One major responsibility when it comes to running a business, is to ensure you’ve put all the necessary measures in place to protect yourself, your employees and the company at large should unfortunate circumstances arise. You’d be acting truly irresponsibly indeed if you failed to recognize the importance of taking out business insurance, irrespective of your line of work.
You may be feeling overwhelmed by the details, terms, and conditions of varying business insurance policy plans — it can feel as though they are purposefully complicated. Good insurance agencies, such as Melton McFadden, will do what they can to guide you through the process. For now, here are four factors you should consider when insuring your business…
Where do you work out of?
You may not think it, but even if you work out of your own home, it’s recommended that you take out a separate business insurance policy to cover all your equipment and so on; they may not be covered by your home contents insurance.
If you hire a working space or own your office building, there will be other building and contents insurance details to work out. You should also consider insuring any other assets that are vital to the success of your business. If you manufacture goods, guarantee you’ve insured the machines you use; if they go bust, you can’t work, and so you can’t earn money.
How many people do you employ?
You’ll likely need to organize insurance cover for every member of staff employed by your company — this could be to cover their presence at work (personal liability), office health and safety, etc. You may also wish to offer life insurance and health cover as part of your employee benefits; this can be a real draw for motivating prospective workers.
In truth, even if you are a sole trader, you’ll want to think about insuring yourself as part of the business.
What work do you do?
We’ve mentioned the need to insure your workers’ tools and equipment, but you must also consider the role of other insurance types, such as travel, motor, public liability and personal indemnity within your business.
If you, or your employees, travel and drive for work, you’ll want to take out travel and vehicle insurance to cover the cost of any accidents, delays or other unfortunate claims in the company name. Public liability is crucial if you work in retail, entertainment, or any other space where the public frequent daily. Personal indemnity is unpleasant to consider, but would prove invaluable should the time come to rely on it; this cover comes into play if a client of yours makes a loss of some sort, as a result of a mistake by your company; think medical negligence, misinformation from stock brokers, etc.
Don’t regret not taking out insurance…
Insurance is a business purchase you hope you’ll never get to see pay off — you don’t want to end up in a situation where you need to put in a claim. Nevertheless, to risk not having insurance in place is a dangerous business strategy… don’t regret, insure your business.
