Nobody starting a business thinks accidents will happen to them. They believe they can save a few bucks and skimp on their insurance coverage. Unfortunately, that’s led to 75% of businesses being underinsured for what they need.
If you don’t want to face unexpected expenses in the future, you need to get all the insurance coverage your business needs. You never know when an accident will happen that cause you to waste your cash reserves.
But with so many types of business insurance out there, not every business owner knows what they need. Keep reading to learn the typical insurance policies you need with business ownership.
General Liability
General liability insurance is one of the most common forms of insurance you’ll see and one you’ll probably want to get. It’s a form of insurance that takes care of customers when they suffer from an accident on your property.
This insurance also covers more than physical injury. It also activates when someone suffers property damage because of something on your property.
General liability also takes effect when you face libel and slander lawsuits. Since the damage comes from another party, it falls under the general liability umbrella.
Workers’ Compensation
Protecting your workers is a must in business. You never know when an accident will happen, and your workers rely on you to take care of them when it does. On top of that, it’s the law in most locations.
Workers’ compensation will aid employees who need help after an accident. It will cover medical bills, travel expenses, lost wages, and everything related to the injury.
This coverage will also help in the case of death. It will help cover funeral costs and any other expenses families face due to an accident.
Commercial Property
You never know when an accident will happen on your property. You have natural disasters, accidents, break-ins, and much more. If you don’t protect your commercial property, you’ll need to pay out of pocket to repair the damages.
Commercial property insurance will cover your office building and equipment. You can usually find this insurance in two forms.
The first is an all-purpose commercial property policy. This coverage will take care of any damage to your business property, no matter where it came from.
There is also property insurance that covers specific events like flooding. Click for more information about more specific forms of property insurance.
Professional Liability
General liability insurance does a great job of covering events on your property. However, many of those policies don’t extend to workers that take care of customers at another location.
This happens a lot in service businesses. Companies that employ roofers and similar contractors may need more coverage to meet their insurance requirements.
Professional liability insurance extends that coverage to protect employees and customers when off-site. They can get injured and cause damage and still have coverage by insurance.
Key-Person
It’s smart management to build redundancies in your business systems. However, that’s not always possible. There may be times when you need a key person to have your business run properly.
It’s a problem if that person gets into an accident and can’t keep things running. When this happens, you’ll suffer many losses as you can’t operate your business.
Key-person insurance helps you through this situation. Your payout in this situation will help cover expenses while the key-person recovers or can help you find a replacement.
Business Income
Many businesses rely on specific systems to keep the lights on. Without access to those systems, income will dry up and cause a crisis in a company.
That’s what business income insurance is for. If you have critical components to your business operations that you need to make money, you can get that income replaced if things ever go down.
This insurance won’t completely replace your income. However, it will help you pay for ongoing expenses like the following:
- Payroll
- Utilities
- Rent
- Software services
Of course, you may be able to get more coverage depending on your needs. You’ll need to consider how well you can operate when you don’t have a reliable income stream and if you can find other resources to help.
Data Breach
Cybercrime is a growing threat to all businesses. It doesn’t if you run a large or small company. If you leave your company network exposed, you’re at serious risk of cyberattacks.
Unfortunately, you can still suffer from data breaches if you play things safe and invest in cybersecurity. These breaches can cost your company a lot of money.
Data breach insurance will help you in these situations. It can help cover expenses related to contacting impacted individuals and required services for those affected.
You can also get help creating public relations campaigns that help restore your company’s image after a breach.
Commercial Umbrella
Sometimes your other insurance policies offer great coverage, but not in the amounts you need. The coverage amounts do well for most situations, but you may want to get more for more severe cases.
Commercial umbrella insurance will help you get this coverage. This type of insurance will expand the coverage limits of your standard liability insurance policies.
If you do go over your coverage limit in another policy, you’ll get the max amount from your original policy. Your commercial umbrella insurance will then pay the difference between what you need and what you receive.
Keep Learning About the Different Types of Business Insurance
Even though the above types of business insurance are common among business owners, they aren’t the only ones available. To adequately cover your business, you’ll need the best business insurance for your specific needs. Learn all you can about the best insurance plans to get enough coverage to keep your company safe.
Head back to the blog to learn what else you need when starting a new business.
