate without ruining the floor, because if you ruin the floor it's a huge claim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, or even the ovens that aren't meant to have oven cleaner and right there's a lot of those they.
Speaker 1:It should be steamed right and what is it?
Speaker 2:a two thousand dollar oven, or you know it's a wolf oven. And then you're not supposed to use oven cleaner in it, and you do, and you ruin it. Guess what insurance claim right?
Speaker 1:and the insurance claim probably won't cover it because you should have known better. So when you have the floor situation, you need to have a big beach towel, an old towel, and you need to put plastic on it. So typically we put plastic on the bottom beach towel, plastic on the top and we're constantly checking to make sure nothing has dripped, because and it's like every 15 minute timer they're over there making sure and that if anything does end up on the floor, that it's immediately addressed because you're wanting to check. And if it's a steam oven which I have one, cause I just had to buy new appliances Every appliance broke, like Kim's last year, Still happening for me.
Speaker 1:There is a steam option and I don't know and this was a big topic with one of the homeowners this week because we were talking about oven cleaning and she goes. When you steam it, she goes. I know when you do the self-cleaning cycle and this is a food for thought it releases this chemical that has five syllables. I can't think of it off the top of my head and she had had birds and I have birds, so we were talking about that and she well, if you turn on the steam option, does it still release that chemical? I'm like that is a good question, Cause I have birds at my house. I have a lot of birds so I don't want to hurt any of my birds, but I don't know if the steam would heat up enough to cause the chemical to be released or not. So this is a good question to know right.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I have a YouTube that I made. So, if you guys are interested, I made a YouTube video on how to clean an oven without the oven cleaner and it's just as easy as if you had oven cleaner. So you guys can check that out and we'll put that in the link, if that's okay.
Speaker 1:Shannon, yeah, we can, and be careful with the Pure Evergreen product too, because it can I'm not saying it will, but it could potentially leave a spot on the floor. So you also want to protect any chemical that you put down in an oven. You want to protect the floor, especially the LVT or MVT or GST or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so always have that protection down is yeah, so always have that protection down for that um. But I think those are the major ones for that. The other insurance claims I've seen um in our industry is it's usually a solo um lady who lives by herself, who has a really large house, who probably shouldn't be living on her own and she went to too many rock concerts in the 60s so she's a little hard of hearing and she doesn't hear that her toilet, that the cleaner went and checked and cleaned and washed everything off and flushed it, is running and then it overflows and then there's an insurance claim there. Now, legitimately, as far as I've seen, you can file a claim because that's not gross negligence, that was just an accident. That's what happens. I've seen a lot of people where they had a two level home and the person forgot to, took a phone call and forgot to turn off the water and the water kept running and running, and running and then ran down the stairs and then you see this big bubble that happens on the ceiling down below.
Speaker 1:I've seen that that's a gray area. That's kind of an accident, but they should have known better so it might not be covered. I mean, there's all of these things that can happen, so you want to be careful of those types of things. Shower doors I've seen where an independent cleaner who didn't have insurance wanted her friend to see how fantastic this house was while the homeowner was. This happened here in town while the homeowner was away, so this temporary helper went in and scratched her $2,000 shower door. Needless to say, both of those cleaners were MIA after, and I'm like she didn't even tell the homeowner she scratched it.
Speaker 1:She's like, oh, they won't see it. I'm like, oh, my God.
Speaker 2:And the question is is like, know when you need to file an insurance claim, you know, assess it.
Speaker 2:So if it's something that you could just pay because I mean we're not saying like, file an insurance claim immediately so like, let's say, there was damage done and it was like four to $500, you know, for me, you know, when we did, I, when we did have something like that happen that we had to fix, I shelled out 400, $500, $500 for my business and I put money away.
Speaker 2:So those of you guys know me, I've always been a saver, so I'm like I always save that money just in case for the emergency stuff, cause I didn't want to file an insurance claim because I knew my insurance would go up, so I just ended up taking that amount. So then the question is is like, if they say, well, this was an antique and this was worth this amount and that was like, or if it was like this is new, but it was like, well, let's say they had it like for 10 years. They want you to buy a brand new one. You need to assess it to see what the value of it is, then like, for now, so like, balance it out. So if you're able to pay out of pocket versus, you know, filing an insurance claim. Save those insurance claims for something big.
