ForConstructionPros.com

A number of years ago when the North American Power Sweeping Association (NAPSA) was looking to enhance its member benefits, it hoped to offer an insurance program where the premiums and benefits would more accurately reflect the type of work sweepers perform.

NAPSA hoped to offer sweeper-specific insurance, available only to association members but was told by insurance underwriters that any such insurance would under the law have to be made available to all sweepers, NAPSA members or not - unless there was a different category of sweepers within NAPSA.

So was born the NAPSA Certified Sweeping Company (CSC) designation, a members-only program "to recognize those firms operating in a professional manner and contributing to the overall image of the sweeping industry."

"NAPSA was having trouble getting insurance underwritten, and we set about constructing a practice to set up a higher-quality product with a better class of companies based on specific business practices," says Mark Carter, owner of Bill's Sweeping Service, Orange, CA, which received its CSC designation in 2004. "The CSC designation gives us another level within NAPSA and makes a difference with underwriters."

Carter, who was on the committee that developed CSC and is currently head of the committee (with Debbie Jacketta, Jacketta Sweeping Service, and Gabe Vitale, C&L Sweeper Service) that reviews CSC applications, says certification has yet to translate directly into "a guaranteed X percentage off the premium," but underwriters tell NAPSA that will happen.