If the person you hired to stop the chaos actually causes it, who is going to pay for the broken glass and the broken bones? This is a question people do not ask when the sun is out and the music is playing. They see a uniform and they see a badge and they feel safe.
But the badge is a piece of metal and the uniform is a piece of cloth. They do not pay for lawyers and they do not pay for medical bills. You think the agency has it handled but you do not know. You assume they are covered but you have not seen the paper.
Grace sat at her desk and the office was quiet. The air conditioner hummed in the wall. There was a letter on the desk and the return address was a law firm she did not know. She opened the envelope with a silver opener.
The paper was heavy and the words were very cold. A guest had fallen at the event . The guest had tripped over a cable and the guard had tried to help but the guard had moved the guest the wrong way. Now there was a lawsuit and the guest wanted three hundred thousand dollars.
She called the security company. The man on the phone sounded tired. He told her the guard was a contractor and the insurance did not cover contractors who moved injured people. He said the policy had an exclusion for professional liability and he said he was sorry.
Grace looked at the contract she had signed. It was two pages long and it was very simple. It said the company was licensed. It did not say they were insured for the things that actually happen when humans get hurt.
The Licensing Trap
The BSIS license in California is a good thing to have. It means the state knows who you are and it means you passed a test. But a license is not a bank account. A license does not write checks to the hospital.
Many people think they are the same thing and they are wrong. You can have a license and you can have zero dollars in coverage for assault or battery or negligence. You can have a license and you can have no workers’ compensation for the guard who breaks his ankle on your stairs.
When that guard sues, he does not sue the agency because the agency has no money. He sues you because you have a building and you have a business.
Lessons from the London Brigades
I was reading about the history of the London fire brigades. Before the government took over, insurance companies ran the fire departments. They would put a “fire mark” made of lead on the front of a house.
If your house was on fire and you did not have a mark, the brigade would stand in the street and watch it burn. They were not being mean. They were being precise. They only protected what was paid for.
Modern security is the same way but the marks are hidden in the fine print of a policy you never asked to see.
The Anatomy of the Paper Shield
The boring details are the only ones that matter. The way a guard stands is not important when the judge is looking at the evidence. The judge looks at the Certificate of Insurance. He looks for the “Additional Insured” endorsement. He looks for the “Waiver of Subrogation.”
If these things are not there, the shield is made of paper. We skip the boring parts because they are dull and they make us want to sleep. We want to talk about the radio and we want to talk about the patrol route. We do not want to talk about the “Assault and Battery” rider.
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“A loose thread is a silent alarm.”
– William T., Thread Tension Calibrator
William T. spends his days making sure the strings are not too tight and not too loose. He was talking about fabric but he was talking about everything else too. If the tension is wrong, the whole sheet will tear when the wind hits it.
Insurance is the tension in your business. You do not notice it when the weather is calm but you notice it when the storm comes.
The Lonely side of the Road
Most people find out their guard is not insured the same way they find out their car is out of gas. They are on the side of the road and the engine is dead. It is a very lonely feeling.
Saved on Hourly Rate
$50
Loss on Legal Fees
$50,000+
You realize that you saved fifty dollars on the hourly rate and now you are losing fifty thousand dollars on the legal fees. The math is very bad and the math does not lie.
There are many ways an agency hides the truth. They show you a master policy that looks big. It has many zeros on it. But they do not tell you that the policy excludes “third-party bodily injury” or they do not tell you that it only covers the office and not the field.
The Case of the Orange County Dog
They give you a copy of a document that expired in . You do not check the date because you are busy and you trust people. Trust is a fine thing to have for your friends but it is a poor thing to have for your liability.
I remember a construction site in Orange County. The developer hired a man to sit in a truck. The man was nice and he had a dog. One night a teenager climbed the fence and the dog bit the teenager. The teenager sued.
The developer called the security company and the phone was disconnected. The company had vanished. They had a license once but they let the insurance lapse because it cost too much money.
The developer paid for the settlement and he paid for the dog’s board. He learned that the cheapest option is often the most expensive one in the end.
The Transparency Standard
A licensed and insured security provider does not hide these things. They put them in the front. They make the insurance part of the booking because they know that is what you are actually buying.