Speaker 1:Right, it's called fair market value. So, hypothetically speaking, if you went in and did someone's laundry and they threw their suit in the laundry and said this is an Armani suit, you now owe me $5,000. They have to provide a receipt and if the receipt is older than a year, that suit is no longer worth $5,000. You need to renegotiate the price. Same thing with the antiques. Some antiques we just won't touch because there is no fair market value. It's a piece of antiquity, and who wants to ruin someone's Picasso? I don't. So we just don't touch them. The homeowner is responsible and it says do not touch, will not touch, we will not do this. And that way you can. Skills are because you're taking a really hot potato fresh from the oven and you're trying to renegotiate as delicately as possible because perceived value is actually not fair market value. And make sure that you understand what that is so that you don't get crazy insurance claims. You owe me $9,000 because I've had this face for 15 years.
Speaker 1:We actually had someone who put an old photo I believe this was last year over her dog bowl of her and her sister, and she wanted $900 for the replacement of said photo and I flat out told her no, that we would not replace the photo. I was happy to replace the copy of the photo because I'm sure everyone has digital copies of everything. And I go and on top of it I go, I don't actually account If you nailed it in the wall. I go to the cleaner and nailing in the wall and she said no. I said well then we touched it. But if it fell after we touched it, that's not my fault, that is your fault, because you nailed it into the wall. And I go, go. And who stores old photos above a dog bowl?
Speaker 2:yeah, but she went and knocked on her box like?
Speaker 2:no, I don't think so that house and I've talked about it before on, you know, in our podcast the archaeologist's house, the ones of the two couples that have they do archaeology. So it's like like just art, like old, old pots, like there is like this wedding pot that's like was created and and it was like I don't even know how many years old. It was old. So they had stuff all over and they had like these luxury chairs and like their house was just gorgeous.
Speaker 2:And I remember, before I even started with them, I let them know. I'm like, okay, well, this is our insurance, but you know, this is how we're going to clean it. Some of these things we will not clean, you know, because it's just we can't replace it, the value, like. And I let them know and I said, what are some places you do not want us to absolutely touch? And so they showed us so like that was one thing. You know, we uploaded pictures into their file, so my cleaners knew what not to touch. So be really specific, because that would have been an expensive if we had broken a pot, that would be really pricey.
Speaker 1:There isn't a value on pieces of antiquity. That's why we just don't have some.
Speaker 1:There is no perceived value on what that could do. Obviously, if it's a museum piece, I've had clients who actually had pilgrim chairs and so, for those of you who do not know what a pilgrim chair is, it legitimately is a piece that should be in a museum, but it is not. It's been handed down from generation to generation and I would have to tell she also had, you know, $200,000 Indian rugs. She had the artist's name on the back. For insurance reasons. Everything was cataloged, but I would have to tell people I'm like, so if you're in this house and you need a step ladder, you better not step on that pilgrim chair to get up where you need to go, cause you will break it. That pilgrim chair is from the pilgrims, as it traveled across country in the era of pilgrims in the United States, so it's like 500 years old or whatever. Right, so it's.
Speaker 1:Those are the dynamics of teaching and understanding that we don't use antiques for stepladders. Right, she used all of her antiques, but I was like she was the only person that I had on my list where I'm like you have to stay home while they clean. She was the only one. Normally I want them out of the way, but I'm like if something were to happen with them, I want her to be there to assess it and address it right away. And there were certain things that we didn't touch. Like you, she had the two hundred thousand dollar indian rugs. They're dyed differently with beetles and stuff so you couldn't get water on that. It would make everything run, and each carpet tells a story of indian heritage. It sounds like my archaeologist house. You're just like, you know.
Speaker 2:You're like, oh, okay, yeah so and I charged make sure you guys charge for those houses. So, like that's. When we went to this house, you know I charged way more than what I charged for my normal houses because it took us a lot longer to clean that house, because we had to be so careful and it's stressful. Yes, I probably got gray hair when I started. So, yeah, yeah, that's like a whole thing in insurance the do's and don'ts, knowing when to file a claim and when not to file a claim, and training is our big thing. That Shannon always say Train, train, train, educate.
Speaker 1:Training is definitely part of it. Well, if you don't have anything else to contribute to the insurance conversation or if you want to continue the insurance conversation, please reach out If you have any questions. Obviously, kim and I are not insurance agents, but we can try to walk you through what needs to be walked through and we, you know, we just want the best for what you guys are doing and you need to have insurance. It's just the cost of doing business, so please make sure you show notes. Um, even with your insurance, sometimes you'll see your general liability. You'll have marine insurance and that is actually extra insurance to cover your equipment when you have w-2. Should someone break into your office and get a cleaning frenzy, you want to steal all your vacuums. That's when we stored them at the office. We don't do that. That was like years ago. I'm like why do I have marine insurance? I don't have my boat on this insurance policy. Why do I have that there?
