The federal government requires businesses to have certain types of insurance, like unemployment, workers’ compensation, and disability insurance. But business owners would also benefit greatly from other types that may not necessarily be required by law. If you are a business owner who wants to protect your employees and assets, here are some non-mandatory insurance types you may want to consider.
Commercial property insurance
If your store or place of work has a significant number of physical assets, this coverage will help protect your business against damage and loss due to a host of unexpected events such as natural disasters, vandalism, and civil disobedience. If you sell more volatile products, property insurance for your gun store, for example, might be prudent.
General liability insurance
This type of insurance protects all kinds of businesses, even home-based ones. If your services or products end up causing bodily injury or property damage to a consumer, it can provide you with the defense you need to protect your assets.
Product liability insurance
Also under the liability insurance umbrella, this insurance type can cover your business against financial losses if any of your products end up being defective or causing bodily harm or injury to your customers. This particular insurance type is suitable for companies that manufacture, distribute, wholesale, and retail a product.
Home-based business insurance
If you are running your business from the comfort of your home, this coverage might be a good complement to your homeowner’s insurance as a way to protect it if any of your business equipment causes damage to your home and third parties.
Professional liability insurance
If your business provides services instead of products, professional liability insurance might be able to protect you against financial loss as a consequence of errors, malpractice, or negligence.
Business owner’s policy
This insurance coverage can include property insurance, business interruption insurance, liability insurance, crime insurance, and vehicle coverage. The best part about this more comprehensive policy is that you can have it tailor-made to your company’s specific needs and requirements. This might help you save more money because the services are often bundled instead of buying individual types of insurance from different companies.
Commercial auto insurance
This type of insurance is perfect for businesses that constantly use company-owned vehicles in their day-to-day operations. This insurance can help protect your cars, vans, trucks, and SUVs from collisions and damages. But if the company does not have vehicles but employees drive themselves on official company business, your company would benefit from non-owned auto liability if the employee does not have insurance or if their coverage is inadequate. Oftentimes, non-owned auto liability can be added to business owners’ policies.
Data breach
The numbers don’t lie: The pandemic compelled so many businesses across America to move their operations online. But with the world moving to the digital world also comes increased risk for security breaches and digital criminals to try to take advantage of companies who are still navigating the digital world. If your business involves storing consumers’ information and having financial transactions online, consider amping up your digital protection by investing in a data breach policy. It will help keep you safe from losses in the event of a data breach, both electronically or through paper files.
Renter’s insurance
A sub-set of insurance for homeowners, these are for business owners who are operating their business from a rental home. This will help protect you from damage to the contents of the property, the physical property itself, and personal injury within the rental.
Life insurance
One of the most well-known insurance coverage out there, life insurance will help provide you with peace of mind knowing that your loved ones will be taken care of should anything happen to you. If your business involves operating some heavy and dangerous machinery, or if you do a lot of driving, life insurance will cover your beneficiary if anything happens to you.
Personal umbrella insurance
This is additional and complementary coverage on top of the other insurance policies you may already have. It can help cover various types of claims, including auto and homeowner’s insurance. This type of insurance is often used only when all the other policies have been used and exhausted, making it the perfect fail-safe to your other fail-safes.
We invest in business insurance because it’s always better safe than sorry. It can help protect us from costly expenses from damages or legal claims against our company later on. Understand what your business needs the most, and don’t hesitate to give it the shield it needs to survive for a long time.