You are not just buying a person in a shirt. You are buying the peace of mind that comes when the person in the shirt makes a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. The guard is a human and the guest is a human. They will trip and they will fall and they will lose their tempers.
If you book a guard and it takes three days of phone calls to get a quote, you are already in trouble. The time you spend waiting is time you are not looking at the credentials. You get the quote and you are so tired that you just sign the paper.
You want the problem to go away. But the problem is just starting. The traditional model of security is built on the slow dance of the telephone. It is built on the hope that you will not ask the hard questions about the policy limits.
We live in a world where you can see the price of a flight in one second. You can see the rating of a restaurant in one second. You should be able to see the insurance of a guard in the same way.
When the process is transparent, the insurance is there. When the process is hidden behind “call for a quote,” the insurance might be there or it might be a ghost. You do not want to hire a ghost to protect your property.
I spent reading about the legal doctrine of negligent entrustment. It is a simple idea. If you give a dangerous tool to someone who does not know how to use it, you are responsible for what they do.
A security guard is a tool. If they are not vetted and they are not trained and they are not insured, you have entrusted your business to a risk. You are the one who opened the gate. You are the one who let them in.
The Ventura Guard
The guard at the event in Ventura was a tall man. He looked very strong. He looked like he could stop any trouble. But when the fire marshal came, the guard did not know where the extinguishers were.
He did not know the capacity of the room. He was a body in a space. A body is not enough. You need a professional. A professional has a folder full of boring papers. He has a policy that is paid up. He has a worker’s comp certificate that is current.
Grace eventually closed the letter from the law firm. She felt a weight in her stomach. She realized that she had been lucky for and her luck had run out.
She had been protected by hope and hope is not a strategy. She had looked at the price per hour and she had not looked at the cost of the disaster. She would have to go to a meeting and she would have to explain this to the board. They would ask her why she did not check the insurance. She would have no answer.
The Real Walls of the Fortress
The sun comes up every day and the city of Los Angeles is very big. There are thousands of guards standing at thousands of doors. Some of them are the real thing and some of them are just wearing the clothes.
You cannot tell the difference by looking at their eyes. You can only tell the difference by looking at their paperwork. You must be the one who looks. If you do not look, you are the one who pays.
The boring things are the walls of the fortress. The uniform is just the flag flying on top. The flag is pretty but the walls keep the enemies out. You must check the stones of the wall. You must make sure the mortar is strong.
You must make sure the policy covers the specific things that can go wrong at a wedding or a construction site or a concert. If you do not, you are just standing in an open field and pretending you are safe.
The Courtroom Truth
At last, the truth comes out in the courtroom. It does not come out in the sales meeting. It does not come out over a cup of coffee. It comes out when the lawyers start to dig.
They dig into the payroll and they dig into the coverage. They find the holes and they walk through them. You can stop them before they start. You can choose a partner that doesn’t make you wait. You can choose a company that shows you the shield before you give them the keys.
The reality of the security business in Riverside and Orange County is that anyone can buy a shirt. Anyone can print a business card. But not everyone can maintain a BSIS license and a full stack of insurance.
Respect for the Worst Day
It is a high bar and it is meant to be high. It is there to protect the public and it is there to protect you. When a company ignores the bar, they are telling you that they do not value your safety more than their profit.
We think of insurance as a tax. We think of it as a burden. But insurance is actually the highest form of respect. It is the company saying that they know their work matters. It is the company saying that they are prepared for the worst day.
When you find a company that values the boring stuff, you have found a company you can trust. You do not have to wonder if the officer is insured. You know he is because the system does not work any other way.
Grace’s Peace
Grace decided to change everything. She looked for a new provider. She looked for someone who was transparent. She looked for someone who was fast. She found that she could book a guard online and she could see the license number and she could see the insurance.
She did not have to wait for a callback. She did not have to beg for a certificate. The information was there because the company was proud of it. They did not hide the boring stuff. They led with it.
The next time the sun went down and the guests arrived, Grace felt different. She saw the guards at the door and she knew they were ready. She knew that if someone tripped or if someone started a fight, there was a net to catch the fall.
The music was loud and the people were happy. Grace went to her office and she did not look for any envelopes. She sat in her chair and she listened to the hum of the air conditioner and she was at peace.
She had traded her hope for a policy and it was a very good trade.