Speaker 2:But um, yeah, if you guys got questions, tag us. Um, I know that I'm not on all the time because life gets busy with Shannon and I. Both have kids and crazy animals in the house and chickens in the house, so we get busy. So feel free to tag us. You guys have questions.
Speaker 1:Most definitely. Well, I look forward to seeing you guys soon. If you have any questions, reach out, take care. Bye, you guys, bye, welcome back everyone. Welcome to Cleaning Business Life. Today I am with my wonderful co-host, ms Kimberly Gonzalez, and we are going to talk about what should happen should you need to file an insurance claim, or if or when you should file an insurance claim, and I hope to God you know, both Kim and I strongly suggest that you carry at least general liability insurance. Please don't come to us later after you've had a blunder and go. What do I do?
Speaker 2:I'm laughing because it's like we hear it all the time Like, oh, I don't have insurance, or I can't afford insurance, and I'm like you cannot afford not to have insurance for your business Like that should be yeah, that should be like once you get your LLC or you start your business, that should be the first thing on your list.
Speaker 1:Budget for it. Yes, please don't tell me you can't afford it because you're not going to be able to afford the claim and the firing and the suing that happens after because you chose not to have. And legitimately it's still pretty affordable considering what it does cover. It's five or 600 bucks for the year. Think about that down into monthly payments. I'd be what? 50 or 60 bucks a month.
Speaker 2:I mean it's not too terrible right now and if you think about let's say you go to a job and you the the job, like you're going to make, let's say, $200, even $150 to $200, let's say $200, $200 for that clean and you break something and that was over $400. Like, let's say you broke the sliding glass door, let's say you broke the shower door or something that was big. Think about that Like that's your whole check right there. So always be prepared for having your insurance, because it may cost you more than what your insurance payments are.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:So every time we bring up insurance and I know I've brought this story up before. I think of the person who was in the older house and the homeowner wanted her to get the spiderweb that was hanging off the chandelier. And the chandelier was from the 70s and it had these really long panes. It was a beautiful, like art deco piece. It could have been older than the 70s but in any case it wasn't secured to the ceiling very well. It had been sitting there probably 50 years and she inadvertently hit it at the right angle with the high duster and the whole thing came down. Now, hypothetically we can go for the mechanics of that. And no, it probably wasn't the cleaner who caused it to fall. It just happened to be that she touched it, so she was blamed. But then the chandelier fell straight down 20, 25 feet and down to the bottom of the stairs and they had mirrored foyer landings that went up the stairs. So it's a long cylinder chandelier. It hits the ground, several pieces, impale the stairs and everything else, but then they bounce off of the floor and they impale the mirrors that are on the bottom and the landing and one of them actually impaled one of the workers who was supporting the ladder. She got impaled right here on her shoulder, missed her lung, thankfully, oh my gosh, and all of this for a spider web.
Speaker 1:It ended up being like a $40,000 claim, and you know, thank God and a workman's comp claim. The person had to have emergency surgery. I mean, all of this went down all over a spider web. I will never forget that story for as long as I live, and it was. It was about $45,000 just for that part of it, the general liability part, and then the workman's comp. I don't remember she had mentioned how much her workman's comp went up and it genuinely was. I'm trying to do a good thing here for this homeowner and make them happy and she ended up getting sued in the whole. I mean, it was a whole.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine not having insurance for that? Can you imagine if you did not have insurance? It just takes one time, you guys one time, and Shannon and I see it all the time in the groups. It just takes one time for an incident to happen Fall back up the stairs, anything could happen. So always have insurance. It's worth it. We're going to tell you that again. So if you guys are listening right now and you don't have insurance, please go get insurance today. Put it on your priority list, make it the top priority. So have you had to file an insurance claim before, shannon?
