‘Tis the season… for slipping and falling! The cold winter weather brings with it an unfortunate side effect: Ice. In abundance, ice creates slippery slopes on the way from your car into a building or vise versa. Your walk into work or your house has now become an obstacle course. Ice and the danger it creates does not discriminate. All people who leave their house during the winter could slip and fall wherever they go! The snow brought into establishments and creating a wet floor surface is also extremely dangerous for customers, employees, and business owners alike. You need to keep your customers protected AND yourself protected. Slip and fall claims are businesses’ worst nightmare and can result in thousands of dollars in compensation if not handled correctly. Prevent fraud and false claims today!
How can I protect my business from Slip & Fall Claims?
Slip & Fall and Frau claims seem like they are unlucky occurrences that don’t pose a daily threat to businesses. It is quite the contrary. According to the National Floor Safety Institute, slip and falls account for over 1 million hospital visits each year. That’s over 2,000 hospital visits a day for JUST slip and falls. This is especially scary in the winter because there are some days where there is ice everywhere you look. People use this to their advantage and stage falls to get compensation. The average amount of compensation for a slip and fall is around $40,000. https://www.neufeldlawfirm.com That’s a number that catches many people’s attention. Especially the attention of someone who wants easy money from a vulnerable business.
Do not let your business become a victim of false slip and fall claims. This is a horror story heard way too often. Put security cameras inside your business so you can see exactly what happened either inside your business or outside in your parking lot. Have a camera there so you can see if someone moved your wet floor sign and “slipped”. Protect what you worked so hard for and do not let it be taken away in seconds because someone decided to take advantage of you. The power to prevent fraud is in your hands!
Why should I care about Slip and Falls if I don’t own a Business?
This is a great point to bring up. If you are a homeowner, cameras protecting you against slip & falls are still important! If someone slips on your property, they can very well sue you for compensation if this fall results in medical bills and them having to miss work. If your negligence of not shoveling or salting your property results in a fall, you are liable. Even if it’s not winter and one of the bricks of your pathway is loose and someone trips and falls on your property, you could be in big trouble. Make sure that your home has surveillance to protect you from false claims happening at your home.
What will happen if someone does slip and fall at my home or business?
If someone does slip and fall at your home or business. They may choose to file a lawsuit. If they do, they will have to go through a deposition. A deposition is a series of questions that are asked to the person who is filing the suit, to make sure they recall everything that happened perfectly. This helps the defense determine if the owner of the property is at fault. If there is no video footage, however, the accuser’s answers to these questions are the only proof of the accident. If you do have video footage, you can fact check the answers to these questions and make sure that what they are saying happened, really did happen. If you are doing the right thing as a business owner and a homeowner, security cameras would really save you in times of questioning.
Why would you let yourself or your business become vulnerable and have up to 40,000 come out of your pocket when a slip and fall really wasn’t your fault. Having cameras surveying your business whether it is indoors are out on the parking lot is very important. That parking lot is your responsibility to plow and salt. If this is not done correctly, and someone falls in your parking lot, you could be getting a hospital bill that you have to pay for. If you took all the proper precautions but did not have a camera to provide that proof, all of your hard work to keep your customers safe will not matter.
A Business Owners Worst Nightmare
A true instance of someone taking advantage of a company by staging a slip and fall would be Alexander Goldinsky. He was caught taking ice from a machine before tossing it onto the floor and then laying down. He waited there to be found and claimed to have suffered a head injury. Security Cameras captured the staging of the incident from start to finish. If there had been no footage, he would have certainly gotten away with it.
Goldinsky, 58, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud in August as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, according to officials. He admitted to filing a false claim over injuries he purported to suffer from the bogus slip-and-fall in the cafeteria of a Woodbridge company.
To watch the footage yourself, or read more about this particular case, view the news article linked below.
As an employer, do you know the cost of the average Workmans Comp Lawsuit?
The average compensation received by workers for their injuries was $40,000, with some more extreme cases going up to about $100,000. On top of that, most cases go on for a couple of months until a settlement is agreed upon. Who wants to put up with all of that?
Stop the claim immediately with footage proof. Don’t let anyone take advantage of you, your business, or your home. Avoid fraudulent claims by installing Security Cameras at your business to protect yourself and your business! If you’re interested in protecting your business from false claims like this one, call Central Jersey Security Cameras today for your free on-site evaluation at 732-333-0227 or visit our website centraljerseysecuritycameras.com.
