Is my business covered for that? 8 common business insurance gaps

When 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 Liability or Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance to help protect against claims directly related to your professional services.

If your business suffers a physical loss and you need to close part or all of your operation, 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 help cover that potential gap following a covered property loss, ask your insurance representative about adding business interruption insurance 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 realize. 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.

Advances in technology have led many businesses to rely on increasingly sophisticated equipment. If your business is one of them, consider what would happen if your mechanical or electrical system broke down, and the resulting impact to your business. You could lose valuable resources needed to make the products you plan to sell.

To help close this potential gap, consider equipment breakdown insurance to provide the funds and resources to get you back up and running quickly after a covered loss.

Accidents happen. Even if your employees have been trained and drive safely, you can’t always account for the behavior of other drivers. Therefore, any time you or an employee drives as part of the job, your business is at risk. While you may think that your personal auto policy will cover you, that may not be the case. Certain types of vehicles that are clearly designed for business use, like food trucks, limousines, or tow trucks, are likely not covered under a personal auto policy.

A commercial auto policy can help protect vehicles owned by a business; and some may include coverage for individually owned vehicles used regularly for that business (other than commuting to work).

Floods can happen, anytime and anywhere – indeed, Chubb’s claim history indicates that over 50% of claim dollars paid for flood-related losses come from properties located outside of a designated high-risk flood zone. Typical commercial property policies do not insure the peril of flood. Therefore, if your property is damaged by flood, you could be stuck with the bills to replace damaged property, rebuild to code, and remove debris, on top of operating costs and loss of income during the restoration period.

Since the typical commercial property insurance policy does not include flood coverage, ask your agent or broker about commercial flood insurance options available from private insurers or the federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

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 U.S. 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 multinational travel 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 may be 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, even if you experience a loss.