Stealth Trends Driving Workers’ Comp Premiums
While employers’ main priority for containing workers’ comp costs should be workplace safety, they also need to keep an eye out for three stealth factors that can nudge their premiums higher.
Where employees work, what they do from day to day and how production technology affects workplace behavior are all often flying below the radar for many employers, who may be hit with higher premiums after an insurer audit and worker reclassification. In addition, technology designed to increase productivity — like wearables — may actually raise the potential for workplace injuries.
These issues often surface only after a claim occurs or when the insurer conducts a premium audit. The end result can be a costly surprise when the employer receives a bill for additional premiums.
Remote work creates jurisdiction issues
Remote work arrangements are now deeply embedded across many industries. Recent workforce surveys show that a large share of employees whose jobs allow it now work remotely either full time or part time, a sharp increase from pre-pandemic years.
When an employee works from another state, injuries may fall under that state’s workers’ compensation laws. If an employer is headquartered in Louisiana but has a remote worker who is injured while performing job duties in Idaho, two jurisdictions may be involved.
If that state exposure is not disclosed on the workers’ compensation application, coverage gaps or disputes can arise.
Many employers assume remote work reduces risk because employees are no longer in warehouses, job sites or manufacturing facilities. In reality, the exposure has shifted rather than disappeared. Without clear documentation of where employees work and what they do, insurers may default toward broader coverage assumptions that result in higher-rated classifications or expanded exposures.
Job creep
Another growing issue is job creep — employees gradually taking on responsibilities outside their original job descriptions. This happens frequently during staffing shortages, growth periods, tight deadlines or in smaller operations. Office staff may help with shipping. Supervisors may step into hands-on roles. Employees often wear multiple hats to keep operations humming.
From an insurer’s perspective, what matters is the work performed, not just the job title listed on payroll. When a claim occurs, carriers examine real-world duties closely. If, for example, a supervisor is injured while helping on the line, the insurer may reclassify payroll, split classifications or apply greater scrutiny across similar roles.
This issue is especially common among small and midsize employers, where flexibility is often necessary. However, without updated job descriptions and internal documentation, that flexibility can translate into higher premiums and audit-related adjustments.
Productivity technology challenges
Employers are increasingly using time-tracking software, performance dashboards, automated scheduling systems and wearable devices to monitor productivity, track output and manage work.
While these tools can improve efficiency, they can also subtly alter behavior. Employees may work faster when metrics show they are falling behind. Breaks may be delayed or skipped. Safety steps may be rushed. Early signs of strain or discomfort may go unreported to avoid appearing less productive.
Over time, this increased intensity can raise injury risk, particularly for repetitive motion and ergonomic injuries. In addition, productivity systems may change the nature of the job itself — by increasing lifting frequency, reducing recovery time between tasks or assigning more physically demanding work than originally intended.
What employers should review before renewal
To address these stealth exposures and reduce the risk of being hit with a premium increase after an audit, employers should take a closer look at:
- Where employees are actually working, including out-of-state remote arrangements.
- Whether job descriptions reflect real, day-to-day duties.
- How often employees perform tasks outside their formal roles.
- Whether productivity tools are increasing physical or ergonomic demands.
None of these issues are dramatic on their own. But together, they can quietly drive premium increases, coverage disputes and audit surprises.
Employers who proactively address these trends are better positioned to align coverage with reality — and avoid paying for risks they never intended to assume. If you have questions or concerns about any of the above, please contact us to stave off unpleasant premium surprises.
Why Every Business Needs Hired and Non-Owned Auto Coverage
Even if you have company cars or a fleet of vans, occasions may arise that require an employee to run an errand in their personal vehicle or one of your employees needs to rent a car while on a business trip visiting a client.
In these circumstances if you don’t have the proper coverage, you could be leaving your organization exposed to liability if an employee injures a third party in an accident. There are two types of insurance that are vital in these situations: Non-owned auto coverage and hired auto insurance.
These two policies offer very different types of coverage, and it is important to understand each to ensure you find the policy that is right for your operation:
- Non-owned auto coverage — This insurance protects your company if sued as a result of an auto accident that you or one of your employees has in a personal vehicle while on company business.
