It's Official.

[TonyU]

It's official.
Black Knight Tactical is off the ground.
I started a tactical training company with some friends of mine for LEO and military personnel.
Right now our curriculum consists of Basic SWAT, tactical entries for patrol or warrant squads, tactical pistols, subgun, assault rifles and shotguns.
I'm in the process of putting together a DT curriculum.
Our website is up, but still under construction.
We will be a traveling group to hosting departments. Right now we will concentrate in the New Jersey/Northeast region, but if everything goes well we may go to other states in country.
Also any of you holding a seminar let me know with advance notice and I'll do a "business" trip.
Wish us luck.

[Jay Bell]

Oustanding Tony! :D

[KIT]

Good for you, Tony.

At least you picked a niche, tactical training, in which the market is wide open and NO ONE else is getting in on the act!! :D

[jakmak52]

Great!! Good luck Tony, hope it pans out for you and you can go global :D

[Fletch1]

Very cool man! Good luck.

When you are and running, let me know and we can exchange links if you want.

[areusafe]

Congratulations Tony.

[The Nephilim]

Tony, I hope it goes well. :) I wish you all the best in this.

[TonyU]

Thank you all.
I really appreciate everyones well wishes.
I must admit I'm a little nervous though. :o
I never done anything like this.
Two of my partners are in school ( I couldn't go :mad: ).
When they return next week, we'll be working on putting the site together.

[TonyU]

Bad news!
We just got hit with the estimate on the insurance we would need to make the business operational.
Ouch!
It wound up being a little more that we anticipated or budgeted for. Actualy alot more.
We are still going to try to get it off the ground, except it's going to take us a little longer.

If we can't get it to work, I've been seriously debating opening up my own dojo.

[Erik]

I'm sure you'll be great at both!

Good luck, Tony.

[Bad Karma]

Insurance - one of the top ranking scams of all time. Right up there with banking! ;)
Just be patient and things will work out.

Peace

[MarcoPolo]

Insurance for... your employees? Liability insurance for when you train clients?

Let me know (PM if you like). I've done several start-ups and there are ways to minimize your exposure w/o lots of insurance. (And no, i'm not selling anything!) LOL!
Just might be able to save you a couple of "learning experiences"

[Bad Karma]

Marc, don't hold out on the rest of us! Share the wealth, man! :D

Peace

[TonyU]

Insurance for... your employees? Liability insurance for when you train clients?

Both.
We need to protect ourselves from the potential moron who goes beyond the scope of the training and then blames us for his incompetance.

Also to cover ourselves if we get hurt dusing the training. Our workers comp does not cover us outside our duties.

[Sgathak]

An extremely well written liability waiver should cover the client angle (if there isnt a superceding state law anyway) especially if you are training other LEOs on an official basis. Talk to a lawyer... they can fill you in. (then Id take whatever they say to the DA and ask them for an opinion on the subject from a prosicution standpoint)

As for the employee coverage - that would most likely just be covered under regular health insurance. You might need to pay a high rick premium, or possibly talk to the insurance guys you go through now and find out if theres an "off duty" rider you can work in.

[BGalehouse]

While not an expert, nor a lawyer, I had a little experience with workers compensation a few years ago. At least in my case, my regular insurance plan said, roughly speaking, that it covered anything not covered by workers compensation. It made no direct reference to whether I was at a job or not. As a purely practical matter it would probably have been better for me if I had been dealing with regular health insurance rather than workers comp. Workers comp in CA was far more frustrating than our middle road HMO would have been.

The details of when a buisiness is required to carry workers comp vary from state to state. One approach which may work is to simply not have any employees. Make everybody an independent contractor. Then they are working for themselves, and are typically not required to pay workers comp for themselves. Means slightly more paperwork for them come tax time, but also more flexibility with regards to IRAs and expenses.

I'd expect this to work fine, so long as all the people involved have health insurance from some other source. Also, this is all from the standpoint of what is legally required. There may of course be other personal liability concerns that you and your partners feel that you need to address.

Edit: I was just reminded by the post below that workers comp does provide money for time away from work under certain circumstances, while regular health insurance does not typically. So this is another disadvantage to the self employment route.

[Sochin]

Both.
We need to protect ourselves from the potential moron who goes beyond the scope of the training and then blames us for his incompetance.

The word to use is indemnify and it means that if you are sued for his actions, he has pre-promised to pay all your fees and any judgements. Then only take rich clients!!! :)

Since you will be working with adults, you don't need to worry about a distraught parent suing for Johnny's hurt feeling or an accident.

But yes, you will need some kind of back-up if you have down time due to an accident to yourself and you can't work. This is the reason many folks join with organisations that they otherwise would ignore...just to be covered.

[MarcoPolo]

Sorry for the delay.. .


To protect yourself I recommend a couple of things STRONGLY:

1. A good, well researched, PROVEN liability form FOR YOUR STATE. The verbiage
should include standard scenarios *as well as* accidents (a heavy bag breaks from the ceiling and falls on someone) and even negligence. (Yes, your students will sign it.)

2. Make sure there is an indemnification clause. That in the even to any litigation,
the signer will be responsible for your legal expenses as well. (Otherwise even if you win, you lose due to legal fees)

3. Finally, and probably your best defense (the others are "blocks", this is "evasion") ;) You need to speak to an attorney about either incorporating or placing your assets in a seperate trust. This basically means that even if you are sued and lose, there
are no assets to attach. They aren't suing YOU, they are signing and contract with and suing an entity, which doesn't own anything. (This is what many churches set up in the event that one of their volunteers does something horrible and the church is sued.. w/o this type of protection, some small churches have literally been sold.)

As far as the insurance end, if you can get a rider on your Police(?) policy, that is the way to go.. only if your employeer agrees and knows you are "moonlighting" so to speak. If not, look for something that bridges the gap so to speak. And DEFINITELY make sure you are signed up for Short and Long-term disability with your employeer! ;)

Hope this helps!

Marc

[Mekugi]

Bad news!
We just got hit with the estimate on the insurance we would need to make the business operational.
.
Can't you make "them" buy their own insurance....as a condition?

[TonyU]

Can't you make "them" buy their own insurance....as a condition?
We all are. By that I mean is that as LEO's weare covered with our departents insurance (in most cases self insured) in case of injury and so forth, but we still need our own.
We also have an attorney that has put together all our legal paperwork in order including hold harmless agreement. This, in conjunction with our training and experience, has helped the pricing of the premium, but it still a bit too much for us. Even if split four ways we can't afford it right now.
We are trying one more option, if not all well, I'll try something else.

[dao]

Keeping fingers crossed for you! For what it's worth.

[jwinch2]

Keep fighting Tony, it will all come together! You'll be great at it!!!