Being a business owner means facing an assortment of risks on a daily basis. The truth is that you need to protect yourself, your product or service, your premises, your staff, and your business as a whole to make sure that ‘business as usual’ is never jeopardised.
This is where insurance comes in. From professional indemnity cover to business interruption insurance, modern-day business owner such as tree business owner has many tree business insurance options at their disposal. Let’s take a look at four of the most important of these options and figure out which one – or ones – your business needs.
1.Worker’s Compensation Insurance
Depending on your line of work, some kinds of insurance are compulsory to have in place. If your business employs people – whether it’s a lone employee to answer the phones or an entire team of workers – you MUST have worker’s compensation insurance.
Worker’s compensation insurance is straightforward. It’s a type of insurance policy that protects your employees’ financial health when their physical health is in trouble because of an accident or an illness.
If you’re your business’s lone employee, unfortunately you can’t take out a worker’s compensation insurance policy on yourself – not even if your business is registered as a sole trader. In such cases, you will have to rely on your own personal insurance policy for coverage.
2.Professional Indemnity Insurance
Unless you’re a robot who is in the business of making robots with a team of other robots, the risk of human error is always present. It’s a fact of life: people make mistakes, even business owners. The only difference is that when a business owner makes a mistake, the aftermath can be bankrupting.
That’s why professional indemnity (PI) insurance, which is also known as professional liability insurance (PLI), is always a good idea. This type of insurance policy covers you in the unfortunate event of you or a member of your team making an error, omission, or acting in a negligent way.
Any business owner that charges a fee for dishing out advice or rendering a service should invest in a comprehensive professional indemnity insurance policy.
Though this list is by no means exhaustive, if your business is in any of the following industries having a proper PI policy in place is non-negotiable:
- Accounting
- Law
- Medicine
- Insurance brokering
- Property valuating
- Architecture
- Engineering
3.Business Interruption Insurance
A business interruption (BI) insurancepolicy is to a business what life insurance is to a human being. With business interruption insurance, when an insured event strikes you as a business owner will never be without a salary even if your business is not generating income.
Some examples of when business interruption insurance will be your bread and butter’s saving grace are:
- Your business is robbed, and essential operating equipment or products are stolen, rendering you unable to work until the equipment or products are replaced
- A tree falls down during a storm and lands on your business’s roof, rendering you closed for business until the roof is repaired
- Lightning strikes and your electronic equipment is fried, rendering you out of operation until the equipment is repaired or replaced
In a nutshell, business interruption insurance guarantees that if your business winds up in a position like any of those listed above, your regular expenses will be paid. These expenses include pay roll costs, rent, utilities – BI policy pay-outs even cover your insurance premiums!
4.Property Insurance
And last but not least we have property insurance. Even if you work from home, or don’t own the office space or building that your business is based in, property insurance is just as important as any of the three other types of business insurance on this list.
When you own the premises on which your business is situated on, this type of insurance covers you in the event of something happening to the building itself. Think resultant water damage from burst pipes, walls falling down in accidents, or ceilings collapsing in storms.
The other, less obvious, side of property insurance applies to tenants or those who have mixed-use insurance in their household. This side of the property insurance spectrum covers business owners in the event of:
- Fire
- Smoke
- Wind
- Hail
- Snow
- Ice
- Lightning
- Vandalism
- Theft
Property insurance for your business will usually cover whatever is on the premises. So this extends to equipment or contents that are stolen or damaged in any of the perils listed above.
Conclusion
Insurance is a business owner’s best friend. And though the monthly, quarterly, or annual premiums are considered a grudge purchase, those who don’t have insurance when they need it suffer greatly.
At the end of the day, part of being a responsible business owner is protecting your business from as much as you possibly can. With the proper insurance policy in place, protection is made easy.
You know now about four stellar insurance options for your business. Which one will you be investigating further?
