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The Small Business Owner's Guide to Individual, Company, and Employee Insurance

If you don’t obtain business insurance, you may find yourself in a world of trouble. Sometimes your business lease will contain language requiring a particular kind of insurance. Learn what you need to have in place, what the different forms of insurance do, and what you should never overlook!

By Ronda Bowen
Desk Money
Reading time 4 min read
Word count 841
Entrepreneurs Business Business law
The Small Business Owner's Guide to Individual, Company, and Employee Insurance
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Quick Take

If you don’t obtain business insurance, you may find yourself in a world of trouble. Sometimes your business lease will contain language requiring a particular kind of insurance. Learn what you need to have in place, what the different forms of insurance do, and what you should never overlook!

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The Need to Insure Your Business

Insurance exists so you can be covered should a disaster, lawsuit, or other unexpected event occur. Insurance involves premiums paid over a course of time. Should you never need to use your insurance, you’ve paid a bunch of premiums. However, you shouldn’t look at it this way. If you fail to have insurance and one of these events does occur, you’re going to really wish you had subscribed to a policy. Even more important than having insurance for yourself, you should always carry an insurance policy for your business. If you do not carry insurance, or if you cannot afford to carry insurance, you should not be doing business.

Insurance Overviews

When trying to figure out what you need business insurance wise, it’s important to understand what the different types of insurance are and what they do. For example, getting a property insurance policy is fine, but will it cover employees on the premises? Before purchasing a policy and beginning to pay premiums, you need to make a careful list of what you will need in order to run your business. It’s important to know what the differences between policies are, what you should look for in a good insurance policy, and how to determine what your business needs - and doesn’t need.

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Business Liability Insurance

If you’re trying to keep yourself out of a possible financial problem, you’ll need to carry business liability insurance. Business liability insurance is not negotiable. If you can’t afford it, you can’t afford to do business (as I said already). Business liability insurance protects you from going broke when you’re being sued in the event that a product or service does damage. It also protects you in the event that a fire or other hazard occurs at your work place. I’ll say it one more time - liability insurance is absolutely necessary.

Property and Rental Insurance

When it comes to insuring your office space, it’s a no-brainer. You should definitely carry some sort of insurance policy. A good insurance policy will cover you in the unfortunate event of a fire, should you have a break in, or should there be some other structural damages that causes damage to your property and equipment. It’s important to do your research and find the best deal. Don’t overlook the importance of earthquake or flood insurance. You never know what may happen, and you’ll want to be able to recover quickly from damage. A good property or rental insurance policy will help you to do that.

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Employee and Health Insurance

When you have employees, not only will you need to worry about taxes, but you will also need to think about health insurance and federally required insurance. You’ll want to have good and loyal employees, so it will be important to provide them with a benefits package that is attractive. It can be overwhelming to put together an employee benefits package, so we’ve done the research for you to make your task much easier.

Other Types of Insurance

It’s really important that you research any further insurance you think you might need for your business. Don’t spend more money than is necessary, but don’t skip either. You might also want to think about disability insurance beyond what’s required by the federal government. The thing is, with insurance, it might be expensive, but it is far better to have it than to not have it.

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Have a question about business insurance? If so, feel free to use the comments section below - ask us a question and we’ll do our absolute best to find the answers you seek. Or, have a business insurance nightmare you can tell our readers to aid them in avoiding the same? Start a discussion using the comments section!

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