What is commercial insurance?

If you’re a budding entrepreneur getting ready to set out on your own in the business world, it’s important to know that there’s much more to setting up a business than just having a great idea or product and a lot of energy and passion. Those elements are essential to success, but there are practicalities associated with business set-up that you should address early rather than late.

Commercial insurance is one of those areas. It provides three basic types of coverage for your business in case unforeseen circumstances generate extra expenses, loss, or damages.

Three main types of commercial insurance.

There are three main types of expenses that commercial insurance brokers can help you find coverage for. They are property insurance, liability insurance, and worker’s compensation insurance. We’ll break them down a bit more.

Commercial property insurance. This covers losses or damages to real or personal property, such as if a fire destroyed your offices. You can specify additional coverage items that you’d like included, such as special equipment your business uses, glass insurance if your building has many windows, business interruption insurance in case of lost income due to a reason covered by another insurance clause (such as a fire), crime insurance, tenant insurance, and many other varieties of special commercial insurance riders. Your commercial insurance quote will contain many of these items, provided you’ve given a clear picture of your business needs to your broker.
Commercial liability insurance. This type of commercial insurance covers you for the cost of damages that you cause to other parties. While a general liability policy provides coverage for many situations, such as a customer hurting themselves on your premises, but your business needs may dictate that you purchase other types as well. Some available liability insurance clauses to ask your commercial insurance brokers about are errors and omissions (different from negligence by legal definition), malpractice, automobile (if your business uses cars, trucks, or vans regularly), and finally, insurance for officers or directors of your company. Sometimes high-profile businesspeople are personally sued over situations that arise as a result of their corporate duties, and officers’ liability insurance covers these circumstances.
Workers compensation insurance. “Worker’s comp” covers you for an employee’s injury, if it occurs while on the job. State laws influence the types and amounts of workers compensation insurance you need to carry. On the bright side, worker’s comp laws prevent employees from suing you for negligence if they’re injured on the job.

Those are the major aspects of commercial insurance to investigate with your broker. Make sure your commercial insurance quote contains all the elements of coverage that your business will need. Lawsuits and injuries are financially crippling if you’re not covered properly.