Cheri Martinen

Cheri Martinen Helping Business Owners Protect What Matters | Licensed Insurance Pro | DM “coverage” for a free resource

06/19/2026

Your crew can come from five different states to fight one fire, and nobody knows where that fire will be until it starts. That makes your workers’ comp more complicated than almost any other business in the country. Most policies are not built for it.

Comment Coverage and I’ll check that yours covers every state your people actually work in.

Fire season is the worst possible time to learn what your policy actually says. The contractors who never get burned by ...
06/18/2026

Fire season is the worst possible time to learn what your policy actually says. The contractors who never get burned by the fine print are the ones who read it in the quiet months.

Comment Coverage and I’ll check yours before the season heats up.

06/17/2026

There is a way to cut what you pay to insure every truck that sits idle all winter. Most wildland contractors have never heard of it, and not every carrier will even offer it. This is the one to watch before your next renewal.

Comment Coverage and I’ll check whether your policy can actually do it.

Your year-round crew is what, six people? You know their kids’ names. You know who just bought a house, who’s getting ma...
06/16/2026

Your year-round crew is what, six people? You know their kids’ names. You know who just bought a house, who’s getting married in the fall.

Then the season hits and suddenly you’ve got fifty more.

And here’s where I see good owners get tripped up. You already treat those two groups differently, you know you do. Your core people have the full benefits. Your seasonal hands, maybe something lighter, maybe nothing yet. That’s not you being careless, that’s just how it shakes out. The problem is when the policy doesn’t know there’s a difference.

Because then a year-round employee gets handled like a four-month hire, or your seasonal crew ends up costing you more than they ever should have.

This is the stuff that’s almost impossible to keep straight when you’ve got a different person for every piece, one for insurance, one for benefits, somebody else for HR, and none of them ever talk. The owners who run this clean have one team looking at all of it together.

If your year-round folks and your seasonal folks are getting handled the exact same way, comment Coverage and I’ll check who should actually have what.

06/15/2026

You fight fire on federal land for a living. So why does your policy treat you like a guy who mows lawns? Generic coverage looks fine right up until the day it leaves you exposed.

Comment Coverage and I’ll check yours and make sure you’re insured for the work you actually do.

06/12/2026

You have thousands of dollars in chainsaws, pumps, and torches sitting in your truck right now. Most wildland contractors assume that gear is covered. Most of them are wrong.

Comment Coverage and I’ll check yours before fire season tests your equipment.

You plan for the fire. The gap in the policy is the part that actually takes them down.If you’re not sure where yours is...
06/11/2026

You plan for the fire. The gap in the policy is the part that actually takes them down.

If you’re not sure where yours is, comment Coverage and I’ll check it before the season does.

You didn’t buy your truck off the lot and leave it that way.You added the water tank. The tool boxes. The upgraded light...
06/10/2026

You didn’t buy your truck off the lot and leave it that way.

You added the water tank. The tool boxes. The upgraded lights. The slide-in pump unit that cost more than a couple of monthly payments.

Here’s the part nobody tells you. Your insurance company has no idea any of that exists. To them, you own a plain F-350, because a plain F-350 is what got written on the policy.

So when that rig gets hit, or a tree comes down on it at a staging area, you find out the hard way. The truck gets covered. The $40,000 in custom fire gear bolted to it does not.

It isn’t because you did anything wrong. A policy can only cover what it knows about. And it only knows what you tell it.

If you have customized even one vehicle in your fleet, comment Coverage and I’ll check what’s actually on your trucks against your policy.

Illustrative story based on common client experiences. Let us know if you’d like to adjust any details, otherwise we’ll assume approval.

You finally landed the contract.Bigger crew, bigger job, your first real fuel mitigation contract of the season.Then the...
06/09/2026

You finally landed the contract.

Bigger crew, bigger job, your first real fuel mitigation contract of the season.

Then the email came.

They needed a certificate of insurance before your crew could set foot on the property. General liability at a limit you didn't carry. Additional insured added. Proof of workers comp for every seasonal hand you'd just brought on.

You had three days.

This happens all the time. Not because you did anything wrong. Because the insurance requirements live in the fine print of the contract, not on the first page where anyone actually looks.

The contractors who clear this in an afternoon are the ones who had the conversation before they bid the job. Not the morning the certificate is due.

If you've got a fire season contract coming and you are not sure your coverage matches what it's asking for, DM me coverage. Better to find out now than the day they ask for the paper.

You think of your trucks and your tools as the business. The insurance company does too.But on a fire job, the catering ...
06/08/2026

You think of your trucks and your tools as the business. The insurance company does too.

But on a fire job, the catering trailer feeds the crew. The shower unit keeps them clean. The command trailer runs the operation. And most policies treat those like furniture, not like the working equipment they are.

So a grease fire starts in the kitchen trailer, or someone slips at the shower unit and gets hurt, and you find out the general liability you assumed covered the whole camp stops at the truck.

It is not that you did anything wrong. It is that camp services are their own world, and a standard contractor policy was never built for them.

If you run any part of a fire camp, kitchen, showers, sleepers, command, that is worth a real look before you are deep in the season.

Not sure what your policy actually covers out there? That is the first conversation to have.

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51473 Highway 97
La Pine, OR
97739

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