What Small Business Owners Need to Know About Insurance

1. Product Liability Insurance

This insurance is very important if your business deals with products. What happens if a customer becomes injured due to a defect in one of your products? You need to have the proper coverage should this incident ever occur, and product liability insurance will provide you with the coverage you will require.

2. General Liability Insurance

This is an insurance that covers a broad range of items, such as accidents, negligence claims and other issues that could create a legal battle for your business.

3. Commercial Property Insurance

You certainly want to protect your company property, and commercial property insurance is for that purpose. If you have damage done to your property due to unexpected events such as fire, flood, theft, or other such incidents, you will need to have the proper insurance to cover your losses. This form of insurance can also cover lost income, interruption of business, loss of important documents, etc.

4. Professional Liability Insurance

Businesses that provide a service should always have some type of professional liability insurance. If this applies to you, professional liability coverage can protect you concerning issues of malpractice, negligence, and other matters where legal battles can result.

5. Workers’ Compensation

Businesses that hire employees need to have Workers’ Compensation insurance. It is required by law and is certainly something you will want to check into if you have employees working for you.

6. Disability Insurance

Here is another form of insurance that comes into play when you have employees. It is compulsory for businesses with employees to have disability insurance in the following states: New York, New Jersey, California, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico. If your business is not located in one of these areas, you do not have to have disability insurance, but it may still be something you might want to consider.

7. Commercial Auto Insurance

Company autos will need to be protected through commercial auto insurance, just as you have your own personal vehicle covered under an insurance policy. Commercial insurance can cover cars, SUVs, trucks and vans that are used on company business and owned by the company. If the autos that are used are not company-owned but rather owned by your employees, you should still have some type of insurance in case your employee does not have adequate insurance of his or her own.

8. Business Owner’s Policy

A BOP will bundle services together in one policy rather than needing to acquire individual policies. You can customize this type of package in order to make it accommodate your business needs more effectively.