Speaker 1:Thankfully I, we were always. We had safety meetings and we went over protocols on, you know, doing certain things that were high risk. Like we never went over a four foot ladder In the beginning of my business, we crawled all over everything. You know, nine foot ladder, we'd have it dropped off, or 12 foot ladder and we would crawl up in the pot shelves and the soffits and we would do all kinds of really wild, crazy things. And then, as I grew and expanded, it wasn't just Shannon up there in the soffits, it was other employees and I looked at the. I started to compare, because workman's comp insurance is not cheap, especially depending on what state you're in. And if they said that if you stay below a four foot ladder your insurance premium would be half, I'm like, boom, no more, no more. Ladder work. No more, no more cloud of work.
Speaker 1:We, thankfully, have never had to. But I've had workman's comp claims in the other industries that I have worked in. I come from the hotel and restaurant industry and I worked in that industry for over 22 years. I've worked every position in the house and we had workman's comp claims there. So I know what to do if you were to have to file a claim. Now it's a little different. When you're a business owner and you're trying to figure out, you know they hand you this stack of 87 pages and go here's your policy. Make sure you read it and you're like yeah, I'm sticking that in the file.
Speaker 2:I'll read it later. And've never had something happen, and you're like where's that file?
Speaker 1:Where's the 87 pages?
Speaker 2:I've never.
Speaker 1:I know I have it in here somewhere and you're thumbing through whatever and you probably mislabel it in. You're panicking because someone's bleeding out or they're on their way to the hospital. Where is it? Where's the workman's comp policy?
Speaker 2:Like flipping through the pages trying to find it.
Speaker 1:So if you have a good insurance person and I know a lot of things are online now and you don't have insurance persons very much anymore educate yourself on what the process is. God forbid you have something happen Like if you have a workman's comp incident. What you need to do, there is a protocol that has to be followed within a certain amount of time frame. And if you do not follow the protocol for example, if you have an employee who's high then you're going to pay workman's comp for someone who is high when it was actually their fault because they were high on the job. So make sure that you are going through bullet point one, bullet point two. Where do I have to do three? Where do I have to fill? I have to fill out this, you know, triplicate. It's usually nine or 10 pages and it describes the incident and then you have to have statements, witness statements and the whole deal, and then sometimes there's police reports filed, sometimes it's not. There's all kinds of things that you have to follow in order to get the claim. Now the general liability element of it is a little more complicated.
Speaker 1:Workman's comp is pretty cut and dry. It's usually for injuries. There's a protocol you follow. It's pretty A, b, c, d, e, f, g, general liability I believe this has become more gray than before is a little more harder to understand. What do I? Why do I need this right? Why do I need this general liability insurance? It's an extra thousand dollars a year that I'm paying for and it covers me for blah, blah, blah, but then when you finally have a claim, it doesn't cover that because it's considered gross negligent what you did or what your cleaning tech did. What kind of incidences did you have, ms Kim?
Speaker 2:I didn't have any, luckily, luckily, knock on wood. I like, like you, put your hand on the Bible, I was like it did not happen. But I will say, the reason why a lot of my insurance claims and workers' comps did not happen is because, like you, I put systems in place, I did trainings, Like. So we did safety trainings on different ways. That no-transcript, you know, we talked about the whole four foot ladder like my insurance, and I would just say, hey, in my agreement we do not use anything higher than a four foot ladder because my insurance company will not use it. We do not move furniture. So if you want your furniture vacuum done, you have to move the furniture for our insurance.
Speaker 2:So I had all these things in place and I think that really helped. And safety, like doing constant safety training, I think that helped, like that was the reason why. And then I would reward my employees. So if we didn't have anything that broke or anything that was like that, we did you know a reward thing. So we had like a party and I'd pay for a big old lunch and stuff. So and I know that I do that at Costco too. So right.
Speaker 1:If you have X amount of days where you're injury free or accident free, then they reward you. The only incident I could think of that I had with general liability and this is why we don't pull out refrigerators anymore is we did a house and we weren't even the last ones, but we happened to be the ones that you know were to blame. So we pulled out a refrigerator line and somehow or another, the line got pinched. It was an extra long line. I've never seen a long water line. There's a lot of reasons why they don't put extra long water lines on the refrigerator Because they can get run over, they can get pinched All kinds of things happen.
Speaker 1:But for some reason or another, we were doing this house it was a remodel and because my employee admitted that they were the last one to touch it and I really still, to this day, don't believe I can hear my dog that we were the last ones to touch it. I think maybe a contractor went in there or maybe the homeowner did, but it, um, it caused the line to be pinched, which for some reason, there was some sort of trigger mechanism in the refrigerator line and it leaked and it ruined the floor and it was a $35,000 claim Plus I got yelled at and all the other unpleasantness that happens when bad things go wrong.
