Human Resources, Law Enforcement, Legal, Insurance Coverage, Safety, Technology, Training
Oklahoma Municipal Assurance Group
Introducing the OMAG All Access Podcast

Check out the new OMAG All Access podcast on all major podcast apps and services. Timely, relevant help on municipal government from your friendly experts at OMAG. Learn more by visiting www.omag.org/allaccess.

Introducing the OMAG All Access Podcast
Loss Bulletin
Monica Coleman
Municipal Employers and the Coronavirus - Be ...
Municipal Employers and the Coronavirus - Be Flexible!

Sewer Maintenance - Clean-Outs and Back-Water Valves

Sewer Maintenance - Clean-Outs and Back-Water Valves

Clean-outs and back-water valves are the resident’s key to keeping the private sewer service in good working condition and protecting the home from sewer back-up problems.

A clean-out is a vertical pipe that provides access to a property’s sewer service, allowing homeowners or plumbers to clear blockages that disrupt service. A clean-out cap is typically white PVC or metal, about 4 inches in diameter, and located near buildings.

Both homeowners and tenants should locate and inspect their clean-out cap before a plumbing emergency occurs. Keeping the caps screwed onto the clean-out helps prevent possible sewer backups caused by yard debris, dirt, and other items entering the sewer system. Capping also stops excessive inflow and infiltration, which can overload the system and cause overflows. 

A back-water valve is the resident’s protection against sewer back-up into the structure. If water tries to back up from the sewer mainline, the valve prevents sewage from backing up into the building. Back-water valves are typically located either outside near the building or in a floor drain in a basement. Those outside have a cap similar to a clean-out cap and a vertical pipe down to the valve. Size and maintenance needed depend upon the manufacturer of the back-water valve. 

You can protect yourself from sewer problems by making sure you have an accessible clean-out, keeping your sewer line in good condition, and by making sure you have a functional back-water valve.       

The photo below shows a back-water valve with 2 clean-outs. The caps have been removed to show how the back-water valve allows fluid to flow in only one direction. 

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Hacking, Cybersecurity, and Social Engineering

Hacking, Cybersecurity, and Social Engineering

We've all seen the news articles and stories about Target, Home Depot, and other major retailers and businesses getting hacked, and the major business impacts this can occur, but up until recently we've felt pretty safe knowing that as Oklahoma towns and cities, we're relatively small targets. Unfortunately, that has changed. Hackers are more and more targeting smaller, less well-protected targets, and one of our own has been a recent victim.

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Understanding Your Vehicle Auto Liability and Physical Damage Coverage

Understanding Your Vehicle Auto Liability and Physical Damage Coverage

As personnel in municipal offices change, replacing the knowledge and experience of the person that served your municipality can be difficult.  Understanding insurance coverage when so many other things seem to demand our attention may not be a priority. Please let the following serve to provide a basic description of the coverage OMAG provides.   

Auto Liability provides bodily injury and/or property damage coverage to a third party for an accident caused by a municipal employee involving a municipal vehicle.

Physical Damage Coverage is for damage to the municipality’s vehicles. There are three types of vehicle physical damage coverage available through OMAG: Collision, Comprehensive and Specified Perils.

Collision Coverage provides coverage for your vehicle if it collides or crashes into another vehicle or stationary object, such as a pole or fence.

Comprehensive Coverage and Specified Perils Coverage provide coverage for your vehicle for a “loss from any cause except collision,” but Comprehensive is a broader coverage than Specified Perils. OMAG suggests that you consider either Comprehensive Coverage or Specified Perils Coverage on each of your vehicles; you do not need both.

Comprehensive Coverage provides coverage for your vehicle for all risks covered by Specified Perils as well as glass breakage, damage done by an animal, and loss resulting from rain, snow, or sleet (whether or not wind driven), which Specified Perils does not cover.

Specified Perils Coverage provides coverage only for light and heavy trucks, ambulances, vans and SUV’s and is not available for private passenger vehicles, such as police units or private automobiles used by municipal officials. OMAG’s Specified Perils Coverage has no deductible: however, it only covers the following specific risks that may cause damage to your vehicles:  Fire or explosion, theft, windstorm, hail, earthquake, flood, mischief or vandalism, and the sinking, burning, collision or derailment of any conveyance transporting the covered vehicle.

To assure adequate protection in case of a loss, your autos need to be reviewed annually to insure they are listed on your schedules. These auto schedules are sent to you each year when we send your Municipal Liability Protection renewal flash drive.  

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Operator Safety

Operator Safety

Work Zone Safety -Maintenance Operations and Temporary Traffic Control
Roadway maintenance activities and sometimes water/sewer line repair occur in close proximity to traffic, creating a potentially dangerous environment for workers, drivers, and incident responders. In many cases a Temporary Traffic Control (TTC) Zone will be needed to both protect workers and incident responders as well as allow for the safe and efficient movement of drivers and pedestrians through and around the Work Zone. There are several Work Zone safety issues to plan and prepare for when setting up Temporary Traffic Controls.  One issue to consider is Operator Safety.  Print the brochure below to share with your employees who must work near equipment and traffic.

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Municipal EMT or First Responders

Municipal EMT or First Responders

The responsibility to respond to our members’ coverage questions and provide coverage interpretation primary falls on OMAG’s Underwriting and Member Services Departments with support provided by OMAG’s Legal and Risk Management Departments. Providing a clear and consistent response to these inquiries is always our goal. 

