Running a business without the requisite insurance is like playing with fire near a leaking fuel pump. It is unnecessarily risky and can cost you a lot.

Many businesses, particularly startups and small business owners, don’t see any need for an insurance coverage. For many of them, the excuse is that insurance is often too expensive and that it’ll eat into the business’ profits. In fact, studies have shown that many small business owners often incorrectly estimate that insurance costs are often triple the standard costs.

Every insurance company has an affordable coverage for most business. Talk to a real insurance agent today before making those assumptions and leaving your business unprotected.

What Does Commercial Insurance Cover?

Before we move forward, you need to understand that commercial insurance is typically categorized into three:

• Property Insurance

• Commercial Liability Insurance

• Workers Compensation

Property Insurance

This insurance policy is meant to cover any loss or damages to your personal property. For example, if your personal office goes up in flames, your property insurance coverage will take care of all arising expenses, repairs, and losses.

Depending on your specific needs, property insurance, is often best combined with a few other necessary insurance policies such as debris removal, glass, machinery, crime, theft, kitchen equipment, business interruption and so much more.

You need to speak with an insurance agent to come up with the best commercial insurance coverage for your unique business situation.

Commercial Liability Insurance

Commercial liability insurance policies are designed to protect every business from claims filed against the business entity by outside parties. These claims, usually made by third parties who are injured on the business premises, would be paid by the business out of its own pockets if they don’t have a commercial liability coverage.

Unfortunately, most businesses or their owners are often held liable for injuries sustained on their premises. It doesn’t matter if the injury was caused by a mistake, carelessness or negligence. As long as someone gets injured while in your place of business, you would need to assume the costs of their compensation or pay for damages.

Having a commercial liability insurance policy also protects your property in the event of damage, covers company products as well as all contractors working on your premises. It essentially provides liability coverage against all foreseen and unforeseen events that could happen on your site.

Therefore, if someone were to sue you for injuries sustained while working on your business premises or loses their items, the insurance company will cover the litigation expenses and settlement up to the policy limits.

Please note that this is not the same as workers compensation –hence the emphasis on third parties. You’ll need to take out a different insurance policy for that one.

Workers Compensation

Worker compensation insurance policies are often designed to help cover injuries sustained by your employees while on the job. For instance, if a driver gets in an accident while running errands for the company or a construction worker falls off a scaffold and breaks a leg, all arising expenses and compensation will be covered by the workers compensation insurance policy.

Now that you know all these, it is imperative to start shopping for an adequate commercial insurance policy that will suit your business’ needs. Talk to insurance agents at Insurance Land for guidance. You may not need all three policies at once. You can and should start with at least one, and then add more as your business grows and become a bigger operation.