Speaker 1:But after that we made a policy change and we still, to this day, will not. If you want the behind of your refrigerator done or your oven, you, as the homeowner, need to pull it out. Yep, that's what we said too, and we will. We're happy to do that if, if, because we don't all, we're not all small, we, if you know, if my girls can't get back there, then they can't get back there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, that's the reality of it if they, if they're not, if they can't get back there, they can maybe take a vacuum and vacuum If they.
Speaker 1:If they're not, if they can't get back there, they can maybe take a vacuum and vacuum it up. But if you're having a cow because a cleaning tech can't get behind the refrigerator because the area is so small and you go, how did they get the refrigerator in here?
Speaker 2:anyway, it's still with me and have that stuff in your agreement, you guys. So when you guys do your agreement, make sure that you have it written out in your agreement about moving the furniture, like I did about hey, you want your couches vacuumed under, then they need to be moved. If you want for move-in and move-out cleans or for the a la carte, you know, if you wanted the extras, you have to move out the fridge and you have to push it back. So if somebody has to be there to push it back, same thing, because we won't do it, we won't touch it.
Speaker 1:You're on your own $35,000.
Speaker 2:Because you can scratch the floors. You know, I've seen it several times like where people move the furniture and they scratch these beautiful floors and then, guess what, they have to file an insurance claim because that whole wood floor. Let's say, you know the flooring, the wood that they used was, you know, 10 years ago, and guess what? They need to find the wood that matches throughout the house. So guess what You're going to have to replace it to have it match throughout the house. So, or?
Speaker 1:it's rosewood, imported from Brazil that took 18 months to get in. Like this whole dynamic, it happens too with what's the old school flooring that they used to put in everything in the 80s vinyl vinyl. Oh yes, um if you have a little old and this typically is in the older homes with little old ladies and they want you to get behind the refrigerator, and the refrigerator's been sitting there so long it inadvertently. Yes, rollers, it will actually stick to the floor and you're not realizing it when you're pulling out you're tearing the vinyl tearing the vinyl and once it's torn, the whole piece of vinyl has to be replaced.
Speaker 1:Not only does it smell, because there's gases that have been stuck under there forever, but the whole thing tears. And then nine times out of ten, even though vinyl is indestructible most of the time, you can't find the same kind of vinyl as a footback, then you have to pay someone to install it. I mean, it's a whole can of worms. So do you? When I had the vinyl.
Speaker 2:I had the vinyl in our bathroom for this house that we live in, in our bathroom and there was a an incident. Um, I won't go into details with my husband, but there was an incident where the whole toilet, the back part of the toilet, where you know, holds the water, what is that called? You know, the tank, the tank for the water toilet, busted like he broke it and water went anywhere everywhere and we had vinyl. So we had that old, old vinyl like from the original, from the house, because our house is 24 years old, so it was like the original vinyl and so we had to like it. Water got underneath because the vinyl was kind of lifting anyways, ended up getting underneath it, so we ended up having to replace it all because you can't find it anymore. So, yeah, it's vinyl.
Speaker 1:It's. It's amazing to me, but yes, it's. So use caution when you are having to put your systems in place for safety. So, obviously, no more pulling out appliances, we just won't do it. Trash compactors same deal. We won't pull out those. I know people are like you didn't just get back there. I'm like no, not happening, sorry. Ovens same deal. Most ovens now are on rollers and they're pretty easy to move.
Speaker 1:But don't take the chance, because you have to remember, if you want to work on your business instead of in it, you have to have systems in place that your cleaning techs have to follow, and if you have 1099s, you should have a whole education process in case they don't know and you can do that with a meet and greet, or you know? Would you pull out an oven if someone asked you to do it? It's like a trick question, right? Because then you can give them what your policies in place are and they can understand that way too. There's a whole different element that you do because you have to protect your nest egg, right? You guys hear me talk. I'm preaching it from the choir that you have to. You know you want to build something that you can either sell or give to a family member should they want to take over the empire that you have created. So, and the only way to do that is to create systems in place that are for safety.
Speaker 1:I believe and I'm trying to remember who it is there was someone in one of the groups. She had had general liability insurance and she had 1099s and it was a couch. There was an upholstery to the couch, something happened where the 1099 ruined the couch, so it became this whole dynamic over who was going to pay for the couch. And she had insurance on her for her cleaning, but she didn't have insurance for her 1099s, which you shouldn't have, because your 1099 should carry their own insurance and I I don't think the 1099 ended up having insurance, so she ended up having to pay.