Our Municipal Liability Protection Plan under GENERAL PROVISIONS / Part VI EXCLUSIONS provides: “we have no obligation to pay nor do we have any obligation to defend any claim against a plan member on account of: 

5. Loss arising out of: 
     a. the rendering of or failure to render medical, surgical, dental, x-ray or other treatment;                any service or treatment conducive to health; or any cosmetic or tonsorial service or                  treatment” 

HOWEVER, this exclusion does not apply to certified First Responders or licensed Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) services of or provided by a plan member. This exclusion does not apply to a plan member while the plan member is engaged as a student training to secure certification as a First Responder or an EMT license. The plan member who is engaged in such training must be under the direct supervision of others licensed or certified to undertake such activities in order to be covered under this agreement. Services of a certified First Responder or licensed EMT include the transportation and immediate medical care provided to the emergency patients prior to their arrival at a medical facility, as those terms are defined by 63 Oklahoma Statute $ 1-2503, as amended.  

If your Fire Department personnel meet these criteria there would be coverage provided as long as they are performing these duties within city limits. Outside of city limits Oklahoma Statute Title 11 / Chapter 1 / Article XXIX – Fire Departments / Section 29-108 Addresses Fire Department Answering Calls Outside Corporate Limits Considered Agent of State – Liability for Damages “A municipal Fire Department answering any fire alarms or performing fire prevention services or rescue, resuscitation, first aid, inspection or any other official work outside the corporate limits of its municipality shall be considered an agent of the State of Oklahoma, and acting solely and alone in a governmental capacity. Said municipality shall not be liable in damages for any act of commission, omission, or negligence while answering or returning from any fire or reported fire or doing or performing any fire prevention work or rescue, resuscitation, first aid, inspection or any other official work”. As such, there is no liability for the City or Town to be covered when performing these duties outside the city limits. 

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How Water Parks Can Avoid Customer Injuries and Liability

How Water Parks Can Avoid Customer Injuries and Liability

Every year, an estimated 80 million people attend the more than 1,000 water parks in the United States. In 2014 alone, more than 15.2 million visited the top 20 most popular of these parks. Water parks offer visitors the exciting, action-packed experiences of riding gravity-defying slides, surfing or swimming in wave pools, jumping or swinging from great heights into the water, and riding on inflatables. Unfortunately, it’s not all fun and games—sometimes visitors get hurt.

In 2013, Consumers Digest reported that even though attendance at water parks had grown by only 3.8% since 2009, the number of injuries from accidents at these facilities grew by 38% over the same period. Approximately 86% of reported water park injuries involve water slides, according to the nonprofit Saferparks.

Of course, those who participate in any form of recreation that involves physical activity risk being injured. When people are injured at water parks, they often sue the facility on the grounds that the activity or premises was not reasonably safe.

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Injury and Illness Prevention Program

Injury and Illness Prevention Program

In Oklahoma every employer is required to provide a safe and healthful workplace to his/her employees. In accordance with the Oklahoma Code of Regulations, employers of 25 or more full-time and/or part-time employees must have a designated Safety Coordinator and an effective written Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) or as it is better known a written Safety and Health Policies and Procedures manual. What should you expect to see in an IIPP or Safety and Health P&P manual? It is a written plan that has the following elements: 

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Working Safely in Confined Spaces

Working Safely in Confined Spaces

Do you ever work in a confined space? There are many types of confined spaces – tanks, silos, pits, tunnels, pipes, boilers, sewer manholes, trenches, etc. No matter what the type, confined spaces have something in common. They have limited ways to get in and out, and the atmosphere within them could be dangerous. This Tailgate Safety Topic discusses what you should know to work safely in a confined space. 

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Looking to Prevent Accidents

Looking to Prevent Accidents

Most accidents happen because people just didn’t watch what they were doing, where they were walking, or where they were standing, sitting, or climbing. Paying attention and “looking” is our topic for today. It is the most important and basic principle of accident prevention.

There is a common safety example of the billboard painter who stepped back to admire his work and fell fifty feet to his death. It’s all right to admire your own work, but it’s mighty important to look before you step in any direction. You could be stepping into an open elevator shaft, off the edge of a platform, or into the path of moving vehicle.

On any job site from office work, to trash pick up, to digging sewer lines there are always materials and equipment being handled and moved about. It is highly important that while working on the job we remember to be alert to all such movement. Look up, look down, look all around so you won’t walk into the path of a moving truck, another co-worker, or a piece of swinging equipment.

Falls are not unique to multi-story construction sites. Many people have been killed falling through ceilings retrieving stored materials or missing steps as they climb a ladder. Many other accidents occur from falls due to poor lighting, objects left in walkways, people failing to clean up spills, etc.

Your eyes are your biggest asset to your work; take care of them so they will take care of you. When you are working or around work where there is sawing, grinding, welding, or in any work done outside in windy conditions, wear the proper eyewear. Always be aware of where you are and what is happening around you. If you keep your mind and your eyes on what you are doing and where you are, you will be at less risk of having to explain an accident by saying “I didn’t see” when what you really mean is “I wasn’t looking”.

Contact OMAG Risk Management Services if you have questions or suggestions for other topics related to Municipal Workplace Safety Issues. 1 (800) 234-9461 or email kprichard@omag.org.

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Know the Ground Rules for Electrical Safety

Know the Ground Rules for Electrical Safety

Electricity is an essential source of energy for most operations. However, few of those sources have a greater potential to cause harm than electricity. Working safely with electricity is possible if you are trained in, understand, and follow certain basic ground rules.

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