Insurance can be a risk-taker's best friend. It lets you use your entrepreneur's judgment to decide which business risks are worth taking and which aren't -- and when things go wrong, a professionally designed insurance program becomes your safety net. Although you can cover virtually any risk, it's best to invest your premium dollars in those areas most likely to cause your business the most pain.
For example, if the business provides your family's sole or main source of income, invest some premium dollars on a Life policy that will provide this income if events take you out of the picture.
If your business depends on computer technology, you'll want to explore the insurance implications in case of:
- Viruses
- Business income losses due to extended downtime
- Electronic forgeries and theft
- Liability from alleged breaches of customer privacy. Although a standard policy might provide some basic coverage, you'll probably need supplemental protection.
Although your building might have coverage in the amount required by the mortgagee or even what you paid, what would it really cost to rebuild it from the ground up? Bear in mind that:
- Special design issues might raise these costs.
- Building ordinances (such as those requiring sprinkler systems or wind-resistant materials) would significantly increase the expense of rebuilding.
- "Grandfathering" the building under your community's current building restrictions might even prevent you from rebuilding at your present location.
Would the amount of Liability coverage required by your landlord or included automatically with your Business insurance "package" be enough to protect you, considering that you can hardly open a newspaper without reading about a multi-million dollar lawsuit against a business?
For these and other reasons, there's no substitute for sitting down with us to review the key risks that your business faces and possible solutions to these exposures.