- Hired auto coverage — This provides your company with liability insurance for vehicles that you rent, hire or borrow on a short-term basis for business purposes.If you or an employee are in a car accident while driving one of these vehicles for work, hired auto insurance can help pay for your liability costs.
You should consider these two coverage options if your company ever rents cars or vans for business purposes (including travel to conferences, visiting clients, etc.) or if employees use their personal vehicles to run company errands.
These important coverages are usually added to a general liability policy or a commercial auto policy as an endorsement or a rider.
When there are no vehicles titled in the company name, this additional coverage will serve to meet the contract requirement for commercial auto coverage in most states.
How the coverages work
Both hired and non-owned auto insurance are a type of liability insurance, meaning they will only cover property damage and injuries to third parties, as well as any legal fees, settlements or court judgements relating to third party claims. Hired and non-owned auto insurance helps cover:
- Physical damage to a third party’s vehicle,
- Bodily injuries and medical expenses if a third party is hurt in an accident with you or one of your staff, and
- Legal expenses if your business gets sued for negligence.
However, these polices won’t help with:
- Property damage to your business’s hired or non-owned vehicle.
- Medical bills if you or your employee get hurt in an accident while using rented or personal vehicles.
- Liability coverage, property damage or bodily injury from an accident while you or your employee drive for personal reasons that are not related to your business.
Do you need coverage?
If your business rents or borrows vehicles to do work or if your employees use their personal vehicles on business, hired and non-owned auto coverage is crucial to manage your risk.
It can help pay for any property damage that you or your employees cause while on company business in rented or personal vehicles. It also covers vehicles used for your business if they cause bodily injury to another driver in a car accident.
Large Trucks Account for a Third of Work Zone Accidents
Some of the riskiest locations for roadway collisions are work zones, as they often result in changes in traffic patterns and right of way, along with workers present and large commercial vehicles on the scene.
Work zones are designed to improve the safety of workers who are enhancing or repairing roads, freeways, bridges, sewage and other infrastructure by separating construction and maintenance activities from traffic. The crews do that by providing a safe route for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists and a safe area for the workers on the scene.
That stew of activity and unpredictability sadly results in carnage. In 2023, 899 people died in work zones in the U.S., out of an estimated 101,000 crashes, according to the National Workzone Safety Information Clearinghouse. More than 300 of those fatalities involved large commercial vehicles.
The most common types of fatal accidents in work zones are:
- Crashes involving a commercial vehicle: 33%
- Crashes caused by speeding: 31%
- Rear-end collisions: 24%
With liability risk in mind, it’s important that you take the extra effort to cover driving in work zones during your driver safety training.
At the first sign of road construction, your drivers should slow down. Keep in mind that stopping takes space and time. Depending how fast a truck is traveling, it can take more than the length of a football field to stop, even in the best conditions (good tires and dry pavement). At 65 mph, the stop will take more than 7 seconds to complete.
Stopping distances can be even greater if:
- It is raining or snowing,
- Tires or brakes are worn,
- There is dirt or gravel on the road,
- The truck is carrying a heavy load,
- The truck is carrying a liquid load (especially when the tank is not completely full), or
- The truck is traveling downhill.
The most common types of accident
Let’s look at the most common commercial vehicle work-zone accident scenarios, and why they happen:
Rear-end collisions — These are most common in work zones on freeways, interstates and two-lane highways.
Why they happen: The driver was not aware or prepared for stopped or slowed traffic ahead of them.
Head-on collisions — These are most likely to happen in work zones on two-lane highways.
Why they happen:
- The driver crosses the centerline at night.
- The driver swerves to avoid objects and into oncoming traffic.
Right-angle collisions — These are most likely to happen in work zones on non-freeway multi-lane roads.
Why they happen: The driver pulls out of or turns left into a workspace, intersection or driveway without enough of a gap in traffic.
Sideswipe collisions — These incidents usually occur on freeways, interstates and other multi-lane roadways.
Why they happen: The driver fails to check for vehicles in their blind spots while trying to merge out of a closing lane or into an open one.
Truck collisions with objects or workers — These especially dangerous accidents usually happen in work zones on non-freeway multi-lane roads.
Why they happen: Typically, the driver is traveling too fast to negotiate the work zone.
