Give Your Refinishing Business an Insurance Checkup

While we’re still in the first quarter of the year, now might be an ideal opportunity to sit down with an insurance agent to review your business insurance policies.

For most small business owners, business insurance is an absolute necessity. Still, properly covering yourself doesn’t always start and end with the purchase of a policy. If that purchase happened years ago, think about how your business might’ve changed a bit since then. And are you sure you know all the possible risks out there to your bottom line? Even if you think you do, you’d be surprised by where some holes in your liability may exist.

Peace of mind comes from having an outside party who is educated on business insurance and changes in the market consult with you.

Here are a few of the business insurance policies a contractor like you may consider adding or enhancing to your protection mix with an agent’s guidance:

Commercial General Liability Insurance

When you’re doing work on site, there’s always some potential for an accident or injury of some manner to occur. What if there’s damage to the property or someone encounters bodily harm? You can’t predict these incidents but you can prepare better for them with Commercial General Liability Insurance. Find out what the extent of your coverage is should you be faced with a lawsuit – this insurance may be able to cover a substantial portion of your defense costs.

Commercial Property Insurance

Tools can be stolen. A computer with sensitive business information can be damaged in a fire. You probably won’t see incidents like these coming but having a Commercial Property Insurance policy in place may be a very good thing. Some people tend to think of property as buildings but it’s often much more, including all of the property you own with a business space. Ensure that you have a policy that takes these items into consideration, including covering you for the time you might be unable to do business without them as they’re being replaced or repaired.

Professional Liability Insurance

Damage isn’t always experienced in physical form but through the errors your business can make as you provide a service. Ask your agent if Professional Liability Insurance (or errors and omissions insurance) applies. It may offer an extra layer of protection for inadvertent errors that impact customers.

Commercial Auto Insurance

If you use a vehicle primarily for your business, that vehicle needs appropriate coverage in the event that you cause or are in an accident. Commercial Auto Insurance may be essential to have here.

What other areas of coverage should you keep in mind?

Many contractors don’t have other employees, but if you have just one, it’s important to review the state of your Workers’ Compensation Insurance, Unemployment Insurance, Disability Insurance and more. There may even be some “miscellaneous” areas of the business that aren’t neatly covered by a particular insurance category but your agent can steer you toward.

Granted, you probably won’t need all of the above business insurance policies for your work, but taking the time to review them now and adjusting accordingly is well worth it – and beats being ever caught off guard.