Sherry Ford Director of Business Insurance View Bio

Do You Need Business Insurance For Your Startup

When your business is just starting out, it’s easy to get consumed with operations, accounting, and product or service development. However, you don’t want to overlook the need for business insurance. Here are a few points to consider when contemplating your company’s business insurance needs.

General Liability Insurance

It doesn’t matter if you make a product or provide a service, you can be held liable if something goes wrong. The litigious society that your business dwells in can leave it liable for a variety of conditions, including a slip-and-fall accident on your property or a product demonstration gone awry. General liability insurance is worth considering to keep you from shelling out thousands of dollars in a lawsuit should you lose.

Business Income Insurance

When a catastrophe happens, you may think you have everything covered because you have basic insurance. But you stand to lose money should your business stop operating due to inaccessibility. Business income insurance (also known as business interruption insurance) is a safe insurance option to consider, especially if you must physically be at a specific location, such as a restaurant or a movie theater, to earn income. Consider getting business income insurance when you will still be responsible for expenses, such as rent or employee wages, should a disaster, such as a fire, earthquake or hurricane, damage your business and make it unsafe to operate until repaired.

Property Insurance

Property insurance is essential should your property get damaged. It can be used to cover damage to your building and even your inventory.

Specialty Insurance Products

There are some unique insurance products that extend beyond general coverage that you may want to consider for your business. You can get cyber security insurance to cover the costs associated with business interruptions resulting from data breaches or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Cyber attacks cost as much as $4 million per occurrence and are projected to increase to an aggregate cost of $2 trillion by 2019. You may need cyber security insurance if your business is heavily reliant on online sales or traffic or you have a website that your customers use often.

You can also get coverage for your officers and directors who may be facing lawsuits for misrepresentation or defamation of character with the help of a director’s and officer’s insurance policy, and it is worth considering if you have a wide range of stakeholders, such as investors, partners and consumers, to answer to.

Final Thoughts About Business Insurance For Your Startup

Unprecedented conditions, such as lawsuits and natural disasters, can leave you upside-down if you lack the right protection. Consult with an expert in the field to find the right insurance for your business needs.

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