The American Road Transportation and Builders Association has these recommendations for drivers entering or driving inside a work zone:
- Pay attention to work zone signs.
- Leave enough space between you and the motorist in front of you.
- Be prepared to stop or slow unexpectedly.
- Expect to stop when you see a “Flagger Ahead” sign.
- If stopped or slowed in a traffic queue, consider turning on your flashers to warn traffic coming up behind you.
- Watch for traffic and workers going into or out of the work zone.
- Get into the open lane as soon as possible at lane closures.
- Be especially aware of motorists racing to get ahead of you or trying to turn in front of you at the last second.
- Use alternative routes to avoid work zones whenever feasible.
Corporate Cyber Risk Outlook for 2026
Cyber risks are set to intensify in 2026 as artificial intelligence reshapes how attacks are launched and how organizations defend themselves.
Three new reports agree that cybercrime is becoming faster, more targeted and more disruptive to business operations. AI is accelerating existing threats and shortening the time between intrusion and impact. According to a report by Moody’s Ratings, this shift is pushing companies into “a new era of adaptive, fast-evolving threats” where manual defenses are no longer sufficient to protect an organization.
This is not just a large company problem. Small businesses are increasingly targeted, often because they are seen as easier to breach than larger organizations.
AI is supercharging cybercrime
AI is now widely used by cybercriminals to scale phishing, automate efforts to find website vulnerabilities and create malware that can modify its code to evade detection.
Moody’s “2026 Cyber Risk Outlook” warns that these tools allow attackers to scan networks continuously, exploit misconfigurations at machine speed and launch campaigns against thousands of targets simultaneously.
The World Economic Forum echoes this concern in its “Global Cybersecurity Outlook,” where 94% of leaders surveyed said AI will be the most significant driver of cyber risk in 2026. Nearly nine in 10 respondents reported an increase in AI-related vulnerabilities over the past year, alongside rising cyber-enabled fraud, phishing and software exploits.
AI-enabled social engineering is a particular concern. Advances in voice cloning and deepfake technology are making impersonation attacks more convincing, especially those targeting executives, finance teams and IT staff. These attacks increasingly bypass technical controls by exploiting human trust rather than technical flaws.
New risks from enterprise AI use
The growing use of AI inside organizations is also creating new exposures. Moody’s found that only 29% of surveyed organizations follow the Open Worldwide Application Security Project’s (OWASP’s) best practices guidance for large language model applications, leaving many vulnerable to data leakage, prompt injection and weak access control.
Research from Google Cloud highlights prompt injection as a rising threat in 2026. In these attacks, malicious instructions are embedded in data or user inputs, causing AI systems to bypass safeguards and expose sensitive data.
Ransomware an ongoing threat
Despite improved defenses, ransomware and data-theft extortion remain among the most damaging cyber threats. Moody’s reports that 44% of ransomware attempts in 2025 were stopped before encryption, up sharply from the year before, largely due to better detection and backup practices.
Large enterprises remain prime targets. Their complex networks create blind spots and attackers increasingly focus on extortion tactics that rely on stolen data rather than locked systems.
Google Cloud researchers note that ransomware, data theft and multifaceted extortion continue to generate cascading economic losses across supply chains, with incidents in 2025 resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in total damage.
What employers can do
While no organization can eliminate cyber risk, the reports point to practical steps that can materially reduce exposure:
Strengthen AI governance. Limit AI system permissions, follow OWASP’s guidance for large language models like ChatGPT and monitor prompt injection attacks and data leakage.
Accelerate detection and response. Automated monitoring and containment tools are increasingly essential as criminals use AI to move quickly through networks.
Plan for data extortion. Create an extortion response plan that addresses regulatory, legal and reputational fallout even when systems remain operational.
Build resilience into infrastructure. Regularly test backups, use cloud systems in multiple locations to spread risk and conduct outage and breach simulations.
Control identity and access. Give staff, systems and applications (including AI agents) only the minimum access they need to do their jobs. Require multi-factor authentication during logins and create just-in-time access protocols so elevated permissions are granted only when needed and automatically removed once a task is complete.
Train employees continuously. Focus on phishing, vishing and executive impersonation scenarios that target human behavior rather than technology.
