What Insurance Coverage is Right for Your Business?

Insuring your business is a necessary way to protect your livelihood from an assortment of risk factors; not to mention, many landlords will require that you purchase coverage. However, it’s best to look beyond the most basic policy and work with your agent to build a comprehensive portfolio so your business is equipped to tackle the unforeseen. Choosing an experienced business insurance agent can pay dividends when your policies are tailored just right for your goals.

When it comes to commercial insurance types, there’s often a seemingly endless amount of options that you think may work for you. To get to the bottom of what business insurance covers, you need to assess your business operations. One of the biggest factors of risk that will determine what business coverage you need is your business size (employees, property, payroll, etc.). This one factor makes the policies needed for small business or enterprise solutions quite different. 

The types of business insurance for small business is drastically different from larger enterprise solutions. Most small businesses can be protected with just a simple general liability policy. Typically, a GL policy is a good starting point before adding needed coverage for employees, secondary properties, or cyber protection. Depending on your scope of work, your risks could be completely different from a similar company.

One of the best policies for small to large businesses is the business owners policy (BOP). These policies specifically combine types of commercial insurance in order to protect you from all major property and liability risks. Your agent will work with you on these policies to make sure your business risk is in a manageable state that you can be comfortable with. They will also help you fill in any cracks your blanket policies may fall short on. Policies such as professional liability insurance or cyber liability are great bang for buck additions to any packages.

Talk with your partners, key employees, and most importantly, your agent to see if the following coverages are right for you.

• General Liability Insurance: This is a blanket coverage policy that acts to protect you from a little bit of all the risks your business might have. This is generally the start to your commercial insurance policies, as it is the most affordable and widest covering policy.

• Business Owners Policy: Similar to the general liability policy, a “bop” policy puts together a range of commercial policies. This policy will protect you from the biggest industry risks and keep your operations safe from most financial risk.

• Commercial Property Insurance: Covers the repair or replacement of physically damaged, destroyed, lost or stolen business property—buildings, furniture, inventory, raw materials etc.—following covered incidents including severe weather, fire, theft and vandalism.  

• Bodily Injury (BI) and Property Damage (PD) Liability: This type of insurance covers legal and medical expenses associated with third-party property damage or bodily injury suffered on business property or as a direct result of the business’ actions, products, or services.

• Equipment Breakdown Insurance: Covers damaged, destroyed or failed equipment, such as computers and phone systems following a covered incident. This can also cover things such as forklifts or other heavy machinery.

• Cyber & Data Breach Insurance: This common addon policy covers digital resources—customer databases, cloud storage, and other electronic data—from hackers, power surges, data leaks and even internal fraud.

• Commercial Auto Insurance: Covers vehicles—owned, rented, leased or employee-owned—that are driven by employees for business purposes. Coverage options are similar to those for personal auto insurance, along with specialized coverages.

• Business Interruption Insurance (Loss of Income): Covers lost income in the event that daily business operations are interrupted for an indefinite amount of time. This can include lost profits, along with financial obligations such as rent and payroll.

• Workers Compensation Insurance: Covers the medical expenses and lost income of workers who become injured while performing work tasks. This coverage is mandatory in most states.

• Professional Liability or Errors and omissions (E&O): Covers client claims against the insured for failure to meet expectations or errors in work performed. Certain professions—lawyers, doctors, engineers, realtors, consultants etc.—have a higher risk of E&O liability claims.

• Commercial Umbrella: Provides another layer of coverage on top of underlying policies to cover claims that result in exorbitantly high expenses. Basically, the umbrella will raise the total cap of what your individual insurance policy types cover. Similar to the BOP policy, but more diverse for larger businesses. 

Trust the experts at Alliance Insurance Group to handle all your insurance needs. Our agents are knowledgeable, highly trained, and accessible. Fill out the short form below for more information or any Commercial Insurance quote.