Protect Your Office With Office Business Insurance
Business offices may not have the risks of, say, construction sites. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t many types of costly incidents that can occur. If you’ve worked in an office for any length of time, you’ve probably seen things like property damage and accidents that could result in legal liability. That’s where office business insurance can be crucial.
If you’re a business owner and haven’t experienced any issues that could lead to a claim recently (or ever), it’s easy to convince yourself that you’ll continue to operate without incident. We hope you do, but of course, there are no guarantees. In fact, our claims data affirms what we all know: Accidents happen.
Will an incident create a significant disruption to your company’s finances, or will it be something you can address and move past relatively quickly? The answer to that question depends on whether you have adequate business insurance coverage.
What policies do you need to protect your business and ensure your office operations are adequately covered? What does business insurance cost? What’s important to keep in mind when shopping for office business insurance? Those are excellent questions. This article answers them and others.
Need Insurance for an Office? Consider These 7 Policies.
You probably had a business plan, either written or just in your mind, when you created your business—for instance, what you’d sell and who you’d market to. If maintaining adequate commercial office insurance wasn’t part of that plan, it should be. (And you can obtain coverage quickly, as we describe later in this article.)
What policies will you need to protect your company and ensure your office operations don’t leave you vulnerable to a large legal expense or loss? That depends on some fundamental factors about your operations, including what type of work you do, where your business is located, and others. But every business can benefit from (and should have) one or more of these seven policies:
- Workers’ compensation insurance. This coverage is typically required by law for any business with employees. It provides benefits if your team members are injured, get sick, or die due to an incident on the job. It can help pay for medical costs, legal fees, and lost wages and provide a death benefit to the employee’s family. For instance, imagine an employee is struck by a falling box in a storage room and suffers a concussion. Workers’ comp insurance can cover the cost of their care and time away from work.
- General liability insurance. This policy covers damages and legal costs related to injury claims from non-employees (visiting clients, for example), medical expenses associated with these incidents, and damage to others’ property in your possession. Let’s say a person delivering office supplies slips on the wet floor in your office, breaks their wrist, ends up with thousands in medical bills, and sues your business for the total. Your general liability policy may pay for those expenses and your legal defense costs.
- Business owners policy (BOP). Also called a property & liability policy, a BOP conveniently combines general liability insurance with company property coverage. It can protect the building you own or the space you lease, while also covering other property you own, lease, or have in your care, custody, or control. It also addresses business interruption and lost income resulting from property damage, as well as costs you incur to resume business operations after suffering property damage, such as the use of a temporary location. For example, imagine a tornado damages your office. The property damage provisions of your BOP may cover related costs.
- Errors and omissions (E&O) insurance. Does your company provide professional advice or services? This policy (also known as professional liability insurance) can cover the cost of damages and legal fees if someone claims your professional service caused financial harm to them or their business. Coverage includes mistakes on the part of your business (errors) and the failure to perform a service (omissions). Let’s say you’re an accounting firm and make a mistake on a tax return that causes your client to incur a financial loss and sue your business. E&O insurance may protect you.
- Commercial auto insurance. This type of policy is for vehicles your company owns or leases. It covers liability resulting from accidents caused by people driving those vehicles. For instance, if your employee accidentally runs a stop sign in a company car and collides with another vehicle, your commercial auto policy can protect the business. A policy can provide payment for an incident even if you use the vehicle for personal activities outside of its primary business use.
- Cyber insurance. Purchased as an add-on to another biBerk policy, this insurance helps cover costs related to incidents where a hacker has stolen sensitive information and used it to commit fraud or is likely to. The policy can pay for expenses related to the breach, like notifying customers and providing credit monitoring.
- Umbrella insurance. This type of insurance can pay for overages when a claim exceeds the limit of another biBerk liability policy—up to the umbrella policy’s limit. It keeps you from having to pay the amount that your liability policy won’t cover.
What Does Office Business Insurance Cost?
At this point, you may be thinking, “Financial protection sounds great. But what does each office insurance policy cost?” We’re glad you asked!
The cost of investing in your company’s financial well-being varies based on the policies you need, your company’s size, its claims history, and other factors. But you’ll be happy to know you can typically get hundreds of thousands of dollars in coverage for as little as a few hundred dollars annually.
There are many decisions a business owner can struggle with, but the choice to buy business insurance tends to be a slam dunk once you’ve done that cost-benefit assessment!
Another benefit of purchasing small business insurance from biBerk is that you can get instant, self-service quotes for the policies you need online whenever it’s convenient—early in the morning, while you eat your lunch, or in the evening at home.
Purchase Office Space Insurance Today. Enjoy Peace of Mind Tomorrow!
You might think getting office insurance coverage would be time-consuming, complicated, or both. But the truth is it’s neither of those. You can buy commercial office insurance from biBerk online in minutes with coverage active as soon as the next day in most cases.
You can also manage each office insurance policy you have and report claims online. We aim to make it easy for business owners and decision-makers to obtain the financial protection their companies need. We like to think of ourselves as more of a business insurance partner than a provider! Find out how our office business insurance can benefit your company.
We’re here to help when you need us. Get covered today.