Don't Get Bitten by Bed Bug Customer Claims
By John Culotta
 A year ago, I wrote about the growing problem with bed bug (Cimex lectularius) infestations in the United States, and cautioned pest management professionals (PMPs) to educate their customers and manage their expectations about the effectiveness of treatment. Today, with more information emerging about preferred treatments and potential risks, I wanted to provide an update on how you can protect yourself when treating these stubborn pests.
Bed bug infestations continue to grow rapidly. They are being found everywhere from hotels, dorm rooms and cruise ships to apartments, churches and hospitals. They present PMPs with real extermination challenges -- often taking three, four or more chemical treatments to eradicate them. And there is concern that bed bugs are becoming resistant to chemicals.
As a result, heat treatments are replacing chemicals as the preferred method to kill bed bugs. However, heat treatment has very specific requirements that must be adhered to if you want to eradicate these pests. Make sure you research carefully because if the heat is not high enough, it can escalate the problem by causing eggs to hatch. So just as when you use chemicals, manage your customer's expectations before you begin and let them know it can take more than one treatment.
This is an important precaution because, although bed bugs have never been shown to transmit disease, the bites can be irritating physically and troubling emotionally. That's why we are seeing customers whose infestation is not eliminated on the first try come back to the PMP with claims we usually don't see in termite infestations — claims for bodily injury and emotional distress. Many of these claims are filed by a hotel, an apartment/condo complex or a cruise ship, sometimes with hotels filing secondary claim for loss of revenue.
Another issue with heat treatment is that if the temperature is too hot, it can cause property damage to the home or business where you are working. Many of you may remember when heat treatments were first tried for termite extermination. It caused damage to furniture, fine art and other belongings. Because heat treatment for bed bugs is a relatively new treatment that we are still learning about, it's a good idea for PMPs to have appropriate insurance coverage -- specifically, "Care Custody and Control" coverage.
Protect Yourself
Care, Custody and Control is an endorsement (a provision added to insurance policies) on your General Liability policy to protect you in case there is any damage to a home or business where you are working. Make sure your policy includes this coverage, and that it is not watered down. Talk to your agent and make sure it has full policy limits. For example, your policy should provide coverage for Personal Property as well as Real Property, and this coverage should be for any part of Real Property or Personal Property that needs to be replaced because "your work" on it was incorrectly performed.
Additional precautions you can take before bed bug treatment include:
- Let customers know in advance that you may also need to discard heavily infested furniture, steam-clean carpets and upholstery and wash bedding materials every time bed bugs are found.
- When you do the initial visual inspection, take the client with you, room by room. Keep precise documentation and ask him or her to sign off on your visual inspection. This alleviates the problems of miscommunication, and the client cannot come back and say that a room is infested if it was not documented.
- Develop a detailed contract specific to bed bug treatment, and include the above expectations.
By taking proper precautions, educating customers and gaining the right insurance coverage, you can make sure that when the bed bugs bite, you do not get bitten, too.
John Culotta is Program Manager of PCOpro, the pest control operator program at Brownyard Group (www.brownyard.com), a leading program administrator providing specialized insurance coverage for select industry groups. |
