If you are a startup business or a growing business, chances are you purchased the least amount of insurance so your cash flow stayed manageable. Often, after your first meeting with your insurance agent, or bought your insurance online, you haven’t had the time to have an insurance expert go over your insurance portfolio.
Commercial General Liability Insurance
Most of the time businesses, especially those who buy insurance online, buy Commercial General Liability Insurance (CGL). This insurance protects you, your employees and your business from property damage and personal injury claims up to the policy limit. CGL insurance allows you to add more coverage, such as employee theft, employee auto business liability, and many other business risks that owners encounter and use endorsements to add coverage to their CGL policy.
However, when you add endorsements, two things can occur;
- Each time you add an endorsement to your premium rises and
- Often, when you add one or more endorsements, it includes coverage you already have.
Business Owners Policy
A Business Owners Policy is an insurance policy designed for small and medium-sized businesses. Just like Commercial General Liability Insurance it covers you, your business, and employees from legal liability for property damage or personal injury up to your policy limit.
But that is just the beginning of a BOP policy. Additional standard coverage includes:
Personal Injury Liability Insurance: This is far different from Personal Injury Insurance, this type of coverage includes protection from legal liability for your employees, yourself and your business for claims arising from things such as libel and slander, false advertising, and other similar civil rights violations.
It also protects people employed by you, yourself and your business from legal liability related to advertising such as:
- Libel
- Slander
- Theft of intellectual property
- Infringement of trademark of company name
Buildings Coverage and Business Personal Property
Other coverage that comes with your BOP is coverage for Business Personal Property. This protects you from loss if:
Property owned by the company and used by it suffers damage or destruction.
Interior property loss, such as furniture, fixtures, and equipment placed permanently at your business site.
Building additions completed for the expansion of your business site
Customer’s property under the care of the company
If you do not do an annual insurance review, schedule one now. Speak with an independent insurance advisor to choose the best kind of policy for your business.