Speaker 1:It was a brand brand new couch. It was like two grand for this. I don't know why anyone would want to put a brand new $2,000 couch inside a short-term rental for people to do things on. Then we won't address here. My face is turning red. So make sure that you are understanding what the protocols are and that you are constantly reminding them of safety, safety, safety, safety, safety, safety. Like a broken record.
Speaker 2:Um when I products shannon, even, even your products.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how many times I've spoken to homeowners when they've sprayed stuff on stone or what's the?
Speaker 1:the group that has a lot of subcontractors, it's the janitorial Facebook group and it's all contractors in there, and I mean this in the nicest way possible. You guys are hacks, I don't know how else to put it lightly. You guys, you don't know what you're doing, and I mean this in the nicest manner. When it comes to chemical safety, I've watched you guys recommend the most asinine things. You might as well just take battery acid and just squirt it all over the bathroom walls and hope for the best.
Speaker 2:I don't and I cringe when we see these things. You guys, I don't think you understand. It gives us like little mini heart attacks.
Speaker 1:Right. If you're in this for the long term. You're in this to teach someone to benefit themselves and not put harm to themselves or the product they're putting it on. There is a reason why toilet bowl cleaner is only for the toilet and the reason why. If you know how if anyone's watched that show I'm sure it's still on YouTube how it's made you can watch the one on how they make toilets it's porcelain. What is porcelain? Porcelain is glass. Right, there's a clay base and then there's a glass overlay. So when you're putting the toilet bowl cleaner in there, it's sliding down into acid for porcelain. When you I want when someone goes use oven cleaner, that is an acid for metal.
Speaker 2:use oven cleaner that is an acid for metal. Oh, you can use the oven cleaner in the shower. That's a big thing. Oh, you can use the oven cleaner in the shower. I'll help get rid of all the like rust and hard water and I'm just like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:But yeah, as it takes off the final layer, it's an acid. You're putting an acid for metal on an acid that's only meant for like fiberglass, or, if it's stone, you're taking the finish off.
Speaker 2:I would never want to stand on that as a homeowner, would you?
Speaker 1:No, and I've had even homeowners tell me well, we just use oven cleaner. I'm like don't tell, I don't want to know. Don't tell me, I don't want to know, I don't want to know.
Speaker 2:Or even like these cleaners that use the oven cleaner, like, and I'm, I mean, go for it. You know, I'm, I'm natural, so of course I don't use oven cleaner. But when you clean the ovens and they don't put something down underneath the oven and they have these wood floors and they spray the oven cleaner and it drips down into these beautiful wood floors and then it eats the wood floors and cause an insurance. So it comes back to the training you guys. So really be cleaning.
Speaker 1:And you should. And while we're talking about, I was going to do a whole episode on just oven cleaning but you should have in your oven cleaning kit. I'm not going to talk about all of the details of what that is. You should have some sort of um and you need to ask this when you're like we've had um five oven cleanings this week, I don't random like I need my oven clean. It is because Easter is coming and I just included that Easter is coming and I'm like the kids have no school tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Oh no, so the wood floor thing is a good reminder. So you should actually have extra towels when you are spraying oven cleaner. And they have the new LVT floors or the wood laminate or whatever they've had installed in their kitchen, which looks absolutely beautiful. You need to use due diligence to check to make sure that chemical does not end up on the floor. We had two this week and I had to physically go over because they were all freaked out and thankfully they were local on how to handle it delicate without ruining the floor, because if you burn the floor, it's a huge claim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or even the ovens that aren't meant to have oven cleaner.
Speaker 1:And a lot of those. It should be steamed right.
Speaker 2:And what is it? A $2,000 oven, or you know it's a wolf oven, and then you're not supposed to use oven cleaner in it, and you do, and you ruin it, guess, and you ruin it. Guess what Insurance claim Right?
Speaker 1:And the insurance claim probably won't cover because you should have known better. So when you have the floor situation, you need to have a big beach towel, an old towel, and you need to put plastic on it. So typically we put plastic on the bottom beach towel, plastic on the top and we're constantly checking to make sure nothing has dripped. And it's like in every 15 minute timer there they're over there making sure and if anything does end up on the floor, that it's immediately addressed because you're wanting to check. And if it's a steam oven which I have one, cause I just had to buy new appliances Every appliance broke, like Kim's last year, Still happening for me.
