Business owners who are starting up or have already been in business for some time may have overlooked an essential part of protecting their business, commercial general liability insurance. Protecting your business from accidents of all kinds is the responsibility of any business owner. Now only are they protecting their livelihood but the livelihood of their employees. An important part of any businesses budget should include the monthly premiums associated with general liability insurance as it may save more in the long run than what is spent on monthly or yearly premiums.
A commercial general liability insurance policy is much different that the commonly used property insurance policy. A property only policy covers just that the building and anything owned within that property. Outside of that it will not cover lawsuits against the business or injuries to employees or the general public that can occur on the business property.
Commercial general liability coverage is the best way to protect you, a business partner, spouses, employees, and anyone acting on behalf of the company. If for some reason say a spouse while at a potential client’s site damages the client’s property. This would not be covered under a typical property coverage policy. However general liability insurance coverage most if not all of the damages would be covered thus saving the business from extensive monetary loss.
Liability insurance covers more than just injuries to employees and persons when on your site. If an injury occurs out in the field to an employee or to another person that you are covered as well. All expenses that are connected to the accident or injury are covered. Be it medical or legal your business assets will be safe up to the coverage amount stipulated by your policy.
There are some minimums you will want to consider when shopping for your liability policy. No matter the size of the business you are going to want to look at figures around $1 million per incident coverage and a minimum cap of $2 million for multiple instances. For instance if a problem occurs and a judgment of $800 thousand is awarded for a single incident your covered in full. However if you have multiple accidents at once on a job and the total for all three is $3 million the business is liable for an out of pocket payment of $1 million. Keep in mind the bigger the business or the more accident prone the business type (construction work, sign installation, yard maintenance, etc.) the larger the amounts of coverage you will want and the more expensive the premiums.
Shopping for a new or replacement commercial liability policy is no different that shopping for any other type of insurance policy. There are multiple websites on the internet that will retrieve multiple quotes for you. Just be sure if you want a quote fast it is a site that does instant quotes and doesn’t just pass your information onto an agent who will call you. The best way may be going directly to insurance company websites who will often ask more detailed information and give you instant quotes on the spot. The basic information you will need to keep handy are the amounts of coverage you are looking for. The type of company it is, how many full or part time employees and also contractors or consultants. How long have you been in business, how much experience the owner or CEO has in the business, what are its yearly revenues, and its location. All of these factors come into play when obtaining an accurate quote and it is recommended you have all this information handy before you go shopping for quotes.
No matter what size the company commercial general liability insurance is a must have protection for your business. It protects you, your family, your employees and everyone who depends on your company for their lively hood. Not only that it will protect the business itself from lost profits or potential bankruptcy if an accident judgment goes beyond what the company can afford to absorb and stay in business.
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