Commercial Insurance Quote

One of the most important things that a new business owner can do for his or her business is to buy commercial insurance. Having good commercial insurance can mean the difference between staying in business or going bankrupt due to litigation that may arise.

When shopping for a commercial insurance quote, it's very important that you are educated before hand so you know exactly the right kinds of questions to ask the insurance agent. It's no trouble for an insurance agent to give you a commercial insurance quote but if you don't understand what they're talking about or what the policy that they're trying to sell you provides, you may end up being very unhappy with the commercial insurance that you end up buying.

Insurance salesman will often give you a commercial insurance quote that is very low in the hopes of getting your business but it's important to understand that if the insurance isn't perfect for your business, meaning that it doesn't contain the right coverage and have adequate pay out limits, you may as well not have any insurance at all. It's extremely important for a new business owner to understand that being underinsured is almost as bad as having no insurance at all.

Someone who is just starting out with a new business may not fully understand the types of insurance or the reasons that they should have particular types of insurance for their business. Let's take a minute and talk about a few of the basic types of insurance that you should carry on your business. It's important that you understand these subjects before even getting your first commercial insurance quote.

Property Insurance - The first type of commercial insurance that we'll talk about is property insurance. This type of commercial insurance is designed to protect your physical place of business from things like fire, vandalism, theft, and other disasters. It's very important that you understand that not all disasters are automatically covered by property insurance.

Let's use flood damage as an example. Many people don't purchase flood insurance because their place of business isn't anywhere near a river or lake that might possibly flood and cause damage to their physical building. The same people are often surprised when they have a pipe break in their building that ends up doing thousands of dollars of damage. They're often quite distraught when they call their insurance agent to find out that they are not covered because they didn't purchase flood insurance.

If your place of business is near a lake or river that may overflow and cause flood damage then it's quite obvious that you should purchase flood insurance. If you have a business that's nowhere near these types of things, you should still probably think about purchasing flood insurance for your business.

There are of course plenty of situations where you would not need this type of insurance. If your business is a hot dog vending business and you have several hot dog carts strategically positioned throughout the city, it would be silly to buy flood insurance for your business. You will have to decide for yourself whether not you should have it.

In some cases, property insurance policies may actually cover any loss of income that you may suffer due to the property damage. If you have a business that prints wedding invitations and you're printing press is destroyed in a fire, you probably aren't going to be able to bring any income in until the damage has been repaired. You should discuss this feature with your insurance agent when you get your commercial insurance quote.

Liability insurance is another form of insurance that you should be familiar with when you prepare yourself to get a commercial insurance quote. This type of insurance is designed to cover your business in the event that you do something or one of your employees does something that causes a financial loss or injury to another business or individual. 

It is of the utmost importance that your business carry liability insurance of some form.  In many municipalities, you will not be issued a business license unless you carry a certain amount of liability insurance.

One of the cold hard facts about running a business is that people make mistakes.  No matter how cautious you are, or how skilled your employees are, there will come a time when someone will make a mistake that will cost your client or someone else a financial loss. 

If you run a tree trimming business and one of your employees cuts down a tree that falls on top of a very expensive car, your liability insurance will pay for the damage to the car.  If you didn't have liability insurance, you as the business owner would be responsible for coming up with the cash to pay for the damage.

Many people try to run businesses without purchasing liability insurance but this is just too risky.  Not only do you stand to lose any profits that you may make for the year, you stand to lose your entire business should you'll be sued due to a mistake by yourself or one of your employees.

When you are asking insurance agents for this type of commercial insurance quote, be sure and find out what the maximum payout of the insurance policy is.  Some businesses, do to their very nature will need two buy insurance policies with maximum payout limits in the millions dollars.  Other businesses may get by with policies that have maximum payouts that are much less.

Your insurance agent will have information and recommendations about how much liability insurance you should purchase but another good source of information is trade associations or trade journals that specialize in your particular line of business.

The next type of insurance you should familiarize yourself with before getting your first commercial insurance quote is workers' compensation insurance.  This type of insurance is designed to protect your business and your employees should they become injured on the job.  In most municipalities, you will be required to carry workers' compensation insurance if you have any employees.  If you are not required to carry workers' compensation insurance, you would be wise to do so anyway.

One injury that an employee suffers as result of his regular work duties, may run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and lost wages.  If you do not carry workers' compensation insurance, you can be assured that an injured employee will sue you and your business for their medical bills and lost wages.

The best thing that you can do when shopping for a commercial insurance quote of this type is to be prepared when you sit down with the insurance agent.  You should have accurate records of any accidents that have been reported by your employees over the past several years.  The number of accident claims reported by your employees will have a direct impact on the commercial insurance quote that you receive.  If your business has made several workers' compensation insurance claims, you are going to have to pay a higher premium then one that has very few workers compensation claims.

The best thing you can do to control your costs in this area is to educate your employees about proper safety protocols.  Education is a number one factor in minimizing the number of injuries that employees suffer while at work.  It's a good idea to offer incentive programs to employees for going a certain amount of time without any injuries.  Proactive safety programs really do save companies money in terms of workers' compensation insurance premiums.

After you have thoroughly familiarized yourself with the types of commercial insurance policies that you're interested in, its time to get your first commercial insurance quote.  One thing that you should keep in mind is that insurance agencies are very competitive when it comes to getting your business.  You should get multiple commercial insurance quotes before deciding which insurance company you're going to go with.

Make sure that you understand the policy details when an insurance agent gives you a commercial insurance quote.  Some agents will try to sell you policies that are not adequate for your needs simply so they can give you a quote that is competitive.

You will be no doubt very busy starting your new business but this aspect of your business should not be taken lightly and you should devote a considerable amount of time to sitting down with multiple insurance agents to get the very best price that you can.

Once you have met with several insurance agents and have several quotes, it's time to start negotiating.  There's nothing wrong with calling an insurance agent that gave you a quote and telling him that insurance company "B" offered you a much better rate.  It's not uncommon for insurance agents to leave a little bit of a cushion in the quote.  This way, if you come back to them and tell them that you have received a better deal, they have room to lower their price and still get your business.

Be sure that you don't sacrifice the quality of the policy simply to get cheap commercial insurance.  Remember when I mentioned before about being underinsured is almost as bad as having no insurance at all.  Both conditions may wipe you out and financially bankrupt your company. 

Here's a short video on commercial insurance quote from Progressive that you may enjoy viewing.