Speaker 1:There is a steam option and I don't know and this was a big topic with one of the homeowners this week because we were talking about oven cleaning and she goes. When you steam it she goes. I know when you do the self-cleaning cycle and this is a food for thought it releases this chemical that has five syllables. I can't think of it off the top of my head and she had had birds and I have birds, so we were talking about that and she goes. Well, if you turn on the steam option, does it still release that chemical? I'm like that is a good question, cause I have birds at my house. I have a lot of birds so I don't want to hurt any of my birds, but I don't know if the steam would heat up enough to cause the chemical to be released or not. So this is a good question to know right.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I have a YouTube that I made. So, if you guys are interested, I made a YouTube video on how to clean an oven without the oven cleaner and it's just as easy as if you had oven cleaner. So you guys can check that out and we'll put that in the link, if that's okay. Shannon, yeah, we can.
Speaker 1:And be careful with the Pure Evergreen product too, because it can I'm not saying it will, but it could potentially leave a spot on the floor. So you also want to protect any chemical that you put down in an oven. You want to protect the floor, especially the LVT or MVT or GST or whatever it is. Yeah, so always have that protection down.
Speaker 1:For that, but I think those are the major ones for that. The other insurance claims I've seen in our industry is it's usually a solo lady who lives by herself, who has a really large house, who probably shouldn't be living on her own and she went to too many rock concerts in the 60s so she's a little hard of hearing and she doesn't hear that. Her, her toilet, that the cleaner went and checked and cleaned and washed everything off and flushed. It is running and then it overflows and then there's an insurance claim there. Now, legitimately, as far as I've seen, you can file a claim because that's not gross negligence, that was just an accident seen. You can file a claim because that's not gross negligence, that was just an accident. That's what happens.
Speaker 1:I've seen a lot of people where they had a two level home and the person forgot to, took a phone call and forgot to turn off the water and the water kept running and running and running and then ran down the stairs and then you see this big bubble that happens on the ceiling. I've seen that. That's that's. That's a gray area. That's kind of an accident, but they should have known better so it might not be covered. I mean, there's all of these things that can happen, so you want to be careful of those types of things. Shower doors I've seen where an independent cleaner who didn't have insurance wanted her friend to see how fantastic this house was while the homeowner was. This happened here in town while the homeowner was away, so this temporary helper went in and scratched her two thousand dollar shower door.
Speaker 1:Needless to say, both of those cleaners were mia after, and I'm like she didn't even tell the homeowner she scratched it. She's like, oh, they won't see it.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, my god and the question is like know when you need to file an insurance claim? Um, you know, assess it. So if it's something that you could just pay, cause you I mean we're not saying like, file an insurance claim immediately. So like, let's say, there was damage done and it was like four to $500, you know, for me, you know, when we did, I, when we did have something like that happen that we had to fix, I shelled out $400, $500 for my business and I put money away.
Speaker 2:So those of you guys that know me, I've always been a saver. So I'm like I always save that money just in case for the emergency stuff, because I didn't want to file an insurance claim, because I knew my insurance would go up. So I just ended up taking that amount. So then the question is, if they say, well, this was an antique and this was worth this amount and that was like, or if it was like this was new, it was like, well, let's say they had it like for 10 years. They want you to buy a brand new one. You need to assess it to see what the value of it is, then like, for now, so like, balance it out. So if you're able to pay out of pocket versus, you know, filing an insurance claim. Save those insurance claims for something big.
Speaker 1:Right, it's called fair market value. So, hypothetically speaking, if you went in and did someone's laundry and they threw their suit in the laundry and said this is an Armani suit, you now owe me $5,000. They have to provide a receipt and if the receipt is older than a year, that suit is no longer worth $5,000. You need to renegotiate the price. Same thing with the antiques. Some antiques we just won't touch because there is no fair market value. It's a piece of antiquity, and who wants to ruin someone's Picasso? I don't. So we just don't touch them. The homeowner is responsible and it says do not touch, will not touch, we will not do this. And that way you can make sure that you're covering. And that's when you come and realize how good your negotiation skills are, because you're taking a really hot potato fresh from the oven and you're trying to renegotiate as delicately as possible, because perceived value is actually not fair market value. And make sure that you understand what that is so that you don't get crazy insurance claims.
