All too often one reads about fires happening in laundry businesses. Though not every day, at least once or twice a month there are fires occurring in laundries somewhere in the nation. This frequency has led insurance and fire authorities to place laundries on a higher risk plane than most other types of business.
That is important because the simplified principal of insurance is shared risk. Each insured party pays their share into a pool that protects individuals against having a disastrous loss. The pool is held by the insurer. They rate the risks of loss by the entire pool. Premiums are set based on the risk of losses.
Liability coverage is usually the first thing laundry owners look for in their business insurance coverage. It’s usually required by the premises lease or by the property purchase agreement. Since it’s relatively inexpensive, most laundries are well covered for liability.
Too many laundry owners under insure because they pay more attention to the amount of annual premium they pay than they do to the amount of fire coverage they actually need. So, they can get in deep trouble when things go wrong.
Moral: Cover the costs of a rebuild
One owner purchased a policy to cover only the liability amounts that were required in the laundry’s premises lease, and then insured the laundry only for what she owed on her finance note.
After a fire began in a business next door, it expanded quickly into adjacent spaces, and the laundry too was totaled. It was then this laundry owner discovered that buying a minimum business policy meant there was not enough insurance money to replace all of her equipment.
The coin laundry stayed as a pile of rubble for many months while she tried to find enough money to reopen. She never did find it and the business is lost
Just a few months previous, in a nearby city, another laundry was destroyed by a fire that authorities said began in one of the coin laundry trash cans. This operator was properly insured and built a new laundry where his old one used to be. It is now a beautiful, and very modern monument to having been correctly insured.
This owner, however, lost a lot of the income he normally would have had by being closed during the rebuilding period. The type of business interruption insurance coverage he carried was not sufficient for the months of delay it took for rebuilding.
Even with good insurance coverage, no one gets off scot free when a coin laundry fire occurs. That’s why owners should do all they can to prevent fires from happening in the first place. Inflation makes what was covered slightly short of what today’s higher prices require. Also, there is a thing called a minimum deductible portion of most policies where the owner shares some of the costs with the insurance company.
So even with the best policy, laundry operators lose money with a fire. It is why preventative measures are so important. Most preventative measures make plain old common sense. These include being sure that bundles of clothes that customers leave should never be stored anywhere near the heaters or on top of the dryers. Otherwise they could overheat, smolder and then ignite.
Also make sure that there are no oily rags stored anywhere on the premises. Don’t keep old paint cans around, especially if it’s an oil based paint. Be nervous about spray cans that are left too near anything that can create excess heat or fire. Don’t keep any old construction materials around if they are flammable.
Be sure that the dryer lint traps and exhaust ducts are cleaned on a regularly scheduled basis. At least weekly for the dryer lint traps and two or three times per year for the dryer exhaust ducts and vents. When lint is allowed to accumulate, it creates a potential fire hazard for a coin or card operated laundry.
Waste cans can be a real danger for coin laundries. Usually these are inexpensive plastic containers that will add fuel to the fire if ignited. The cans should be emptied at least daily. Allowing a mass of combustible trash to pile up in the cans is dangerous. Not emptying them on a regular basis is asking for trouble because there are still some careless smokers and one of them can flip a butt into one of your waste receptacles and a fire can happen.
As much as is possible, waste cans should be situated away from anything else that is flammable. The heat and smoke from a trash can fire can do serious damage to laundries. When a can is on fire under a folding table the smoke is bad, but the flames and heat usually are contained under the table. If the trash can is against a wall, it may then burn up the wall, into the ceiling tiles and crawl space above. That could be major.
Safely placing of waste receptacles may prove to be the best fire insurance a laundry owner can have for his or her business.
Operators should train their attendants on what to do in case of a fire, and do simulations with them to be sure that they really understand what you want them to do if a fire breaks out. A few minutes spent training attendants could be the best bargain a coin laundry owner will ever get.
Fire extinguishers themselves present a problem, especially for owners of unattended coin laundries. Left in the public area, they may be ripped off, even if they are in a glassed in case. Some operators paint over the glass front of the extinguisher’s wall case to keep the unit from being seen, but it’s there when it’s needed.
Being aware of fire dangers is one of the duties of a laundry owner, for their own benefit and that of their clientele as well as the insurance company. Preventing fires can’t be another’s responsibility.
In the final analysis, the amount of fire insurance coverage you carry is far more important to your future than any small savings you could achieve by not carrying enough. Perhaps it will never be needed and is an expense only. But if a fire ever breaks out in your laundry, the difference in premiums saved will be nothing compared with the cash benefits during the rebuilding of the laundry.
What About other Legal Ramifications of having a laundry fire?
Although it is rare in the United States, people have been known to go to jail for failure to correct deficiencies that caused a fire if these deficiencies were previously noted by city inspectors and then a fire has occurred in which people were killed or injured. There are over anxious and ambitious prosecutors everywhere.
What about the ambulance chasers who are looking for any opportunity to sue? Who is to say the suit will not be for far more than the limits of your policy?
