Growing a business is not unlike raising a child. In the early years, it’s just finding its legs as you learn the skills—both business and technical—and try to create a strong foundation for it. After a few years, if all goes well, you find the business easier, still tough at times, but more manageable and learning to work on its own a bit.

For any company that successfully makes it through those early years, at some point, the pains of adolescence kick in—that time when the company is growing and changing so fast it’s hard to keep control. And if we’re lucky, we come out the other side with a well-formed business we can be proud of.

While there can be no guarantee that the company we “raise” will turn out strong, healthy, and well put together, just as in parenting, there’s a lot we can do along the way to give it its best possible shot. That’s why, each issue, we try to fill these pages with helpful info from industry experts.

This month, we have an assortment of topics for bettering your business—all focusing on changes in the industry that you need to stay up to date on to avoid adverse effects.

On page 8, Scott Warrington and Tom Forsythe remind us why it’s important to keep up with carpet manufacturing trends and explore recent changes in carpet fiber that cleaners should know for best cleaning results.

And Sonny Ahuja explains the adjustments Google has made to its guidelines for the search engine’s human content quality raters and how to avoid a drop in your SEO rankings on page 22.

The Property Insurance and Restoration Conference recently brought together restorers and insurance industry professionals to develop photo documentation standards for insurance submissions. On page 24, Tomer Poran discusses the document’s development, and we take a look at some of the guidelines from the document’s early draft.

Turn to page 12 for a review of the current insurance market by Kari Dybdahl to decide if you’re paying the right price for your insurance in today’s insurance climate. And the IICRC lays out ways to create a safer workplace to protect your employees, the environment, and your bottom line on page 28.

Lastly, on page 16, our annual Restoration Benchmarking Survey Report takes a look at the ever-changing restoration industry through data and statistics developed with input from you, our wonderful readers. Use the results to see how you stack up against your peers and inform your decisions in the coming year.

My sincere thanks to all who took part in the survey, and congratulations to Raymond Rutkowski of Puroclean of Northern Lancaster County in Denver, PA; Dewayne Chatman of 911 Hazmat Cleanup in Ripon, CA; and Mark Royer of Service Team of Professionals – Metrowest in Framingham, MA, who each won a $100 Visa card in our survey respondent drawing!

If there’s ever a specific topic you’d like to see covered, send me an email at amandah@issa.com, and I’ll find a qualified person to cover it.

Amanda Hosey is the managing editor of��Cleanfax. She has worked as an editor and writer for more than six years, including four years with��Cleanfax.��Reach her at��amandah@issa.com.

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It is unfortunate that many professionals in our industry have been taught that a healthy and safe workplace is solely about compliance with regulations.

When a cleaning or restoration company abides by prescribed regulations, the action is seen as something that needs to be done in order to follow the law. However, simply remaining compliant does not teach employers how to develop a health-and-safety program, nor does it offer suggestions on how to create a culture of health and safety in the workplace.

They say the establishment of a safety regulation is usually the result of a person losing his or her life. In other words, many regulations are created in response to a situation in which a person died or became seriously injured or ill in an effort to ensure that situation and outcome do not occur again.

However, there is more to health and safety than just following the law. There is a philosophy of health and safety based on the recognition, assessment, and control of hazards; this philosophy is easy to remember with the acronym REACH, although we won’t discuss each of the below steps in this particular order.��[two_third]

R – Recognition

E – Evaluation

A – Assessment

C – Control

H – Hazards.

What defines a hazard?

In occupational health and safety jargon, a “hazard” is anything with the potential to cause death, harm, illness, or damage to people or property. Hazards have many contributing factors. The principal factors are people, equipment, materials, environment, and process. There are many processes and activities that also are known to be hazardous, such as those originating from machines, energy, confined space, material handling, work practices, ergonomics, and chemical/biologicals.

Recognizing a hazard

It is important for an employer to create a culture within the workplace where all supervisors and workers continually assess their worksites for hazards and are aware of what chemicals and processes are hazardous. In our industry, this is critical since our sites often change and the changes may progress from hour to hour and day to day. For example, the nature of cleaning, maintenance, and restoration can result in workers attending sites that have been altered in ways that create every possible form of hazardous condition, such as wet and slippery floors, ceilings collapsing, biological hazards, and electric shock hazards, to name a few.

There must be a continual process of hazard assessment on these worksites. This can help to identify hazards that lurk in a workplace. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) requires all employers perform hazard assessments by qualified persons and have it certified in writing by their representative.

