Business Insurance

Do you have a business of your own? Are you thinking of starting one? If so, good for you - small businesses are the backbone of the American enterprise system. Unfortunately, no business is ever problem free and the time to start thinking about problems is before they happen.

To protect your assets, you need to consider business insurance quotes for your business. If you employ other people, some forms of insurance are required by law, but even if you aren't required to buy insurance, you'll almost certainly want to. It shields you from the loss of your investment and even from the loss of the business itself.

Insurance coverage for businesses basically falls into four different categories—property, liability, people, and income—here’s a list of several different forms that insurance can take:

• Property insurance covers business owners against damage to the property where the business is based.
• Casualty insurance protects against damages to the business itself rather than the business property, paying the owner back for financial losses due to unexpected circumstances.
• Liability insurance covers you against monetary damages resulting from lawsuits.
• Commercial automobile insurance is auto insurance for business vehicles, which are not usually covered by personal auto insurance.
• Workers’ compensation pays for sums required by workers’ compensation statutes, which in most states are required in cases of employee injury.
• Life and disability insurance is a kind of life insurance policy for businesses. If a key employee or partner dies or becomes unable to function, it provides the money for buying out that person’s share of the business.
• Business interruption insurance cushions the cost of maintaining a business when an unexpected event interrupts cash flow.
• Health insurance provides health coverage for employees.
• Custom insurance provides coverage not provided by other policies and is generally tailored to the unique needs of your business. A custom insurance policy is useful when you anticipate problems that standard policies aren’t equipped to cover. And for particular types of businesses, specialized policies are available.
• You won’t necessarily need all these types of insurance. Before you decide, you need to analyze your business to determine what your insurance needs might be. As a rule, you’ll need to determine whether the costs of the insurance are justified by the probability that you’ll need the coverage at some point in the future.

Insurance Quotes

It’s easy to get a business insurance quote, but be sure not to settle for the first quote you get. Shop around and compare both prices and coverage. Almost every major insurance company has a Web site, and these sites often include quote calculators so that you can specify what size and kind of business you have, what type of insurance you think you need, and how much you can afford to pay in premiums, and get an estimated quote in return. Get several different quotes before making any decisions.

It’s a good idea, though, to use these online quotes as a yardstick only. Get as many as you can, then contact a reputable insurance company and talk to an agent. The agent should be able to give you a much clearer idea of your needs and the premiums you’ll pay to cover them than the quote calculator on a Web site will. It’s up to you to decide whether the coverage you get will be worth the premiums you need to pay, but your agent will be happy to give you the information you need in making this decision.

You should also consider consulting a business insurance broker, such as Aon Corp. or Marsh & McLennan, who can provide a wider range of services than a single insurance company and that will be able to put you in touch with people who can cover your specific needs. Note, however, that a broker is a more expensive, comprehensive option and may be out of the financial reach of smaller businesses.

Once you’ve found solid business insurance quotes for the coverage you want, contact two or three other companies and go through the same process with them. You can either go with the reputable company that gives you the best quote for the coverage you want or you can follow your gut instincts and pick an insurer based on your feelings about the agent you’ve discussed the quote with. If you’ve done your homework and checked out companies with strong reputations, this should be an adequate basis for your choice.