Secure cyber insurance
Finally, you should consider cyber liability insurance, which can help your business recover quickly from an attack by covering costs such as:
- Data recovery and system restoration after a breach or ransomware attack.
- Legal and regulatory expenses if sensitive customer or employee data is exposed.
- Notification and credit monitoring services for affected parties.
- Business interruption losses from downtime or system failure.
- Public relations and crisis management to help rebuild trust.
Note: Cyber insurance may cover ransomware payments, but coverage is often conditional, increasingly restricted and dependent on policy wording and the circumstances of the attack.
How to Avoid Being Sued for Injuries at Your Commercial Property
One of the biggest risks commercial property owners face is a visitor suffering an injury on their property.
One slip and fall can start a cascade of events, starting with a premises liability lawsuit seeking financial compensation. Your defense, as a property owner would be proving that you lived up to your duty of care to protect visitors to your property from injury.
Also, since your commercial property policy will not cover property liability, you’ll need a commercial general liability coverage as well.
Accidents happen, but if a third party is injured on your commercial property, the chances are high they’ll seek some type of compensation, either for medical costs, lost wages or both. And if they seek out legal counsel, prepare to be sued.
Prevent accidents before they happen
To reduce the chance of an accident, keep a tidy facility and fix any issues that could result in an injury. Take the following steps:
- Be proactive about inspections, repairs and maintenance.
- Have written inspection and maintenance guidelines that meet or exceed industry standards particularly as they concern safety of tenants and guests.
- Ensure your employees closely follow the guidelines and encourage them to report any issues that could result in injury.
In the discovery phase of a lawsuit, a plaintiff may ask for your maintenance and risk management procedures as well as documentation regarding whether you followed those procedures.
Your policies should be extensive and clear, but not overly intricate. Documentation is key to showing that you took reasonable steps to keep the property safe.
Your defense
Keep in mind that the duty is for you to use a reasonable amount of care. What is reasonable is determined in comparison with what an average commercial property owner would do.
There are times when accidents really do happen, and you are not automatically liable for them. You are neither expected to be perfect, nor are you expected to prevent every single mishap.
Rented property
A commercial property owner may not have a duty of care when they are not in control of their property. When the owner leases the property, the lessee may assume the duty of care to maintain the premises in reasonable condition.
A lease should clearly state that the renter is responsible for premises safety and that they indemnify the owner in any lawsuits and pay the costs to defend these lawsuits.
Insurance
Finally, make sure that you have commercial general liability insurance, which covers legal defense and potential settlements or judgments, helping protect your assets and financial stability.
Mental Health Issues Among Construction Workers Grow
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. construction workers say they have experienced anxiety or depression in the past year, according to a new survey of more than 2,000 workers and executives.
Poor mental health can increase the risk of injuries, slow projects and drive up absenteeism, turnover and disability claims. OSHA now highlights workplace stress and mental health as key safety concerns, noting that stress contributes to physical illness, impaired concentration and higher injury rates.
While the industry overall has made large strides in improving and promoting workplace safety, it’s been slow in recognizing the effects of mental health on safety. The survey by St. Louis-based construction firm Clayco explores the mental health and psychological safety issues construction workers face and how employers can establish protocols and services to identify and assist workers in need.
How mental health affects safety and performance
According to OSHA:
- Stressed and fatigued workers are more likely to miss hazards, make errors and cut corners, increasing the chance of falls, struck-by incidents and other injuries.
- Long-term stress contributes to physical problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, chronic pain and sleep issues.
- Anxiety and depression undermine focus, motivation and judgment, which can affect safety, quality and productivity.
- Workers dealing with untreated mental health issues are more likely to miss work.
Key findings from the Clayco survey
The survey by St. Louis-based construction firm Clayco found that:
- 64% of construction workers reported anxiety or depression in the last 12 months.
- Top drivers of distress were the physical demands of the work (47%), poor work-life balance (42%) and tight deadlines (41%).
- 36% missed work due to mental health concerns in the last year.
- 45% said they would feel ashamed talking about mental health, addiction or suicidal thoughts with coworkers.
- 37% of those who used mental health services reported discrimination or unfair treatment at work.
What construction leaders can do
The good news is that there are proven steps companies can take.
