General Liability Insurance
General Liability protects you against an injury at your place of business or your jobsite for damage that you or one of your employees may be responsible for while at work. Whether you are a Medical Office or a Plumbing Contractor, you must have General Liability to cover your business from damages that you may cause to someone or something else. There are a wide range of scenarios for what you can be liable for. These can range from someone falling on your property where you neglected to repair some damage sidewalk to accidentally flooding someone’s basement because you cut a pipe open on your plumbing job. This insurance coverage is so important because this is the coverage that protects your business from lawsuit.
Business Personal Property
Business Personal Property (BPP) coverage covers your business personal property. Think of it this way, if you tip your building upside down, everything that falls out is your personal property. If you have Restaurant Insurance, than this can be everything from your Furniture, Food, Kitchen Equipment, etc. Generally, businesses under value their equipment. If there is a kitchen fire and you have to replace everything, you don’t want to have less coverage than you need when you are ready re-open your business again.
Many insurance companies will also cover the tenants and improvements coverage within the BPP coverage. This provides coverage for any improvements that you made to your leased building or a potential Build Out that you paid for to complete your Business space. For those that have done a build out, these can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is an area that I see businesses are drastically underinsured.
Inland Marine is a separate coverage from BPP, but this is alsoe used to cover Business Property. This will cover your personal property that you use away from your primary location. Often times, this is used for Tools by contractors on a jobsite. This is generally used for the more expensive tools that you need to schedule (insure separately) so you can insure for the actual value of the item.
Workers Compensation Insurance
This is coverage for your employees should they be injured on the job. Workers Comp Insurance covers medical bills from the injury as well as lost wages for the period they are not able to work due to their injuries. Businesses with employees are required by law to carry Work Comp in the state of Minnesota.