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Manage Your Risk with Small Business Insurance Tips
Small business management, like any other kind of entrepreneurial endeavor, involves taking big risks. However, any successful business owner will be quick to admit there are some risks not worth taking, like foregoing business insurance. Learning more about small business insurance tips that can prevent you from financial disaster is crucial. As small-business owners continue to grow their companies by any means necessary, they should also make certain they have the right insurance coverage in place as an additional financial safety net. These important discussions about your insurance policies need to be held with the small business insurance agency you are working with.
Which type of small business insurance do you need?
If you’ve already established your business, you should’ve already begun paying into insurance programs required by law for every registered company. Any organization that hires employees must have active policies covering workers’ compensation, federal unemployment and disability protection. Business insurance laws in each state can mandate more specific, additional policies, so be sure to check state and local regulations and verify you have the minimum level of coverage.
After that, there are several kinds of business insurance policies that are not required by law, but are helpful in mitigating the risk of catastrophic loss. The most common and comprehensive of these is general liability insurance.
Understanding general liability insurance for businesses
When discussing small business insurance tips, the conversation has to include business liability insurance. This type of blanket insurance is all about financially protecting the policy owner from the risk of loss. In small business management terms, general liability insurance protects you, the business owner, from lawsuits, medical claims and other costs as a result of an injury on your property or damage to your property. It can also cover some costs associated with intentional damage or bodily harm that someone else inflicts on your business, your employees and your customers.
Especially for business insurance, no two policies are exactly alike in precisely which events they will cover, and the financial compensation policyholders will receive from a claim. Still, it’s a good idea for every small business to have a general liability policy in place that will protect against the most devastating risks involved in any line of work.
Additional levels of coverage
While general liability coverage can cover a lot of ground, for companies in certain industries, there can be several gaps remaining. That’s why more specific policies exist, including:
• Product liability insurance: Protects product manufacturers, distributors and retailers from financial loss related to claims that their product was defective and caused bodily harm to someone.
• Professional liability insurance: Ideal for trades, like construction, to protect against losses sustained by a client due to mistakes or errors.
• Commercial property insurance: Covers business assets that are not protected under a general liability policy, possibly under a wider range of circumstances.
Remember that even the best insurance package offers only financial protection – it can’t actually prevent disaster from occurring. Even so, claims often take days or weeks to process and rarely provide immediate financial relief. The small business insurance tips we’ve discussed are important to most businesses. However companies that operate in specialized industries may require very specific types of insurance coverage, so it’s important to ensure your business has adequate coverage. That’s why smart small business owners partner with QuickBridge to access short-term financing that can be ready at a moment’s notice. QuickBridge’s business loans give business owners the fast access to cash to pay for insurance premiums and deductibles — and even gives you access to capital when you need it most so you can keep your business running.
