Every business owner worries about potential losses that they might experience in the future. What they may not realize is that some of these losses could potentially be covered by a business insurance policy. However, others may only be covered under different types of business insurance – rather than just your general business policy that you use to protect your business.

Employee Mistakes

One potential loss that can be worrisome involves your employees and human error. Your employees may make mistakes that affect customers or clients. These customers and clients may sue your company to cover their losses/the harm that was caused by the mistake. This may not be covered by your general business insurance. Errors and omissions coverage, also known as E&O or as professional liability insurance, will help with judgment payments and legal expenses that can accumulate during the aftermath of these errors.

Fire

Having a fire on your property is a nightmare that might keep you awake at night. The good news is that there are some ways to protect yourself from high costs if there is a fire. Your general business insurance is usually a mixture of property and liability insurance, so the property that would be lost in a fire is probably covered by your property insurance policy. Having property and liability insurance in one package can help you reduce your costs, but you can also have each of these policies separate.

Cleaning Up After the Fire

The bad news is that your business might not be covered for the amount of time it takes for you to get back to business. This might mean a few weeks, or months, depending on how badly the fire damaged your property. To ensure that you are covered for this potential loss, you should look into business interruption insurance. This insurance will kick in when there is a loss of income in the case that day-to-day operations of a business are impacted due to closure. This insurance is good for more than just having a fire at your location. For example, you will be covered in the case that your vital widget maker is broken down, and your business has to shut down until it is fixed.

Auto Accidents

One loss that you may fear involves an employee damaging a company vehicle during business hours. Typically, a personal auto insurance policy will not cover this accident as the vehicle is being used for business. The same can also be said for the employee’s personal health insurance if they had been injured in the accident. Commercial auto insurance is one way to protect yourself from future losses when allowing employees to drive cars owned by the company.

Accident Aftermath

State law in New Jersey requires every business that is not covered by a Federal program to have self-insurance or another type of workers’ compensation coverage. This is necessary because it protects your business from potential loss, but it also protects your employees and their families. In the aftermath of an automobile accident, your worker might need medical care, physical therapy, and be unable to return to work for a few months. This coverage provides for you and makes it so that you will not be sued for these costs.

Someone Important Gets Ill or Passes Away

You can certainly worry about what would happen to your business if you became ill or passed away. You probably also worry about the health of your partners or other key personnel in your company. There is insurance that can be purchased to help you with this potential loss, as well. This is key person or key employee insurance that will pay out to the business as the beneficiary if such a loss was to occur. This means that they must be essential to the business, and their loss due to inability to work or death would be a big loss to the business’ revenue.

Data Breach

All too often, you are hearing about hackers and data breaches of customers’ and clients’ personal data. These companies often have to pay out money for the impacted people to get financial monitoring programs that will help ensure that their identity has not been stolen. Some insurance companies are offering cyber and data breach policies that will help you with this potential loss.

Type of Business

The type of business that you run might have some impact on what insurance policies you need to protect yourself from potential losses. Medical professionals need to have malpractice insurance in this sue happy environment we live in today. If you own a gym or yoga studio, you may also need a policy that will cover any liability that you might have if someone were to get hurt in your facility or during a class.

Each of these are policies that can help to reduce or eliminate out-of-pocket expenses when it comes to your business. Accidents do happen, and it’s always good to have the coverage you need to make sure that you are not paying more than you have to when they happen. Consult with a local insurance agent to learn more.

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