Job-hazard analysis

Another way to develop a safe workplace is to conduct a job-hazard analysis, a systematic evaluation of a task performed by a worker. The analysis should take place at a site where the job task would normally occur, with a person who normally performs the task, and with the normal tools and materials they would use to perform the task.

The work should be broken down into segments. Then each segment should be evaluated to determine any hazardous conditions or potentially hazardous conditions that are present or may occur. If the job-hazard analysis is performed at a site where there are many possible scenarios due to changes in process, material types, or environment, then a change analysis would be added to the inspection. To perform a change analysis, look at each task in the job-hazard analysis and ask: “What if x were to occur?”

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A good example of change analysis is performing a job-hazard analysis on changing a vehicle tire. You would break down the tasks like so:

• First, take out the spare tire, then the jack.
• Raise the vehicle.
• Loosen the lug nuts and remove them.
• Remove the tire.
• Put on the spare.
• Tighten the lug nuts.
• Lower the vehicle.
• Return the jack and lug wrench, and stow the damaged tire.

During each step, you should ask yourself questions, such as: What if this were a different vehicle type? What if this were on a different road? What if this were at a different time of day? What if this were performed while it was raining or windy? What if this were being done on a sloped, gravel shoulder? This should help prepare for different scenarios.

Job-safety analysis

After your job-hazard analysis is finished, tabulate the hazardous conditions and perform a job-safety analysis. The job-safety analysis is the process of taking the information gathered and making the necessary changes in the company’s standard operating procedures by adding safe work practices to them and the company’s safety plan.

Communicating hazards

All employers are required to have health-and-safety programs that address issues such as hazard identification, emergency response, and bloodborne pathogens. It is also important for companies to have forms and checklists to reinforce and maintain their health and safety systems.

The foundation of formally communicating potential chemical hazards is often referred to as a written HAZCOM program—all companies are required by law to have one. Most countries in the world, including the United States, have adopted the Global Harmonized System (GHS) as a means of communicating chemical hazards to workers and others who face exposure to chemicals in the workplace. The GHS uses product labels, safety data sheets, and worker education and training as the means for communicating the hazards of a chemical product to materially interested parties.

The GHS has simplified the process of hazard communication with simple signal words, hazard statements, precautionary statements, and pictograms that are placed on the label of each chemical product in the workplace. Most information the worker needs to ascertain the hazards of a product can now be found on the supplier label.

Setting up and prioritizing controls

Most serious hazards on well-established worksites already have some sort of safety control placed on them. Workers must ensure that the controls in place have not been compromised when entering a worksite and assess the risk of all identified hazards from the hazard assessment.

Hazards are to be controlled at the source as much as
possible; the worker’s personal protective equipment (PPE) is viewed as a means of last resort. It is recommended that hazard controls are implemented following the below hierarchy.

Control type no. 1: Technical hazard controls

First, eliminate the hazardous substance or process; if that is not practical, substitute the chemical or process with a less hazardous one. If eliminating or substituting the hazard is not possible, the next step would involve installing engineering controls around the hazardous item to reduce the danger to the worker and the environment. Engineering controls minimize the hazards at their source. Examples include:

• Building barriers/containments around contaminated sites,
• Placing areas under negative pressure to prevent
  cross-contamination,
• Installing air filtration devices to rid the air of
  contaminants,
• Installing mufflers on loud items,
• Insulating hot lines or pipes.

Control type no. 2: Administrative hazard controls

The next step in implementing hazard controls is the implementation of administrative controls, which include safe work practices. Administrative controls in our industry are policies the employer creates for the purpose of reducing risk. Good examples of administrative controls in our industry are:

• Scheduling work to be done when building occupants are not present,
• When using hot/humid/full PPE, schedule work assignments in short segments with many rest periods,
• Implementing wet processes versus dry processes,
• Purchasing products for safety versus recognition factors.

The best way to develop safe work practices is to have the workers involved with their development. There is no one who knows the hazards of the workplace, equipment, and company processes better than the workers who perform the tasks. Examples of safe work practices include procedures for properly dealing with:

• Biological hazards,
• Sharps,
• Media blasting,
• Various cleaning protocol,
• Working at heights.

Control type no. 3: PPE controls

At the bottom of the hierarchy of controls is PPE.�� This is
because PPE does nothing to minimize the hazard at its source, such as by administrative controls or primary hazard controls. This can be a bit confusing for many in our industry because the initial hazard assessment is meant to determine the required PPE for the worker.