Speaker 1:You owe me $9,000 because I've had this face for 15 years. We actually had someone who put an old photo I believe this was last year over her dog bowl of her and her sister and she wanted $900 for the replacement of said photo and I flat out told her no, that we would not replace the photo. I was happy to replace the copy of the photo, because I'm sure everyone has digital copies of everything and I go and on top of it I go, I don't actually account If you nailed it in the wall, I go to the cleaner and nail it in the wall. And she said no. I said, well then we touched it, but if it fell after we touched it, that's not my fault, that is your fault, because you nailed it into the wall and I go, and who stores?
Speaker 1:old photos above a dog bowl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but she went and knocked on her box like no, I don't think so. That house and I've talked about it before on, you know, in our podcast, the archaeologist's house, the ones of the two couples that have they do archaeology so it's like like just art, like old, old pots, like there is like this wedding pot that's like was created and it was like I don't even know how many years old, it was old. So they had stuff all over and they had like these luxury chairs and like their house was just gorgeous. And I remember, before I even started with them, I let them know. I'm like, okay, well, this is our insurance, but you know, this is how we're going to clean it.
Speaker 2:Some of these things we will not clean, you know, because it's just we can't replace it the value like. And I let them know and I said, what are some places you do not want us to absolutely touch? And so they showed us so like that was one thing, you know, we uploaded pictures into their file so my cleaners knew what not to touch. So be really specific, because that would have been an if we had broken a pot, that would be really pricey there isn't a value on um pieces of antiquity.
Speaker 1:That's why we just don't have some there is no perceived value on what that could do. Obviously, if it's a museum piece, um, I've had clients who actually had pilgrim chairs and so, for those of you who do not know what a pilgrim chair is, it legitimately is a piece that should be in a museum but it is not. It's been handed down from generation to generation and I would have to tell she also had, you know, $200,000 Indian rugs. She had the artist's name on the back. For insurance reasons, everything was cataloged, but I would have to tell people like so, if you're in this house and you need a stepladder, you better not step on that pilgrim chair to get up where you need to go, because you will break it. That pilgrim chair is from the pilgrims as it traveled across country in the era of pilgrims in the United States, so it's like 500 years old or whatever. Right, so it's.
Speaker 1:Those are the dynamics of teaching and understanding that we don't use antiques for stepladders. Right, she used all of her antiques, but I was like she was the only person that I had on my list where I'm like you have to stay home while they clean. She was the only one. Normally I want them out of the way, but I'm like if something were to happen with them, I want her to be there to assess it and address it right away. And there were certain things that we we didn't touch. She had the $200,000 Indian rugs. They're dyed differently with beetles and stuff so you couldn't get water on that. It would make everything run and each carpet tells a story of Indian heritage. It sounds like my archaeologist house. You're like, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So don't drop water on the carpet and I charge. Make sure you guys charge for those houses. So like that's. When we went to this house, you know I charged way more than what I charged for my normal houses because it took us a lot longer to clean that house, because we had to be so careful and it's stressful. Yes, I probably got gray hair when I started.
Speaker 1:Yay full.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's. That's like a whole thing in insurance. It's the do's and don'ts, knowing when to file a claim and when not to file a claim. And training is our big thing. That Shannon always say train, train, train, educate.
Speaker 1:Training is definitely part of it. Well, if you don't have anything else to contribute to the insurance conversation, or if you want to continue the insurance conversation, please reach out If you have any questions. Obviously, kim and I are not insurance agents, but we can try to walk you through what needs to be walked through. And we, you know we just want the best for what you, what you guys, are doing, and you need to have insurance. It's just the cost of doing business.
Speaker 1:So please make sure you don't, even with your insurance. Sometimes you'll see your general liability. You'll have marine insurance and that is actually extra insurance to cover your equipment. When you have W2, should someone break into your office and get a cleaning frenzy and want to steal all your vacuums? That's when we stored them at the office. We don't do that. That was like years ago. I'm like why do I have marine insurance? I don't have my boat on this insurance policy?
Speaker 2:Why do I have that there? But yeah, reach out to us. If you guys got questions, tag us. I know that I'm not on all the time because life gets busy with Shannon and I both have kids and crazy animals in the house and chickens in the house, so we get busy. So feel free to tag us. You guys have questions.
Speaker 1:Most definitely. Well, I look forward to seeing you guys soon. If you have any questions, reach out, take care. Bye, you guys, bye.