When people buy insurance online there tend to be coverage gaps, and honestly sometimes we see these gaps with live agents as well. Purchasing insurance with a local insurance broker can help avoid these costly mistakes.
Hired Auto/Non-owned auto coverage: This is often an inexpensive coverage that gets commonly missed because business owners do not feel they have a risk at their business. It does not matter if you are a contractor, office or retail business, chances are you have a non0owned exposure if you have at least 1 employee. Have you ever asked an employee to stop and get lunch, stamps, or drop something off? If so if they were acting on your behalf and have an accident, depending on severity, it could come back to your business.
Cyber Insurance: 10 years ago no one talked about cyber insurance but today it is a must. How do you know you need cyber? Do you use the internet at your business? Do you have clients personal information in a system that can connect to the internet? Those are fairly low bar questions, but you have an exposure if you answered yes to either. Sometimes the risk is having your information stolen and sometimes it is just being held ransom but either way is a business nightmare.
Workers Compensation: This should not surprise me, but it does for a few reasons. 1. If you are in construction you are required to purchase it at first employee. And 2. If you are not in construction, it is very affordable. One of the most frequent things we see is people saying their “employees” are independent contractors. That is fine but if one of them is injured you have to pass the government 23 question test for independent contractors and rarely do employers pass it.
Ordinance and Law coverage: If you own a commercial building this is so important. Local governments can pass laws post disaster that change what you are required to do with your insurance funds, or simply just an older building with a small amount of damage may suddenly have to be brought to current code. This can get costly quick.
Professional Liability: Professional liability traditionally was thought of as coverage for doctors and lawyers, but it is far more broad with coverage for many industries. Some examples are web designers need Publishers Professional Liability to prevent plagiarism suits, and sometimes copyright issues. Other industries include Consultants, designers, market research, technology professionals and many more. In short if you give advice, or represent anything that could cause financial loss you need Professional Liability.