However, it’s important to consider that workers, depending on the task at hand, are entering sites that have changed, and will continue to change, until they return to

a pre-loss condition or until the cleaning project is complete. This is why constant evaluation is imperative until the project is complete. After the initial hazard assessment and placement of hazard controls, PPE should be worn as a precaution in case one of the other hazard controls is inefficient, insufficient, or impractical in rendering the hazard harmless.

It is highly recommended that all elements of a company’s hazard assessment and controls be incorporated in a company safety program. Other elements that should be incorporated into a health-and-safety program include elements on management leadership, worker training, and emergency response. No safety program would be complete without a means of evaluating its effectiveness and updating the program on a regular basis.

Accident and incident investigations

The last element to building a culture of health and safety in a workplace is accident and incident investigations. An accident is when there is a release of energy that causes harm, whether to an animal, person, or property. An incident is a release of energy that did not cause harm or damage but had the potential to do so. Incidents are often referred to as “near misses.”

The reason why we investigate accidents is to determine the root cause or initiatory phases of an event. This is why we investigate near misses the same way. We want to know what the initiatory phases were leading up to the incident that could have caused serious harm. In identifying what caused the accident or incident, we can then draw up safe work practices that will prevent or minimize the chance of this accident or incident occurring again.

Put it into practice

The elements outlined in this article are all essential to any company’s way of doing business. If all these elements are put into practice, the company will save money in downtime, workers’ compensation payments, and worker turnover and develop a more productive staff. It is the right thing to do and will encourage both employers and employees to work towards the common cause—a safe workplace.

James “Lee” Senter has been in the cleaning and restoration industry for more than 41 years. He is the chair of the IICRC Health and Safety Technician TAC and the IICRC Health and Safety Field Guides. He is also vice chair of standards at . Lee is a full-time IICRC instructor and flooring inspector. He owns a disaster restoration company and specialty cleaning company in Toronto, ON, Canada, and is the president of the Canadian Flooring, Cleaning & Restoration Association.

The post The Culture of Health and Safety appeared first on Cleanfax.

Carpet Details naturally releases dirt and oils from surfaces, utilizing a proprietary process and blend of pure,
natural minerals and has been providing custom spotters to flooring retailers since 1991.

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• No foam = No sticky soap
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• Prespray entire areas for faster cleaning (no worries if it dries before getting to it)

Contact: 800-693-6464 | info@carpetdetails.com

[infobox title=’The Easiest Mold Removal System…Period’][/infobox]

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The post July 2019 Chemical Showcase appeared first on Cleanfax.

Recently I sat in on an interesting discussion held during the Property Insurance and Restoration Conference (PIRC) on photo documentation standards. The participants of the discussion consisted of major restoration outfits, top-10 insurance carriers, major third-party administrator (TPA) firms, and leading technology vendors. The committee behind the discussion, of which I am a member, has been working on setting standards that all sides of the claim can agree on for passing photographic evidence of a loss between restorer and adjuster.

To me, a relative newcomer to the property claims world, this kind of interaction used to seem bizarre. Is this not a zero-sum game?

Isn’t one side trying to extract as much revenue from the loss as possible and the other trying to minimize settlement payouts? Why would restorers collaborate with adjusters to make their lives easier? Why would insurers help restorers avoid rejected line items due to poor photography?

Only after months of talking to adjusters and restorers did I learn the nuances of this co-dependent, albeit contentious, relationship—everyone’s goal is settling the claim in the fastest, most accurate way possible. Sure, there are some excessively difficult adjusters and some corner-cutting restoration contractors, but in general, these are outliers.

For the most part the industry is made up of hardworking contractors looking to do what’s necessary to get property owners back on their feet and get paid for the work they’ve done—nothing more, nothing less. And for the most part, you have honest, though heavily audited, adjusters that just want to pay out what the policy covers.

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Photo guideline enforceability

It was clear from the PIRC meeting that accuracy of scope was what both sides had in mind, and photographic documentation of a loss through pre-mitigation, post-mitigation, and post-reconstruction was key to achieving that mutually beneficial goal.

During the discussion, the committee cast a vote—after much deliberation—and a two-page outline defining what kind of photos should be taken, where they should be taken from, when they should be taken, from what angle they should be taken, at what quality they should be saved, how they should be named, and so on. While the crowd was pleased overall with how these standards would improve what most participants described as the “complete chaos” of current photo documentation practices prevalent in the industry, there was some doubt cast on implementation:

Some raised the valid point that, while the PIRC forum is wide and representative, it still includes less than 1% of all restorers. Would others accept these guidelines that require them to learn new documentation rules and train their staff on them?

