General Liability

What is General Liability Insurance?

If you want to ensure that your small business has financial protection from unforeseen claims, general liability insurance is a smart investment. General Liability protects your business from property damage done to others, bodily injury, damage caused by product or service you performed, liable, slander, copyright, and much more.

Why do you need General Liability Insurance?

It’s just common sense – and good financial sense too. Even one lawsuit for bodily injury or property damage is often enough to bankrupt a small business. General Liability insurance provides you with the coverage you need to pay for most damages, injuries, medical costs, and even legal fees or settlements if you’re sued.

What could go wrong?

Let’s say you own a retail store, and one of your customers slips on the floor. They have a serious back injury, and they sue you for $40,000 in medical bills. Your General Liability policy would defend you in the lawsuit, and pay out any damages regardless if the slippery floor was your fault or not.

Workers Compensation

What is Workers Compensation Insurance?

Workers’ Compensation insurance—commonly called “Workers’ Comp” or “Workman’s Comp”—is an often-mandatory type of insurance that protects both your employees and your company if an employee experiences an injury or disease while at work, including strains, trip and falls, or accidental death.

Why do you need Workers Compensation Insurance?

It’s simple: having workers compensation coverage is the law in most states. If you don’t have it, you face state fines and penalties—even if you never file a claim. You could also get stuck with unexpected costs you have to pay out of your own pocket. Plus – Workers’ Comp insurance gives your employees and their families peace of mind knowing they won’t have to pay for medical treatment or other injury-related expenses.

What could go wrong?

Your manufacturing company has dangerous machinery and even though you have signs posted warning your employees not to stick their hand in the machine, they do anyway and lose that hand permanently. Your workers compensation policy will pay for not just the medical bills, but also the employees’ income while recovering.

Commercial Auto

What is Commercial Auto Insurance?

Vehicles used in conducting business, as opposed to those strictly for personal use, are typically insured under a commercial auto insurance policy, which protects the assets of a company from claims. A commercial auto insurance policy has different coverages that are designed to address particular business needs.

Why do you need Commercial Auto Insurance?

Both commercial vehicle insurance policies and personal auto policies provide coverage for liability, collision, comprehensive, medical payments (or personal injury protection), and uninsured motorist exposures. However, a commercial auto insurance policy may be very different from your personal auto policy due to separate eligibility criteria, definitions, coverages, exclusions, and limits. Many insurance carriers will deny a personal auto insurance claim if they find a vehicle was being used for commercial use, and should’ve been under a commercial policy

What could go wrong?

One of the trucks in your fleet rear-ends a family causing multiple injuries. Although their injuries are not very serious, they sue you for $1,000,000 because they assume your company has a lot of money. Your commercial auto policy would defend you in court and fight the lawsuit on your behalf.

Commercial Property

What is Commercial Property Insurance?

Commercial Property Insurance covers damage to a building you own, or leased space if you are required to provide coverage by your lease. It also covers the contents of your building such as inventory, equipment, tools, or other people’s property from damage that may have occurred or even theft.

Commercial property insurance also covers the income your business would normally receive in the event of a disruption, along with payroll costs, net income, and even temporary business relocation.

Why do you need Commercial Property Insurance?

Protecting your physical location and equipment is important for any small business. If they’re stolen, damaged or destroyed, business property insurance can help cover the costs to repair or replace your assets, income, and expenses incurred from the claim.

What could go wrong?

You own a restaurant and one of your employees forgets to turn off the burners to the stove after he closed. The building burns down and your restaurant is unable to operate. Your property policy will not only cover the cost to rebuild the building, but also the net income your business was receiving, the payroll costs, and the costs to temporarily relocate while your building is being rebuilt.

Commercial Umbrella

What is Commercial Umbrella Insurance?

When you have a claim that exceeds the limits of your current policy, umbrella insurance provides extra coverage to protect your business and assets from financial risk. An umbrella policy can provide additional protection covering multiple policies at once, and help cover costs associated with bodily injury, medical expenses, product liability, customer property damage, libel, slander, copyright infringement, legal expenses, and even settlements in the event of a lawsuit.

Why do you need Commercial Umbrella Insurance?

