An Advance Auto Parts store recently sold 30 locking gas caps to a roofing company manager to use on his fleet of trucks after someone siphoned gas from every one of them in the company parking lot overnight.

Look for gas theft to become a more common occurrence as gas prices continue to soar and new rules that require prepayment at the pumps to reduce drive-offs could be driving incidents of fuel siphoning from parked vehicles. Given this, are you protected?

Factory-built features on cars have made gas theft trickier. Many new cars have gas flaps that only open when a lever is pulled on the inside of the car. An inside release is marginally helpful, as a crowbar can make short work of the hurdle, and costs a bit to replace. Better is the locking gas cap. Auto parts stores say they're selling more locking gas caps to protect against gas siphoning, which run about $20 to $40 depending on the model of the vehicle. At $20, that's five gallons of gasoline, which could be sucked out of your ride in a couple of minutes.

Some vehicles have a safety device in the gas pipe called a baffle that prevents gas from leaking out in a crash. It also makes it harder to stick a siphon hose into the gas tank.

But, the persistent have found ways. Police nationwide have reported cases in which thieves punctured gas tanks to drain out the gas. Damage done to your vehicle in the course of gas siphoning, and the theft of the fuel itself, would most likely be covered under the comprehensive coverage of a typical commercial auto policy's physical damage protection. However, the deductible will apply, so a compensable claim for gas siphoning is rare unless the damage is extensive, such as when a punctured gas tank must be replaced. Deductibles apply per vehicle even when multiple vehicles are affected by the same event. So in the case of the roofing company whose entire fleet was emptied one night, the deductible applied to each of those trucks separately so no claim payment was made.

UNLEADED SILVER LINING
The escalation in gasoline prices has everyone looking for ways to improve fuel economy. As you double up in company vehicles and increase your travel time to allow for 55 miles per hour, keep in mind the silver lining for your company. Slower speeds and the buddy system are both proven factors in reduced auto accidents, injuries, and fatalities. The single biggest cause of on-the-job fatalities, according to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, is highway events. In Indiana in 2005, nearly half of all 152 work-related fatalities occurred in vehicles. So, as you tell your employees to Slow Down to Save Money, remember the silver lining - if they Slow Down they'll also Save Lives.

• To the extent reasonably possible, an employer shall provide a private location, other than a toilet stall, where an employee can express the employee's breast milk in privacy during any period away from the employee's assigned duties.
• To the extent reasonably possible, an employer shall provide a refrigerator or other cold storage space for keeping milk that has been expressed; or allow the employee to provide the employee's own portable cold storage device for keeping milk that has been expressed until the end of the employee's work day.
• Except in cases of willful misconduct, gross negligence, or bad faith, an employer is not liable for any harm caused by or arising from either the expressing of an employee's breast milk or the storage of expressed milk.
  
  
  
  

Personal liability of directors and officers can be dauntingly high - high enough to cause personal financial ruin without adequate insurance protection. For example, in the case of Enron, former outside directors were personally accountable to pay in excess of $13 million above and beyond the insurance proceeds, and in the case of WorldCom the sum was over $18 million to settle class-actions brought against the Board members. In April, 2007, five former directors of Just for Feet had to fork over their personal fortunes of $41.5 million to settle litigation. There is no doubt that post employment liability exists for former directors and officers and the risk that existing "claims-made" policies may be inadequate to protect them is equally real.

Opinions vary as to the probability of substantial uninsured exposures, simply by virtue of the fact that most D&O claims are filed very soon after the event that prompted the suit. Yet, at the retirement stage of one's life, the question is whether any probability at all, even a slim probability, is palatable. Since a former director has no way of knowing or influencing how responsive a former employer's D&O policy will be, they are left with no guarantee of adequate protection. This type of insurance is usually written on a "claims-made" basis, which means the coverage that responds to a claim is the coverage in place at the time the claim is made, when the suit is filed or the demand of the claimant is made known, not the coverage that was in place at the time of the event, act, or failure to act. A new Board may determine that the company cannot afford to maintain coverage as comprehensive as a previous Board purchased or limits as high as were previously carried and thus cut back considerably on the protection available.

Additional consideration should be given to the dilution of limits from claims activity of other insured parties. D&O policies generally cover all past, present, and future directors and officers. The more of these there are, the less financial protection available for each as each claim erodes the limits. In some cases, the entire amount of insurance is consumed in the settlement of a claim for lead defendants, leaving the remaining defendants uninsured and no coverage in the aggregate for subsequent additional claim actions.

Although the current "soft market" is so competitive that most policies, including Directors and Officers Liability policies, are seeing premiums continue to drop, resulting in more coverage at lower prices for the immediate future, things won't remain this way indefinitely. When the market takes its cyclical turn into a hardening period, any risks with volatility will find availability of coverage dwindling and premiums rising. Under these circumstances companies may be more likely to cut protections for the board, especially those which are particularly sensitive to aggressive scrutiny from their shareholders, thus leaving retired, parted, or fired board members vulnerable.

If you are or were a director and want to rest easy with confidence that you've taken your protection into your own hands, you can get coverage for a one-time charge of a few thousand dollars. In other instances employers are purchasing it for their departing board members as part of their departure compensation package. Either way, it could be the comfort that lets you sleep easy.