Others contested that some carriers and TPAs have set photo guidelines and may not be willing to adopt these new ones.

And possibly the most important point made was that the industry has upwards of 100,000 low-skill, high-turnover employees that could have a difficult time adhering to these guidelines, while the owners of the firms they work for would have a hard time enforcing them.

3D technology and documentation

“Reality capture,” 3D technology is a relatively new addition to the restoration industry, but it’s growing fast, and rightly so, as it offers users the ability to not only visually document any property, but also document dimensionally. Both carriers and restorers are adopting “3D scanning solutions” because of the greater transparency it creates.

3D image of a restoration jobsite. Images courtesy of Matterport

These scanning solutions automatically adhere to the standards set out by PIRC and go much farther. Adopting “reality capture” in a restoration company can solve the fundamental issues of implementing photo documentation standards while at the same time upgrading the level of transparency set by PIRC. Remember those hardball adjusters looking to “get you” at every line item and those estimate-inflating contractors I mentioned earlier? 3D reality capture misses no image and measures the property with no possibility for human intervention, making sure those with unscrupulous goals are unsuccessful in their endeavors.

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What that means goes way beyond creating order in photo sharing. It creates transparency, which in turn, creates trust. And trust is big win for honest adjusters and contractors—and the industry as a whole.

Tomer Poran leads the insurance market at Matterport and previously led the company’s construction market, growing it to a multimillion-dollar vertical. Prior to Matterport he worked for DNX Ventures while getting his MBA at UC-Berkeley. Poran is from Israel, where he worked for Bain&Co, founded a startup, and served for 3.5 years as a naval officer. Reach him at tporan@matterport.com.

The post Implementing Photo Documentation Standards in Restoration appeared first on Cleanfax.

Ryan describes this job: “This homeowner had not been in his crawlspace since he bought the house—over 20 years ago! The home had groundwater issues and no gutters. We installed a vapor barrier and hired a contractor to repair the structural issues. We remediated the rest of the crawlspace and added new insulation. The customer was delighted, and we were pretty happy to have these pictures to add to our repertoire of before-and-after pictures!”

For an opportunity to win a gift card worth $250, send your images and a brief 100-word description on how you obtained your results to Amanda Hosey, managing editor, at amandah@issa.com, or submit via Facebook messenger at . Contest rules available by request.

[infobox title=’DID YOU KNOW’][/infobox]

There are three important steps to ensure a harassment-free workplace:

1. Address the legal issues of harassment with training.
2. Create a culture of
   understanding and awareness.
3. Hold employees accountable without exception.

Learn more at www.cleanfax.com/dealing-with-harassment.

The post The Neglected Crawlspace [Photo Contest] appeared first on Cleanfax.

Are you really cleaning what you think you are cleaning? You may be cleaning the wrong carpet or carpet that is not what you think it is. You cannot always tell what carpet fiber you are cleaning just by looking at it. Because nylon was the gold standard in synthetic carpet fibers for many decades, carpet manufacturers worked hard to make their olefin, polyester, and triexta fibers resemble nylon.

Each fiber has different properties that are evident in the types of soil it releases or holds onto. For example, triexta and polyester absorb almost no water and naturally shed watery liquids. But they love oil. Olefin is more likely to hold tightly to fine, abrasive soil particles due to van der Waals forces. Various presprays are formulated to attack specific soils or work with specific fibers.

Benefits of carpet fiber ID

Knowing the fiber you are cleaning can help you select the best possible cleaning agents. Fiber identification is also helpful in managing client expectations. The differences in fibers mean not only a different response to cleaning, but also to traffic and wear as the carpet ages. If customers have experience with the resiliency of nylon, they may be disappointed in how polyester holds up to heavy traffic. Help your customer know what to expect. It can save you a call back.

Performing a fiber ID test will also set your company apart from 95% of the potential competition who does not do fiber ID. Testing and explaining the process to your curious customer provides a great opportunity to sell the quality of your service. You are selecting a cleaning approach custom matched to their carpet.