While not generally required, and umbrella policy gives you even more peace of mind. Just as an umbrella protects you from the rain, an umbrella policy protects you from expensive claims that fall outside the coverage limits of your other insurance policies. Plus, adding an umbrella policy may cost less than increasing limits of your general liability or commercial auto policies.

What could go wrong?

You’re a local mechanic that installs new brakes on a vehicle. After your work is complete, that family crashes into another vehicle causing major injuries for six people, and one death. The crash was caused due to negligence on the work that was provided and results in a $4,000,000 lawsuit. The umbrella would kick in and provide coverage assuming your underlying policy exhausted its limits, still financially protecting your business.

Bonds

What is a Commercial or Surety Bond?

Commercial or Surety bonds are typically purchased by companies or working professionals in compliance with state licensing and permit regulations. A surety bond is a promise or contract to ensure obligations are met, and to be liable for the debt, default, or failure of another. It is a three-party contract by which one party (the surety) guarantees the performance or obligations of a second party (the principal) to a third party (the obligee).

Do you need a bond?

Surety bonds are typically required for contractors who seek to work on government contracts. They are also required for persons and companies that are licensed by a governmental entity. Even when not compulsory, surety bonds make sense when a contract requires performance, because they help compensate obligees when principals fail to meet their contractual obligations. They do not make sense if the amount of possible damages is negligible.

What could go wrong?

Let’s say you’re a notary and are helping notarize documents for a home purchase. You make a mistake notarizing the documents, and cause the home to fall out of escrow because of it. The bond will protect you in the event of financial loss due to the mistake.

Professional Liability (E&O)

What Does Professional Liability (E&O) Insurance Cover?

Professional Liability (E&O) insurance helps protect your business if you made a mistake (error) or failed to perform a service (omission). Professional Indemnity insurance, another name for professional liability insurance, also covers the related defense costs, even from groundless claims.

Who Should Consider Professional Liability (E&O) Insurance?

If you provide what could be classified as a professional service, if you typically give advice to clients, or if you’re obligated by a contractual agreement, you should consider carrying professional liability (E&O) insurance.

What could go wrong?

Let’s pretend you’re not feeling well and go to your doctor for a diagnosis. That doctor forgets that you’re taking other prescriptions, and prescribes you medicine causing you significant side effects, and physical harm. E&O insurance would protect that doctor, and pay any damages that may arise from their mistake.

Directors & Officers

What Does Directors & Officers (D&O) Insurance Cover?

Directors and Officers liability insurance protects the personal assets of corporate directors and officers, and their spouses, in the event they are personally sued by employees, vendors, competitors, investors, customers, or other parties, for actual or alleged wrongful acts in managing a company.

This insurance usually protects the company as well, covers legal fees, settlements, and other costs.

Who Should Consider Directors & Officers (D&O) Insurance?

Any business with a corporate board or advisory committee should consider investing in D&O insurance, including non-profit organizations. Your company does not have to post revenues in the tens of millions of dollars for your directors and officers to be personally sued over their management of company affairs. In fact, smaller businesses with fewer assets may need the protection just as much as large, deep-pocketed corporations.

What could go wrong?

An example of negligence may be if an employee is embezzling from the company, and the directors and officers fail to find the embezzlement and stop it. The company’s shareholders may sue for damages that arose from this negligence; the lawsuit would be covered by a D&O policy.

Cyber Liability

What is Cyber Liability Insurance?

Cyber insurance was developed to help companies manage the risks associated with storing and processing customer data. In the event of a cyber incident or data breach, it can cover services that reduce the likelihood of a lawsuit.

These services may include notifying customers of the data breach, restoring personal identities, recovering compromised data, repairing damaged computer systems, and even ransom demands.

Why do you need Cyber Liability Insurance?

Unfortunately, data breaches have become commonplace in today’s financial world, especially in the United States. If your business stores sensitive client data, has an online retail business, or holds data that’s particularly valuable to you, you should consider Cyber Liability.

What could go wrong?

A private healthcare clinic is the victim of a cyber-attack in which patient information was stolen from their computer system. The hackers threatened to post the data publicly unless they received a ransom payment of $15,000 in Bitcoin. Cyber insurance would potentially pay the ransom, and pay additional damages that may have occurred to the computer system, credit monitoring, and much more.