What You Need to Know About Business Insurance

Whether you run a solo freelance gig or an enterprise with hundreds of employees, business insurance is crucial to keep your company afloat when the unexpected happens. This includes lawsuits, property damage and natural disasters.

Many insurers offer bundled coverage packages for general liability, commercial auto and business interruption insurance. You can also purchase specialized policies like errors and omissions (E&O) insurance, which covers professional negligence and inaccurate statements.

Business Owner’s Policy (BOP)

BOPs are a package of multiple kinds of business insurance, including liability and property coverage. They typically cost less than buying the individual policies separately.

A BOP covers a brick-and-mortar business’s premises and business personal property (the movable stuff that goes with your business, such as computers, inventory, or product samples). The policy also includes business interruption insurance, which pays for the loss of income caused by a disaster that prevents you from operating.

A few things affect the price of a BOP, including the type and value of your business property. The insurer also considers your claims history and industry when quoting a premium. You can customize a BOP with available endorsements, such as specialized crime coverage or data breach insurance. You can even add an umbrella policy, which provides extra protection from high-end claims.

Commercial Auto

Commercial auto insurance protects cars, trucks and vans that your business owns or leases. It also covers vehicles your employees drive for work, whether they’re using their own personal car or a company vehicle. It includes liability and physical damage coverage for business use, and can be customized to include specialized endorsements such as a hired and non-owned auto policy.

In many cases, commercial auto insurance can be bundled with other policies like a BOP to save money. It’s important to talk to your agent about your unique needs and how your business uses its vehicles before deciding on the right policy for you.

Other types of business insurance can include fidelity bonds, which reimburse clients for any money they’ve paid to employees who have stolen their money; professional liability, which covers claims from mistakes made by doctors, lawyers and other professionals; and motor truck cargo insurance, which pays to repair or replace your customer’s freight if it gets lost or damaged in transit. Contact us to learn more about these policies and how they can protect your business.

General Liability

A customer slips and falls in your shop, your product malfunctions and damages a client’s property or a competitor claims that you’ve stolen their copyrighted advertising—these are just a few of the myriad accidents that can put your business at risk. General liability insurance helps protect your business against these and other common risks.

General liability insurance may be purchased stand-alone or as part of a comprehensive business owner’s policy. A knowledgeable agent can help you customize your coverage to meet the unique needs of your business.

Keep in mind that general liability won’t cover damage to your business property, theft, work-related injuries for which workers’ compensation insurance is needed or mistakes made in professional services for which professional liability insurance might be appropriate. These types of risks are typically covered by a commercial property and business interruption insurance policy or bundled into a business owners policy, or BOP. This is why it’s important to re-assess your business’s insurance needs on a regular basis.

Business Interruption

Business interruption insurance (BIP) pays for income lost because of a sudden disruption in your normal business operations. It is generally triggered by a direct physical loss, but you can also purchase contingent business interruption coverage for supply chain disruptions (with specific requirements that differ from the usual policy).

Most BIP policies include extra expense coverage, which covers expenses not normally covered under your normal operating budget like rental of equipment, payroll for employees working in another location, taxes and loan payments due while your business is shut down, advertising to let customers know about the temporary space, and more.

You can also purchase civil authority coverage to help pay for losses incurred by government-mandated closures and limitations due to COVID-19. However, the period of restoration must still be caused by a physical loss and cannot be caused by any other factors or events. This stipulation has been a major point of contention in the wake of the recent pandemic.assurance entreprise