Treat mental health as a safety priority — Put mental health on the same footing as fall protection or lockout/tagout. Include it in safety policies, job hazard analyses, orientation and toolbox talks. Remind supervisors that stress, fatigue and distraction are risk factors for incidents.
Train supervisors to recognize warning signs — Provide frontline leaders with training on how to spot behavior changes, withdrawal, irritability, substance misuse and other signs of distress, and how to have supportive conversations. OSHA and other organizations offer supervisor guides and mental health conversation tools tailored to employers.
Promote the services you offer — Audit what mental health benefits you offer, from Employee Assistance Programs to telehealth and counseling. Place information about these services in break areas, pay-stub inserts and safety talks, and repeatedly reinforce that services are confidential.
Reduce stigma through leadership example — Leaders who talk openly about stress, burnout or using counseling send a powerful signal that it’s okay to ask for help.
Address jobsite stressors you can control — Review schedules, overtime expectations, travel demands and staffing levels. Where possible, rotate assignments to limit extended travel, set more realistic deadlines, build in recovery time after major pushes and ensure workers can take breaks and time off without penalty.
Discipline Should Be Part of Your Safety Program
Does your injury and illness prevention program spell out the disciplinary action your company will pursue if its safety rules are not adhered to?
Addressing disciplinary issues can be a very sensitive and stressful process for most managers, supervisors and employees. However, if such issues are avoided or handled poorly, it can lead to serious consequences such as property damage, injury – or even fatality.
Looking at discipline not as a form of punishment but as a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity in order to eliminate unsafe circumstances, might ease the stress for the owner, manager and employee.
Education is the key to establishing proper disciplinary procedures and holding workers accountable to the company’s health and safety policy and program, as well as to applicable regulatory requirements.
The main objective of a disciplinary program is to ensure that rules and safe work practices are taken seriously by all employees, and that they are followed. When disciplinary action is deemed appropriate, it should be conducted in a timely manner. Trying to conduct a disciplinary response to unsafe behavior by waiting only allows a habit to become more ingrained.
Discipline should be positive, not punitive or negative. The goal is to correct the problem, action or behavior. The type of discipline should fit the severity of the misconduct, and it should be conducted in private.
Five-step disciplinary program process
- Reviewing policy and procedures (managers and supervisors).
- Investigation of accusations and infractions (supervisors and safety and health reps).
- Determining and reviewing disciplinary action (supervisors and safety and health reps).
- Documenting disciplinary actions and program enforcement (supervisors and safety and health reps).
- Conducting disciplinary meetings and promoting safe work practices and compliance to regulatory requirements (supervisors and safety and health reps).
If your company hires subcontractors, they should also be required to comply with your health and safety policy.
Sample disciplinary action
You should make it clear that the company reserves the right to discipline employees who knowingly violate company safety rules or polices. Disciplinary measures will include, but not be limited to:
- Verbal warning (documented) for minor offenses.
- Written warning for more severe or repeated violations.
- Suspension, if verbal and written warnings do not prove to be sufficient.
If none of the above measures achieves satisfactory, corrective results, and no other acceptable solution can be found, the company will have no choice but to terminate employment for those who continue to jeopardize their own safety and the safety of others.
Non-punitive discipline
The first step of formal non-punitive discipline is to issue an oral reminder, with the manager’s primary goal being to gain the employee’s agreement to solve the problem.
Should the problem continue, the manager moves to the second step – the written reminder. Together, the manager and the worker create an action plan to eliminate the gap between actual and desired performance.
If disciplinary discussions have failed to produce the desired changes, management then places the individual on a paid, one-day “decision-making leave.” Tenure with the organization is conditional on the individual’s decision to solve the immediate problem and make a “total performance commitment” to good performance on the job.
The employee is instructed to return on the day following the leave with a decision either to change and stay, or to quit and find more satisfying work elsewhere.
Thus, the purpose of the disciplinary transaction has changed from a punishment method to a process that requires individuals to accept responsibility for their own behavior, performance and continued participation in the enterprise.
Insurance That Helps You Survive Another Business’s Disaster
In October and November of 2011, floods inundated large parts of central Thailand, including thousands of factories that made everything from automotive parts and hard disk drives to eyeglass lenses and air conditioners. In addition to the human and economic cost in Thailand, the disaster affected businesses around the world.
