Insurance needs for your growing business

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Is your company growing? That’s great news. Just make sure your insurance policies keep up! Here are some tips for making sure you don’t end up underinsured: CEO owner leader company staff member portrait, possibly finance, accountant, manager

Revisit your Business Owner’s Policy. If you have a fast-growing company, your Business Owner’s Policy, or BOP, can get outdated quickly. Have you added new employees or equipment? Have you changed the nature of your business or expanded into different types of products or services? Did you purchase your own building? It’s time to review your BOP, which is your first line of defense against a number of business risks.

Keep up with Liability Insurance. As your business expands, you’ll want to make sure you have enough liability coverage. This type of insurance takes many forms. There’s employment practices liability, which covers claims arising from your employees and professional liability insurance, designed to protect you against claims made by clients or customers. Review all potential sources of liability, such as when your employees are driving on company business.

Don’t forget Property Insurance. This type of policy covers damage to your business premises, equipment and inventory due to events like fire, theft or vandalism. It can also provide coverage for lost income if your business is forced to close temporarily due to property damage.

You might need Product Liability Insurance. If you manufacture or sell products, this type of insurance can protect you from claims related to injuries or damages caused by those products. Even if you take all the necessary precautions, there’s always a risk that something could go wrong with one of your products. Product liability insurance can help protect your business in the event such an incident occurs.

And, of course, there’s workers’ compensation insurance. As a small business, one of the most important insurance policies you can have is workers’ compensation. This type of insurance will help to protect your business in the event that an employee is injured while on the job. Workers’ compensation can help to cover medical expenses and lost wages, as well as provide death benefits in some cases. If you do not have workers’ compensation insurance, you may be held liable for any injuries or accidents that occur at your business, which could end up costing you a lot of money.

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Our value-added services help protect your business

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Our business is protecting your business. We have the expertise to ensure business assets are protected.

We also know that risk management doesn’t stop at insurance. Here are some to consider:

  • Safety Programs: A safe workplace is a successful workplace, and safety is everyone’s responsibility. The best businesses know that they have to make safety training a priority, and our safety program service allows you to customize safety materials that can create a safer, healthier workplace that benefits everyone.
  • OSHA Compliance: OSHA’s standards and practices can change quickly, and our compliance services help you stay on top of the must-know information to be able to prepare for and pass OSHA inspections successfully to help keep your business running with no downtime.
  • Fraud Protection: We can help you learn what policies and procedures your business needs to protect itself from fraud and walk you through the process every step of the way.
  • Communication and Connection: We offer access to extensive business databases that can help you understand and mitigate risks, shape policy and strategy, and communicate to employees with newsletters, posters and more.

As your partner in business, this is just a handful of additional ways we can help your organization beyond insurance solutions. See our other risk management solutions and value-added services here.

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We offer much more than business insurance

Let’s face it: Insurance is a vital part of running a successful business. But it’s definitely complicated and often frustrating. An insurance policy is a complex contract with difficult-to-understand fine print, including coverage limitations and exclusions. As a result, many companies are underinsured — leaving the future of their organizations to chance — or overinsured and wasting precious money that could be used elsewhere in the business.

That’s why your business needs a trusted advisor and not just a commercial insurance salesperson. You need a trusted partner who can guide you through the process of making the best business insurance decisions and controlling costs: someone who can help with risk management; an advisor who can provide sound advice about business decisions that could affect your insurance program; an expert who can help you manage risks and avoid unnecessary risks while growing your company.

At Accurate Protection, we’re all those things and more. We’re here to help you identify and analyze your company’s unique business risks; develop an appropriate risk mitigation/management plan and design (this is a fee based service,) implement and monitor a comprehensive insurance program to address any exposures. The typical insurance broker can sell you insurance and handle renewals and claims, but many provide no additional resources or guidance to help with risk management.

Our team can help your business better manage its workers’ compensation program, resulting in lower costs and better outcomes for injured workers. We also offer Work Smart, an incredible education program that helps business owners create and implement risk mitigation programs covering more than two dozen topics, from hiring to pre-incident planning, Our customers have access to a library of over 1,000 downloadable articles in both English and Spanish, 24/7 online claims reporting, legislative updates, an online OSHA reporting system, tools to create a customized safety manual and more. We’ll talk to you about which risks you need insurance for, and which you may want to handle by self-insuring.

