5 Insurance Tips to Protect Your Small Business

Consider the following tips when it comes to purchasing business insurance for your small business.

1. Know what type of insurance is required in your state, county, and city.

The first thing to do when purchasing business insurance is to find out what is required of you by law. All states and local governments have business insurance requirements that you must follow. Go to your state business website and speak to local officials to find out what types of insurance you will have to buy.

2. Think about the biggest threats to your business. 

Next, consider exactly what threats to your business are most imminent. For example, if you have a brick-and-mortar business, you should worry about liabilities in terms of possible slip-and-fall accidents, injuries from equipment, etc.

What about any products you sell? Clients or customers may be able to claim that your negligence or faulty products caused them harm. Could your services cause another business to lose money? Could there be a fire in your warehouse? Is your storefront in a flood zone? Do your employees have to drive their own cars for deliveries and other reasons?

Don’t assume situations like these won’t arise.

3. Consider your employees.

If you do have employees, you’ll need insurance for them as well. This most likely will come in the form of workers’ compensation insurance, which is often required. But you may want to consider other types of business insurance for employees, like auto insurance for their cars and additional employment practices insurance.

4. Think about the threat of a possible cyber attack.

While many businesses are still in denial about the threat of cyber attacks, smart owners and managers know that all businesses should be on the lookout for hackers and unusual network activity. Today, ransomware is one of the top threats to businesses of all sizes and in all industries.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that infiltrates your systems and compromises your access to your own data and/or networks. Data breach insurance protects your business in that it can pay the ransom necessary to regain data/network access, or it can contribute to the IT service costs that can help recover this access.

5. Speak with a business insurance agent to make sure all your bases are covered.

Finally, always seek help from a business insurance agent who knows what the biggest threats to your business will be. They will be able to help you fill any remaining gaps and achieve comprehensive coverage for your business, yourself and your employees.