Is My Business Covered for That? 8 Common Business Insurance Gaps

Here are some of the most common gaps we see in business coverage and an overview of more specialised policies and endorsements that may help you protect your business, and help your business recover after a covered loss. Keep in mind that individual policies can vary widely, so it’s always important to review your coverage options with your agent or broker.

As an employer, you know that there are certain rules and regulations you need to follow for how you treat your employees, and what you can reasonably expect from them. These days, with more people working from home, and added health and safety considerations for those in the workplace, it can be more difficult than ever to know exactly the right approach — potentially increasing the risk of an employee suing, based on claims of:

• Sexual harassment
  
  
• Discrimination
  
  
• Wrongful termination
  
  
• Breach of employment contract
  
  
• Negligent performance evaluation

Company management is also at risk — directors and officers can be personally sued by employees , vendors, competitors, investors, customers, or other parties, for actual or alleged wrongful acts in managing the company.

Consult your insurance agent or broker about adding these coverages to help close potential gaps:
 

• Directors & Officers – to protect your company’s officers and directors if they are personally sued for acts or omissions committed in their capacity as corporate officers or directors.
  
  
• Professional Indemnity – to protect the Company against lawsuits filed by employees who claim their legal rights as employees have been violated.

If you provide professional services, there is a chance that a customer may claim you failed to complete the services in a satisfactory manner, made a mistake, or provided incorrect information that resulted in a financial loss for them. While you’d hope that you could work things out amicably, that’s not always the case. If your business is sued by a customer for either actual or alleged financial damage, appropriate professional errors and omissions insurance may help cover the costs.

Consider adding Professional Indemnity Insurance to help protect against claims directly related to your professional services.

If your business suffers a physical loss (following a covered property loss) and you need to close part or all of your operations, you may lose revenue, plus could incur additional expenses, such as: 

• Mortgage, rent, and lease payments
  
  
• Employee payroll
  
  
• Taxes and loan payments
  
  
• Relocation costs if your business must move due to physical damage to the premises

To cover this potential gap following a covered property loss, ask your insurance representative about adding business interruption coverage to your property policy.

You may have heard about data breaches or cyberattacks on large companies. But cybercriminals are not focusing solely on big money. They are looking for vulnerabilities, and small and mid-sized businesses who use outside IT services or have limited IT resources may be more exposed than they realise. If you have employees, your risk is even higher, because each employee is another potential gateway for cybercriminals to try and get through.
 

Consider procuring a commercial cyber policy to help provide solutions and services for privacy breaches, network security, incident response, and media liability.

If you or your employees travel abroad as part of your business, you may want to make sure you have appropriate coverage that extends beyond your country borders. For example, how could you help an employee who had a medical emergency while outside the country, lost a passport, or needed to get out of a country due to a political uprising? 
 

To help cover this potential gap, consider business accident insurance to provide resources for international travel, including emergency medical, cash and document replacement, local country reports and travel alerts, and more. 
 

Regardless of the type of business you run, it is smart to talk to your independent insurance agent or broker to make sure your business is appropriately insured so that you can focus on keeping your business running smoothly under all circumstances.