Carmakers in Detroit shut down because they could not get the parts they needed and half of the world’s hard disk drive production was wiped out, leaving computer manufacturers with stalled assembly lines. When disasters like this occur, businesses around the globe feel the effects.
In addition to making advance arrangements for alternative suppliers, businesses can protect themselves by purchasing two types of insurance coverage: Contingent business interruption, and supply chain insurance.
Contingent business interruption
Contingent business interruption insurance, also called business income from dependent properties, pays for a business’s lost profit plus continuing expenses when it must slow or stop operations because of damage to another business’s property.
These other businesses can be customers or suppliers. For example, if a motorcycle dealership was left with no bikes to sell because its supplier in Japan suffered a fire, the insurance would make up part of the lost income.
The damage must result from a cause of loss that the insurance policy covers, such as fire or a hurricane. This is important because standard property insurance policies do not cover losses caused by catastrophes such as floods and earthquakes.
Supply chain coverage
Supply chain insurance takes contingent business interruption a step further. It covers income lost because of damage to a supplier’s or customer’s property. However, it also covers losses resulting from events that do not cause physical damage. These may include:
- Labor disruptions
- Production process problems
- Trade disputes
- Wars
- Political turmoil
- Closed roads, bridges, railroads and shipping channels
- Public health crises
- Actions by regulators
- Financial difficulties
Businesses often have different tiers of suppliers, with key suppliers in the top tier and less important ones in the lower tiers. It is common for them to insure only the top tier.
However, insurers are increasingly offering multi-tier coverage. This applies to the business’s entire supply chain. Multi-tier coverage provides a more comprehensive solution for the business while also spreading out the insurer’s risk.
Some insurers offer options. One lets policyholders choose between measuring losses in terms of gross earnings or number of units from the supplier. Some also offer agreed-value coverage, which eliminates penalties for buying amounts of insurance less than the amounts of value at risk.
Businesses should determine where they are vulnerable to supply chain losses and develop back-up plans for dealing with unexpected disruptions. These could include reserves of the needed supplies and contracts with alternative suppliers.
Insurance can help the business recover from a supply chain loss after the fact. Advance planning can help make that loss as small as possible.
If you would like to know more about business interruption insurance, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Businesses Scramble to Comply with EEOC’s New Playbook
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has rolled out the most dramatic shift in its enforcement posture in decades, narrowing some protections and targeting others, especially around disparate impact, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender identity.
Also, with the confirmation of Commissioner Brittany Bull Panuccio in October 2025, the EEOC once again has a voting quorum. Her addition gives the new Republican majority the opportunity to rewrite guidance, revise strategic enforcement plans and launch higher-profile litigation aligned with the administration’s executive orders.
The new enforcement focus, initiated by a series of executive orders by President Trump, stands in contrast to established federal law, opening firms up to litigation by employees that runs counter to EEOC enforcement priorities.
DEI programs under a sharper lens
This year, the EEOC has trained its focus on what it describes as “unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination.” Programs that once were framed as inclusion efforts are now being scrutinized for potential reverse discrimination.
That includes:
- Mentorship, sponsorship and leadership programs limited to certain demographic groups.
- “Women only” or “underrepresented only” events and resource group activities.
- Hiring, promotion or internship pipelines that expressly prefer certain races or genders.
- Diversity metrics that function more like quotas than broad and aspirational goals.
Gender identity policies
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas has directed agency lawyers to back away from gender identity litigation and to revisit harassment guidance that spells out protections for transgender employees.
Bathrooms, locker rooms and pronoun policies are likely flashpoints. Employers that wish to maintain strong protections for transgender and nonbinary workers may need to rely more heavily on state law, company values and reputational concerns as their guideposts.
These new policies put employers in a bind. Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination, which covers sexual orientation and gender identity, still stands and many states explicitly protect those groups.
Employers that scale back protections to comply with the new federal posture may reduce the chance of an EEOC probe but increase exposure to private lawsuits, state agency enforcement and reputational damage.
How employers can respond
Audit DEI and talent programs — Inventory all DEI initiatives, resource groups, mentorships and pipelines. Strip out eligibility rules tied to race, sex or national origin. Reframe programs around equal access and business needs.
