Most SME business owners realise that they need to protect their assets, but are often unsure exactly which insurance policies they need. There are a number of different policies that may be applicable to your business, if you don’t select the right policies, this can put your business at risk.
Whilst some insurance policies might be compulsory, there are others that are also necessary. To make sure that you minimise the risks involved in operating your business, here are a list of policies that should be considered for a SME business.
- Public Liability Insurance: Even a home-based business should consider Public Liability Insurance, cover is provided for third party injury or damage caused by your services or products. If someone is injured, or their property is damaged by your services, this policy covers compensation to the third party, as well as costs of defending your business against these claims.
- Professional Indemnity Insurance: This policy covers your legal liability if someone makes a claim against you because of a breach of professional duty or advice given. It is suitable but not limited to professionals, such as real estate agents, chiropractors, accountants, engineers and so on.
- Business Insurance: This policy provides coverage for your own locations, building and contents, stock, and general property, from events such as fire, theft and glass breakage. The level of coverage in the policy depends on your individual business risk and activities.
- Business Interruption Insurance: This is an important policy for your business. If an incident occurs business interruption insurance can compensate you for lost income if your company has to vacate the premises due to disaster-related damage. The costs to rebuild can be extremely high if you do not have the correct coverage in place.
- Directors & Officers Management Liability Insurance: This type of insurance is specifically designed to protect owners, managers, company directors and senior management against charges of mismanagement or misconduct. These can include defamation, breaches of duty, statutory fines or penalties, unfair dismissal, sexual harassment and so on.
- Cyber Insurance: Whether or not you have the correct IT system support, anyone is in danger of being hacked. Cyber crime continues to rise with many large multi-nationals being attacked, as well as SMEs. If you have a website or hold any sensitive information about your business, employees or customers online then you are in danger of being hacked. If this type of crime happens to your business, Cyber Insurance protects you against the costs of repairing the damage and any liabilities caused by the hacking.
To decide which type of insurance is suitable for your business, talk to an insurance specialist today.