You likely know how to do a burn test. However, a burn test does not always distinguish between nylon and olefin. Formic acid, often sold as Fiber ID solution, allows you to positively identify nylon fibers. Formic acid will quickly melt nylon but not other synthetic carpet fibers. Be careful how and where you perform this test. Formic acid is stinging venom produced by fire ants. You don’t want this on your skin, anyone else’s skin, or on nylon carpet other than the tuft you are testing. (See Figure 1 for a detailed burn chart.)

Figure 1. This burn chart can help identifying fabric type with a burn test. Courtesy of Scott Warrington.

Statistics

Figure 2 shows nylon carpet lost over half of its share of the residential market from 2007 to 2017. Polypropylene (olefin) lost almost half of its residential market share during the same time span. Polyester almost doubled its market share since 2007. If you include triexta (a polyester variation), then polyester has almost tripled its residential market share since 2007.

No wonder the carpet cleaner needs to be able to identify the fiber before cleaning it. Ten years ago, you could assume a carpet was nylon since polyester held only 25% of the market. Today the reverse is true, with nylon making up only 25% of new residential carpet sales.

Cleaning problems

Nylon carpet fibers—both type 6 and 6, 6—recover well from stretch and are less likely to break than polyester. They also have excellent resiliency and recovery from bending deformation, which means they are less likely to crush and mat than olefin, polyester, or triexta.*

Olefin and polyester abrade or become scratched easier than nylon. Actually, nylon is a polyamide fiber related to the fibers used to reinforce radial tires and Kevlar that is used in bulletproof vests. Nylon does abrade but not easily.

Therefore, your clients are likely seeing much more damage to their carpet’s face yarns than previously. Matting, crushing, stretching, and abrasion are all fiber characteristics and are the result of wear, so they do not reflect the thoroughness of the cleaning. But the customer may feel his or her new carpet does not respond as well to cleaning as his former nylon carpet did. Be sure to set proper expectations.

Olefin and, to a lesser extent, polyester and triexta repel water but have an affinity for or attraction to oils. This includes petroleum products like motor oils and asphalt that might be tracked in from a parking area. With time and oxidation, these oils become part of the fiber and impart a yellow or brown color. This may appear as a pathway, with the greatest discoloration beginning at the front door. The affinity for oils also includes cooking oils such as vegetable and olive oils. These are dispersed from the cooking area by air currents and eventually are pulled to the carpet by gravity.

Chemistry

There are several products that you will want to have available to produce the best cleaning results.

The standard, high-pH degreasing prespray is usually the first and best choice for a fiber that loves oil. This is especially true for homes where the kitchen is obviously used. However, when this is not the case, because abrasive dry particles are the major soil load, a prespray that utilizes a cationic hydrotope to draw soils from the carpet and hold them in suspension until the carpet is rinsed is an excellent choice. This type of product does not need to be high pH, as it is the special surfactant blend of non-ionics and cationics that does the bulk of the work.

Citrus boosters can be added to either type of prespray to enhance degreasing. Oxidizers can be used when lighter colors are used in the fiber and need to be highlighted. Using a phosphate-based rinse along with soft water will more readily remove the suspended globs of soils and oils. The most advanced chemistry will make the cleaning task much easier, giving better results and saving time.

Procedures

Polyester and olefin should be cleaned frequently before oils have time to bond with fibers and oxidize. In addition to the chemistry mentioned previously, high heat and agitation are helpful to break bonds between the fibers and oils.

Be cautious with heat. Hot solution hoses or quick connects that remain in one place for an extended time can mark the carpet. Consider the use of safe connects or wrap to protect the carpet. Mechanical action with a counter-rotating brush helps lift the pile to reduce matting while also separating oils and other soils from the carpet.

Wicking during the drying process is a common issue with polyester and olefin since they are hydrophobic (or water-hating) fibers. Complete and thorough vacuuming is a first step to prevent or reduce wicking. Soiling that is removed from the carpet has no chance to wick to the surface. Generally, dry soils are easier to remove than wet.

These fibers absorb very little moisture. Whatever liquids are applied to the carpet face immediately begin to travel down the tuft toward the base of the carpet. Multiple slow extraction passes help remove that water along with the dissolved and suspended contaminants.

Post bonneting can remove excess moisture and soil that may have begun to wick. Encapsulation products sprayed on following extraction also reduce wicking. Air movement from airmovers or the client’s ceiling fans and HVAC system will speed drying and also help reduce wicking.

Protective treatments

Ten years ago, most after-market protectors were designed for nylon. Nylon dominated the marketplace since olefin and polyester were secondary with significant gaps in cost. Even though polyester and olefin were in the marketplace, their cost and volume did not justify developing specialized protective treatments. Triexta filled the cost gap between nylon and the other fibers so that protective treatments became a viable option.

