Business liability insurance is a necessary insurance policy for businesses. According to statistics, small businesses have a 40% chance of filing a claim within ten years. Most of these claims are related to liability or property loss.
Some benefits of business liability insurance include coverage against property damage, natural disasters, fires, and accidents and improved credibility for your business.
Here's what you need to know about business liability insurance and why your business should purchase one from a trusted provider.
What is Business Liability Insurance?
Business liability insurance is coverage for small businesses that protect them from claims concerning property damage and bodily injury. Essentially, it protects your business from claims that:
It hurt somebody
It caused reputational harm through libel or slander
It damaged another person's property
Business liability insurance is necessitated by the fact that every business faces claims in its lifetime.
Without business liability insurance, the business owner or business has to pay for the damages and liability out of pocket. These costs are often high and can put your business at financial risk.
General liability insurance is the most common business liability insurance policy business owners take. It is also known as comprehensive or commercial general liability insurance.
What Does Business Liability Insurance Cover?
Despite unforeseen events having an insurmountable financial impact on businesses, 75% of U.S. firms don't have adequate insurance policies to keep them safe. When disaster strikes, nearly half of these firms never reopen.
That shouldn't be the case with the right policy. Business liability insurance offers coverage against the following claims:
Property damage
Bodily injury
Reputational harm
Advertising injury
Damages to leased property/equipment
Medical payments
However, note that this is not the comprehensive insurance cover a small business needs to be fully secured when operational.
Business liability insurance must be complemented with other covers that protect from other claims, such as worker's compensation insurance that helps your employees recover from work-related injuries or illnesses.
Therefore, business liability insurance is the starting point to giving your business complete protection from operational hazards affecting physical and human resources.
The Benefits of Business Liability Insurance
Getting business liability insurance comes with the following benefits.
Minimizes Financial Losses
Business liability insurance's primary goal is to shield your business from financially ruining situations. It does this in various ways, including facilitating the repair or replacement of damaged property, covering the legal costs of a lawsuit, or providing finances to wade through unexpected situations.
Business liability insurance may also cover expensive medical costs tied to the business. Without a comprehensive policy, you'll have to cater for these expenses out of pocket.
Improves the Credibility of Your Business
Other businesses and clients have peace of mind doing business with you when they know you have business liability insurance. This peace of mind improves your business' credibility, attracting more clients in the long run.
Depending on your business's industry, some contracts and contractors also require proof that your business has business liability insurance coverage before work can begin. Therefore, you gain the upper hand in negotiations if you can show that your business and labor are protected.
Protects Against Accident and Injury Claims
Part of owning a business is ensuring that accidents rarely happen. However, despite doing your best, accidents are often inevitable, and injuries to employees and clients can happen unexpectedly.
If you don't have business liability insurance coverage, your business will have to bear the full brunt of the accident and injury claim.
Some of these accidents and injury claims may be accompanied by legal costs if the injured party decides to go to court or seek arbitration. Insurance helps you cover these claims and reduce the financial burden on your company.
Covers Against Data Breaches
Data security is becoming increasingly important by the day. According to statistics, businesses are paying heavily for data breaches, with the total damage inflicted by cyberattacks in 2022 hitting $6 trillion.
Your small business can't afford to pay a small slice of this sour financial pie. Therefore, getting business liability insurance is the best way of ensuring that you're financially protected from the impact of cybercrime if your business falls victim.
Moreover, data breaches come with high legal costs following the implementation of data protection laws such as GDPR. If your business stores personal customer information such as names, social security data, and addresses, you're liable to pay a hefty fine if cybercriminals access such data.
Therefore, most insurance providers bundle electric data liability as part of their policy offers.
Protects Against Damaging Actions from Staff and Employees
Finding the best and most trusted staff is difficult and arguably impossible. Therefore, you must have some safeguards against damaging staff and employee actions lest your business faces stiff financial and legal penalties.
These safeguards protect against damaging actions such as slander or an incident that damages property and causes injuries.
Third parties often raise these claims, making it necessary for your business to have business liability insurance that includes this coverage. Sometimes, you can add a more comprehensive separate policy to cover these instances, called personal liability coverage.
Covers Against Property Damage
Part of running a business is ensuring that your assets are well-secured and insured. Business liability insurance ensures that your business property is protected from unforeseen damage that can cease operations and cause hefty financial losses.
This includes a machine breaking down or a facility collapsing for various reasons.
Business liability insurance may also extend to cover against property damages your business may cause to a third party during operation, as long as it is unprecedented and unpreventable.
Protects Against Fire and Natural Disasters
Business liability insurance also protects your business from the devastating financial effects of fires and natural disasters on-premise.
Therefore, you will be compensated if you lose machinery, infrastructure, or other business assets and equipment due to lightning, fire, an explosion, earthquake, malicious damage, or a storm.
You also get compensation for damages on the stock in trade and other contents stored out-of-premise.
Consult with a Trusted Insurance Provider for the Best Policy
Business liability insurance is a no-brainer policy for small to large business owners. You get a financial cushion if your business suffers significant damage to physical resources or causes injuries to third parties. You also get to build a reputation as a trusted and credible brand.
The best policy you should take depends on your industry and business. Talk to a trusted insurance provider today and get started.
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