Refresh public and internal statements — Review diversity pledges, representation goals and reporting. Avoid language that can be read as promising preferences. Emphasize fair processes, bias reduction and inclusion.
Map gender identity and facility policies to actual law — Chart federal, state and local requirements for every location. Where you maintain sex-specific facilities, consider options like single-user restrooms and clear procedures for handling complaints.
Boost religious accommodation practices — Ensure there is a clear, documented process for addressing religious objections, including objections to DEI content or pronoun expectations. Train managers to respond promptly and consistently.
Keep doing adverse impact reviews — Even if the EEOC is stepping back, continue to test hiring tools, promotion systems and layoff criteria for disproportionate effects on protected groups.
Invest in investigation capability — Make sure complaint procedures, investigation protocols and documentation would hold up under scrutiny from private plaintiffs, state agencies or the EEOC under its new priorities.
Takeaway
Finally, ensure that your business secures an employment practices liability policy, which can protect your firm from employee-initiated actions like discrimination or harassment complaints.
These policies can cover court costs, attorneys’ fees, discovery expenses, settlements or judgments and other related costs.
Construction Industry Risks Evolve, Creating Unique Challenges
As the construction industry continues to rebound from the recession, contractors face evolving risks that, left unchecked, can leave their operations exposed to new liabilities.
If you already operate a construction firm, you know that there is a labor shortage that has affected the makeup of your workforce, and that hiring entities are asking builders to take on more of the design function as well. Finally, construction firms must contend with cyber-security risks if they are using technology in their operations.
Accounting for these risks in your risk management strategy as well as ensuring you have the proper insurance coverage is key to protecting your firm from these evolving risks. Here’s a deep dive into three of those risks.
Lack of qualified workers
The construction industry has been wrestling with a labor shortage since before the COVID-19 pandemic, a shortage that’s been exacerbated by the immigration raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2025.
Approximately 439,000 new workers are needed by the construction industry in 2025 to meet demand and potentially 499,000 in 2026, according to Associated Builders and Contractors.
Now, as home construction starts growing again, many contractors are having a hard time finding qualified workers, as well as project managers, engineers and estimators. That means workers are likely taking on greater workloads, which puts them at risk of injury or making mistakes. It also means longer project times.
Also, contractors have more inexperienced workers in their ranks who are not as aware of workplace safety and lack the experience to identify hazards, which puts them and others at risk of injury.
Professional liability risks
As more project owners want an all-in-one job with the lead contractors designing and building the project, those construction firms now face a new type of risk: professional liability.
The problem is that the typical contractor’s insurance policy doesn’t provide protection for any design work they may take on. If they do design a project, even partially, they’re not absolved of liability if they farm the actual construction work out to a subcontractor.
Courts have found that designers who cross over and perform traditional “builder activities” lose any limitation of liability traditionally enjoyed by design professionals. Builders who cross over and perform “design activities” assume responsibility for design deficiencies and can no longer push that liability to the design professional.
Cyber-security risks emerge
Like all industries, the construction sector has grown increasingly reliant on technology to get the job done. There are numerous solutions in the market that can help optimize workflows and save companies time and money.
While a construction firm is likely not going to keep clients’ credit card information on its website or databases (data that hackers drool over), they do keep confidential information on project designs as well as on employee records.
Recently, a contractor foreman stepped away from his work-issued laptop at a café and upon returning saw that it had been stolen. The laptop contained confidential company information and building information, like modeling construction and design methods.
More building contracts today include confidentiality agreements that require the contractor to be responsible for potential breaches associated with their activities, and that was the case in this instance.
While it was unclear if vital company secrets were exposed, the breach required that the owner’s 2,300 current and former employees be notified that their personal information may have been exposed.
Under the terms of their contract, the contractor was also obligated to pay for credit monitoring to all those employees for a year.
There was no indication that the information was ever exposed, but the notification costs and credit monitoring cost the company $25,000 out of pocket.
The takeaway
As contractors’ risks evolve, it’s important that you discuss any changes to your operations when we are helping you renew your insurance policies. We can help you discern if you need additional coverages like cyber and professional liability to ensure that these risks are covered.