However, triexta carpet was originally advertised as needing no protection since the fibers would not stain. Over time, the oleophilic nature of triexta fiber results in bonding of oils onto the fiber, which attracts soil and makes it a difficult carpet to clean effectively. This resulted in the creation of a triexta carpet fiber with outstanding water resistance along with claims that it would never need to be protected again. Previously, carpet manufacturers weren’t applying protectant to triexta fibers, but rather chose to rely on tag lines like “the stain resistance is built in.” This refers to the fact that polyester and triexta are solution dyed. But staining hasn’t been the issue with these fibers; rather, it is their propensity to grab onto and hold onto oils (because they are oleophilic). After years of no applied fluoroprotector, carpet manufacturers are now applying fluorochemicals to help reduce soiling of these textiles which should encourage cleaners to offer an appropriate protector.

It is common knowledge that fluoroprotector is removed from carpet fibers due to abrasion including friction from foot traffic and vacuuming with beater bar brushes. Repeated cleaning will also remove some of the treatment. Today, secondary market treatments are needed for both nylon- and polyester-type carpet including triexta.

The days of one protector being appropriate for all carpet are over. Nylon still has open dye sites that need to be filled with an acid dye resistor to provide stain resistance along with fluoroprotector treatments. These treatments are resistant to oil but not at the level necessary to protect triexta carpet from its oleophilic nature. The addition of an acid dye resistor tends to negate surface tension protection against oils. Oils will penetrate below the surface to bond with soils. A protector without an acid dye resistor can provide effective surface energy (tension) to the fiber, which limits penetration of oils, making them easier to remove in cleaning.

The suggested dilutions of all secondary market protectors are designed to replenish the mill-applied protector. For best results, apply the type of protector applied at the mill. Nylon carpet needs to have its levels of both fluoroprotector and acid dye resistors replenished, while the triexta fiber only needs the fluoroprotector replenished.

Stain resistance is the most important feature that needs to be replenished in nylon carpet. Oil resistance is the most important feature that needs to be replenished in triexta carpet. Fortunately, both types of protective treatment provide soil resistance to help keep carpet cleaner for a longer period of time.

Pulling it all together

Based on the principles laid out in this article, it is easy to see how beneficial it is to know the type of face fiber—nylon, polyester, triexta, or olefin—prior to cleaning. This will enable the cleaner to pick the best cleaning solutions for the job and to allow the fiber choice to dictate the best protector to be applied.

The brave new world of carpet cleaning demands that conscientious cleaners identify the type of fibers being cleaned and apply protective treatments that are best suited for the fiber at hand. Will you be the fire ant who knows the difference?

*Textile Fibers, Dyes, Finishes and Processes – A Concise Guide by Dr. Howard L. Needles

**Face yarn only, based on quantity (information compiled from Flooring Covering Weekly data)

Scott Warrington manages education, customer service departments, and provides technical support for��/, Hydro-Force, and Bridgepoint customers. He has more than 50 years of experience in the cleaning industry.

Tom Forsythe has worked for Bridgepoint Systems for 20 years and has developed more than 200 chemical products.

The post The Brave New World of Carpet Cleaning appeared first on Cleanfax.

Have you ever felt as if it would be a full-time job to keep up with all of the changes in the insurance market? That is because it is!

The insurance market is everchanging. Liability policies and appetites of insurance carriers can change monthly and are driven by many factors; however, these changes are mostly driven by litigation within a particular industry as well as geography. For example, contractors in Wyoming might have the luxury of lower rates and broader insurance coverage; whereas, a contractor in New York has to fight rates and coverage every renewal.

Risk appetite, insurance rates, coverage exclusions, and endorsements seem to change regularly, especially in the excess- and surplus-lines market, which is where you get your pollution insurance coverage. With all the changes, it can seem impossible to keep up and like your insurance coverage could slip through the cracks, leaving you vulnerable when you really need it.

In this article, we will go through significant recent changes seen in the insurance industry and how they relate to your business and insurance, including what to expect with your insurance renewals and what to look out for with certain coverages.

A recent report said that the insurance industry as a whole has been experiencing a downturn in losses. This includes all insurance sold in our economy: Homeowner’s insurance, personal auto insurance, business auto insurance, commercial property insurance, and many more.

