Business Owners: 5 Types of Insurance You Might Be Overlooking

Whoever said, “You can never have too much insurance” obviously never had to pay the premiums. Still, there’s no denying the fact you need it to protect your business and its assets.

So you probably have building and contents insurance, and public liability insurance. But what else should you get cover for? What else can you get cover for?

The answer to the first question really depends on the type of business you own. As for what you can get cover for, you may be surprised.

5 types of insurance every business owner should consider

1. Business Interruption insurance

If there’s a fire at the premises, chances are your building and contents insurance will cover it. But while everything’s being rebuilt, repaired and replaced, you’re not making any money.

Business Interruption can cover you for loss of profit, ongoing staff costs and additional operating costs, such as temporarily relocating to another premises.

2. Goods in Transit insurance

You may have the stock you have on the premises insured, but what about the stock that’s in transit? Whether you’re buying it, selling it or just using it, your business could suffer if it’s lost or damaged.

With Goods in Transit insurance, you’re covered whether it’s coming or going by ship, air, post, rail or road.

3. Product Liability insurance

No-one goes out of their way to sell a product that will harm people or property. But accidents can happen. There may be a glitch in production, or a misprint in the instruction manual, or the customer may have simply used your product the wrong way.

And that accident can result in legal action.

Product Liability insurance covers you against claims of injury, death or damage from goods you sell, supply, deliver, repair or service.

4. Professional Indemnity insurance

While Public Liability—which differs from Product Liability, explained above—covers your legal liability to pay compensation for injury or damage to property caused to a third party in connection to your business, Professional Indemnity (‘PI’) protects your business against the risks associated with providing advice or recommendations to clients. 

For example, a customer could sue you for damages, alleging that your advice has caused a loss. PI insurance will help fund your legal defence.

5. Employment Practices Liability insurance

While you’d never purposely upset your employees, there may come a time when they feel unhappy enough about their work situation to take legal action.

Employment Practices Liability insurance covers you for any damages or costs resulting from accusations of discrimination, unfair dismissal, harassment or other situations.

As you can see, when it comes to insuring your business you have a lot of options. A combination of bad luck and not being insured for one of the above scenarios could cost your business dearly. 

It pays to sit down with a risk insurance advisor on a regular basis and review which insurances—the obvious and the not so obvious—you should consider. Even if you decide not to take out insurance in these additional areas of risk, an annual insurances review can make sure you’re neither under- nor over-insured.

This might save you money on premiums.

It will definitely add to your peace of mind. 

Get in touch and we’ll make a time to sit down with you and review your business’ insurance needs.