Another way we’re different: We take the time and ask the right questions to get to know you and your business, which helps us to identify risks that you or a traditional insurance broker may otherwise not notice. Then we can help your organization address them in a best-in-class way. This approach allows us to communicate with underwriters about your business and its risk management strategies, controls and processes, which can result in the best coverage and pricing. Get to know more about us! Give us a call: (404) 907-2121 x701.

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Is your business underinsured?

Small businesses face a variety of risks in today’s world. Unfortunately, many companies aren’t effectively managing those risks. Of the nearly 32 million small businesses nationwide, for example, it’s estimated that 75% of them have either not enough commercial insurance or no coverage at all.

The official definition of a small business is a company that employs fewer than 500 people. Research shows that the smaller the company, the less likely they are to have adequate insurance coverage.

The top claims made by small businesses include burglary/theft and damage to property caused by perils such as water, wind, hail, fire and freezing temperatures. Another top source of claims: Legal claims made by customers, including those injured at the company’s place of business. A BOP, short for Business Owners Policy, combines vital business property and liability coverage into one convenient and affordable policy and can be an ideal solution for home-based businesses and other small firms. As a business grows, however, its insurance needs change. Many growing companies don’t keep up in the area of insurance and risk management.

Business continuity is yet another area in which small businesses fall short. Nearly three-quarters of new businesses survive the two-year mark and half survive the five-year mark. But only one-third of all companies remain in business after 10 years. One of the biggest sources of business failures is a lack of planning for the unexpected. Businesses that have a plan for unexpected events have a much higher survival rate than those that don’t.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 40 percent of businesses never reopen after a disaster. Most of those that go out of business did not have enough insurance, the right coverage or any coverage at all. It’s estimated that 75% of businesses in the United States are underinsured in some way by 40 percent or more, according to international data analytics firm Marshall & Swift.

We understand that you have your hands full running your business. As licensed insurance professionals, consider our team at Accurate Protection a part of your key advisory team. We’ll partner with you to perform a thorough analysis of your company and its unique risks and find the best solutions for managing those risks. With Accurate Protection, you’ll get an insurance program specifically tailored to your needs, with the right amount and type of coverage, at an extremely competitive rate.

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Which type of insurance does your business need?

Figuring out which types of insurance coverages are right for your company isn’t always easy. Here are four basic types of insurance policies that most businesses need to have —even the smallest of companies — and four other coverages that many business owners need but don’t realize they do:

Property insurance. This type of insurance covers buildings as well as personal property such as office furniture, inventory, computers and machinery. It’s basic coverage that nearly all businesses need.

Liability insurance. Having enough liability coverage is important for a growing company. Any business can face a legal claim that could be financially devastating. A client could sue after a fall in your office. A customer could file a lawsuit claiming a product is defective. Liability insurance can help a business prevent a financial disaster in the event of a lawsuit.

Commercial auto insurance. Cars driven for your business should be covered under a separate, commercial auto insurance policy.

Workers compensation insurance. Nearly all states require businesses that meet certain size thresholds to have workers compensation insurance in the event an employee is injured or dies on the job.

Depending on the type and size of the business, you may need additional coverage. Here are four types of coverage that business owners often don’t realize they need to protect themselves:

Cyber liability insurance. One study found that the average cost of a cyber attack on a company is $200,000; many attacks are more costly. Small and medium-sized companies are increasingly at risk for both attacks and devastating legal claims as a result of an attack. All businesses need to take steps to prepare for and help prevent a cyber attack and consider purchasing coverage in the event one does happen.

Employment practices liability. EPL is designed to protect companies in the event of a sexual harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination or breach of employment contract claim or any of a number of other claims made by an employee or former employee. The more employees you have, the greater the risk of a lawsuit.

Professional liability (also known as errors and omissions). Many different types of business owners need E&O insurance coverage. Businesses providing a service or advice have a unique type of liability exposure. Many E&O policies are designed for specific types of professionals, such as physicians. accountants, engineers, architects and attorneys.

Employee benefits liability. EBL is coverage for businesses that offer health insurance and other benefits. It protects them from errors and omissions that occur when employee benefit plans are administered by a company’s human resources employee(s). These types of errors happen more than you might think.

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