It almost seems hard to believe given the increasing number of intense storms and catastrophic events such as wildfires and floods. When the insurance industry pays less out in claims, they require less funds coming in to offset those losses, resulting in lower premiums for insurance buyers. This is good news for all insurance consumers, both personal and commercial.

Although the number of losses has recently gone down, the amount paid per loss has been increasing exponentially. Recent increased assessment on the value of a person’s life has caused insurance companies to pay out millions in damages; whereas, in the past, they would have paid out a fraction of the current payout for a similar loss.

Consider the recent litigation against Monsanto and its related cancer claims: In May, a man was awarded $289 million in damages, and after just three jury trials against the company, more than $2 billion in damages had been awarded.

Let’s examine some lines of insurance coverage that cleaning and restoration professionals customarily purchase to get an understanding of the current climate.

Commercial auto insurance

As the awards for damages increases, so will the rates of auto insurance. Another factor contributing to the increased rates on auto insurance is the ever-growing amount of technology in vehicles. Technologically advanced parts like built-in mapping systems and Bluetooth technology are more expensive to replace or fix and, therefore, more costly to insure. Unfortunately, we do not see the rates on business auto insurance for contractors reducing in the near future.

Property insurance

The rates on property insurance depend heavily on your location. If your area has been affected by recent weather events such as a storms, flooding, wildfires, or other natural disasters, rates on your insurance could very well increase due to the risk profile.

We have not seen or heard of rates increasing (the way the auto insurance line currently is), but we have certainly heard of rate reductions in locations that have not been affected by a catastrophic event. So, look forward to potential reductions in costs if you’re located in these areas.

General and pollution liability

Over the past few years, there has been a steady increase in claims from restoration contractors on their operations-based liability policies—anything from an upset customer who didn’t like the build-back work to asbestos accidentally disturbed in a building. Insurance companies have determined that the bulk of claims are coming from the commercial general liability exposures, especially those related to build-back work.

In the past year and a half, we have seen insurance carriers pull out of the restoration class altogether; however, not all carriers have exited the space. Many of those that remain have increased rates in order to account for the uptick in claims and loss payouts. If 20% or more of your revenue is derived from build-back work or any work other than direct restoration or remediation work, you should expect a rate increase on your operations-based liability insurance such as your commercial general liability, contractor’s pollution liability, and professional liability insurance policies.
To help with rate increases on loss-leading lines of coverage, I suggest having a good risk-management plan in place that you can share with your insurance company. Even if you haven’t had a loss, a risk-management plan shows your insurance company you are doing your due diligence and actively taking steps to reduce everyday risk in your company.

Always remember that insurance is in place to transfer catastrophic risk that would threaten the longevity of your company onto another party (i.e., your insurance company) through a contract. Your insurance should never be so expensive that it is uncomfortable to run your business. If this happens, be sure to contact an insurance professional right away that specializes in insurance for the cleaning and restoration industry.

Kari Dybdahl has a decade of experience in the environmental insurance industry assisting clients from carpet cleaners to municipalities. She has received multiple awards and recognition for her work placing compliant insurance for Crawford Contractor Connection members, ICRA members, and many others. Dybdahl designs custom insurance programs alongside Dave Dybdahl. Please reach out to her with any questions at 608-824-3341 or��kari@armr.net.

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When it comes to content, the quality is of prime importance for Google. This is the underlying message reflected in the new updates to Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines, which are a set of instructions that Google’s human quality raters follow when manually evaluating the performance of Google’s algorithms.

These reforms provide new information on how to assess “low quality” and “lowest quality” pages. Of all the changes made to the 164-page guidelines, the sections on page quality received the most significant updates.

When a rater analyzes whether a piece of content is of “low quality,” they refer to what is laid out in the Quality Rater Guidelines for their analysis of the content.

It’s important to note that quality raters cannot personally change how a page is ranked. Rather, they can only pass feedback to those who write Google’s algorithms. From there, an algorithm update may be pushed out, which would then impact page rankings.

How Google defines low-quality pages

According to Google’s updated Quality Rater Guidelines, low-quality pages are those that miss the mark on what they have set out to achieve. This could be due to one of two reasons: Either there is not a satisfactory amount of content to adequately satisfy the reader, or the content creator isn’t well versed in the topic they’re writing about.

Google says these pages “may have been intended to serve a beneficial purpose. However, low-quality pages do not achieve their purpose well because they are lacking in an important dimension, such as having an unsatisfying amount of MC [main content] or because the creator of the MC lacks the expertise for the purpose of the page.”

