Insuring Your Professional Services Business

Whether you are an accountant or an architect, protecting your small business from the potential financial loss that could result from a lawsuit is essential to keeping your business alive and healthy in the long term.

Many professional and specialty services business owners mistakenly believe that, if they work out of their home, they can rely on their homeowner’s or renter’s insurance to cover anything that happens to their business equipment. When in fact more often than not, homeowner’s insurance is not adequate to cover business losses.

Read on to understand what kind of insurance you may need.

What Insurance Does My Professional Services Business Need?

Many professionals become entrepreneurs without ever planning to do so. Your risks and insurance needs depend on a number of variables, including your profession, the size of your practice and your clientele. A small private practice needs different insurance coverage than a large, multi-professional doctors’ group. A private salon has different needs from a medium-sized spa facility. Our licensed agents review the coverages that are most critical to your industry to help protect your business.

Liability Insurance

General Liability Insurance is an essential small business insurance policy. Often required by law, it protects your business by funding lawsuits brought by third parties like clients, customers, vendors, and non-employees. Liability insurance covers you from a range of common third-party lawsuits, including, property damage, copyright infringement, slander, libel, defamation, or other damage to a third party's reputation and personal injury.

BOP or Business Owner’s Policy

Many carriers bundle together several different insurance policies into one product that allow you to customize your coverage. Typically, a Business Owners Policy will include general liability and property insurance.  Depending on the nature of your business, other coverages that may be appropriate to add to your BOP include:

• Professional Liability Insurance (E&O)- Your clients look to you for advice and recommendations on how to improve their business. But consider what might happen to your business if you were to make a mistake or overlook an important detail. When things don’t go quite as planned, Professional Liability Coverage helps protect your business assets in the event of a lawsuit.  It also helps cover the cost of your defense.
• Business Interruption Coverage- This coverage protects against losses due to a temporary shutdown (as with a fire), and provides reimbursement for lost net profits and necessary continuing expenses.

Cyber Liability Insurance

When a data breach occurs, quick action is important to help restore the public’s confidence if you’re a business victimized by a cyber-attack. Cyber liability insurance and data breach insurance help cover costs like notification, identity protection solutions, public relations, legal, liability and more depending on the coverage you choose. 

Workers Compensation

Workers compensation insurance covers medical costs and a portion of lost wages for an employee who becomes injured or ill on the job. Workers compensation insurance also protects companies from being sued by employees for workplace conditions that can cause an injury or illness.

For some states, it is required that you obtain a workers compensation plan. If you are an operating business and it is required by your state to have this type of policy, it is important to get one as soon as you have an employee.

If your state does not require this type of insurance coverage, you may still want to consider it so you can protect the business from this type of lawsuit and protect your business reputation.

Commercial Auto Insurance

Commercial Auto Insurance, also known as business auto insurance, helps your business cover the financial costs resulting from an auto accident if you or an employee is found at fault. Commercial auto insurance helps pay for damaged property and medical expenses – even in the event of a fatal accident.

At smallbusinessquote.com, we shop all the major A+ rated insurance companies so you don’t have to, connecting you with the right policy for your small business. Let us help you make an informed decision about your business insurance needs.  Our licensed agents specialize in helping small businesses obtain the best coverage at the best price, give us a call today at 888-834-8619.