No two businesses are the same, but every business has one thing in common – the need to protect themselves from the worst-case scenario. To do so you need to understand the different business insurance options available to protect your business, revenue, staff and customers against whatever might happen.
These are your options for business cover:
Professional indemnity insurance
This covers you against any claim against you or your staff for claims of professional neglect, omission or error. It is possible to give out bad advice, and clients suffer from following it, this type of business insurance protects you from this.
Life and critical illness cover
If you were unable to work tomorrow, would your business still be able to operate? Would it leave your directors, partners and family with mounting debts? Would staff need to be laid off? This essentially protects you from damage or loss in the same way you would a building. If the worst happens to you, the worst need not happen to your business.
Employers liability insurance
This policy will protect you against compensation claims made by employees in the case of injury, illness or damage to property in the workplace. If you have even just the one employee you are required by law to have at least £5 million employer’s liability insurance.
Key person insurance
People are often overlooked as a businesses most important asset. What would happen if a key person was no longer able to work? Where would it leave your business and its finances? This insurance protects against a key person in the business falling ill.
Cyber insurance
With so much company data being held online and so much business being conducted there it is essential to protect yourself against cyber attack and data breaches. Cyber insurance will protect you against the most serious attacks from hackers but also against data losses caused by staff or system error.
Loan protection cover
If the worst were to happen to you, would your business loans be paid? Many loans, like director loans, are payable on death and can’t be transferred to other people. Do you have funds aside to cover for this? Loan protection cover will protect your business and family against any outstanding loans.
Products and public liability insurance
Should your business operations result in a compensation claim for damage to their property, injury or illness, then this is the cover you need to protect yourself. Products liability is the same as public liability insurance but specifically covering issues caused by the products, sold, produced or sold by your business.
Directors insurance
There are policy options to protect the finances of high earning directors with specific relevant life cover. This is perfect for owners of small businesses that have too few members for a group life insurance policy or a top earner who that doesn’t want to affect their pension allowance with life cover. Specialist directors insurance is not treated as a benefit in kind so does not make up part of your income tax assessments or lifetime pension allowances.
Shareholder insurance
This cover will protect a person’s share in the business in the event of death or critical illness. It allows other shareholders to stay in control and have a say in what happens to the company and that shareholders share. Don’t get locked out of the process or allow controlling shares to fall to competitors by taking out shareholder insurance.
Commercial property insurance
There is a wide range of different commercial property policy types to protect every aspect of work in the property market including property under development insurance, non-standard property insurance, auction insurance, unoccupied property insurance and buy to let insurance. Whatever you need to protect there is a policy available.
It is unlikely that you will find a one-size-fits-all policy package for your business so it is worth discussing your requirements with experts in the business insurance field to ensure you are covered for everything you need at the right cost.
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