The key difference between this revised definition of low-quality pages and the previous definition is that quality can still be considered “low” even if there was a clear intention for the page to serve a beneficial purpose. Quality raters are instructed to rate a page as “low” if any one or more of the following applies:

• There is an inadequate level of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T),
• The quality of the MC is low,
• There is an unsatisfying amount of MC for the purpose of the page,
• The website or creator of the MC has a mildly negative reputation based on extensive reputation research.
• The ads or supplementary content (e.g., related-pages links) distract from the MC,
• There is an unsatisfying amount of website information or information about the creator of the MC for the purpose of the page (no good reason for anonymity),
• The title of the MC is exaggerated or shocking.

This last point means articles with clickbait-style headlines should now be considered “low” quality, regardless of the actual quality of the main content. Google elaborates on this point, stating, “Exaggerated or shocking titles can entice users to click on pages in search results. If pages do not live up to the exaggerated or shocking title or images, the experience leaves users feeling surprised and confused… Pages with exaggerated or shocking titles that do not describe the MC well should be rated low.”

If a page has multiple low-quality attributes, a rating lower than “low” may be applied.

More to know

Here is a roundup of other notable changes that were made to the “low-quality pages” and “lowest quality pages” sections:

• Ads should be considered distracting if they feature grotesque images.
• Extensive research is required to evaluate the reputation of a content creator.
• Identifying a content creator using a long-standing internet alias or username is now acceptable.
• A page is of “lowest” quality when the purpose of the page cannot be determined.
• “Your Money, Your Life” pages (pages that affect a reader’s future like health and money recommendations or pages in which you must use your credit card) with no information about the content creator should be rated lowest.
• Unmaintained websites should be rated lowest quality if they fail to achieve their purpose due to the lack of maintenance.
• Pages that promote hate against groups of people based on socio-economic status, political beliefs, and being victims of atrocities should be rated lowest.
• Pages that promote mental, physical, or emotional harm to self or others should be rated lowest.
• Content should be rated lowest if the creator has a negative or malicious reputation.
• Pages with links that are detrimental to users, such as malware download links, should be rated lowest.
• Pages that misinform users with “demonstrably inaccurate content” should be rated lowest.
• Any page designed to trick users into clicking on links should be rated lowest.

The points listed above are all new additions to Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines. Staying aware of changes to the way Google Ranks its search engine results pages is always a good idea. Consider these changes as you build and maintain your own site pages to make sure you keep improving your rankings.

Read the full Google Quality Rater Guidelines at .

Sonny Ahuja is an online lead-generation expert who specializes in high-conversion responsive websites, optimized mobile sites, Google AdWords, and SEO. He mainly helps remodeling, disaster restoration, and cleaning companies get more leads by developing their online lead-generation systems. Visit for more from Ahuja.

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If you like numbers, data, and statistics, and how they can help you grow your company, you will enjoy the information here.

About this report: The data in this survey is based on results from restoration contractors responding to invitations to participate in the survey.

View the report by scrolling, or go to the bottom of this page to download the complete results from the 2019 Restoration Benchmarking Survey Report.

The industry is comprised primarily of long-tenured leadership with 68% of companies retaining the same ownership for more than a decade.

More than 71% of companies reported spending more than $50,000 to get started.

The number of companies traveling outside their local area for large-scale disasters grew 4% over 2018.

The #1 challenge dictates the #2 challenge. It takes a quality staff, one that sticks around, to maintain margins and create a profitable company.

Residential jobs still make up the bulk of industry work, with 71% reporting at least 70% of business is residential.

Once again water damage dominates the list of the most profitable services, with 62% reporting higher margins with mitigation than any other service.

Use of adjusters made a big jump forward this year with 80% using them to get leads, compared to 62% in 2018.

Getting paid by insurance companies is always a pain, with 47% waiting more than six weeks to receive payment.

The average cost per man hour for every service went down this year (compared to 2018), as did the median for most.

A Cleanfax poll indicates most restorers have roots in the carpet cleaning industry, which is why carpet/rug cleaning is the number 1 additional service offered by most.

Keeping employees can be hard, but more than half of companies report average employee tenures of five years or more.

Click the preview below to view or download the complete results from the 2019 Restoration Benchmarking Survey Report.

To compare this year’s results with the 2018 Restoration Benchmarking Survey Report, click here.

The post The 2019 Restoration Benchmarking Survey Report appeared first on Cleanfax.