Insure Your Business Before You Start It
When you are starting up a new business make sure that your budgets include the head of insurance. Plan your insurance cover in consultation with your local insurance agent and take his advice on which aspects of your business should be covered by insurance. Some may be compulsory, and some may even help you save taxes, whereas others are mainly for safeguarding your business, yet to be started, against any unforeseen events.
Property insurance is a must and will let you sleep easier when you have sought such cover. After all you will be putting in a lot of your own money into your new venture and would like to safeguard these investments.
See the property that you have taken over to start your business, whether by buying or leasing is in good condition and properly protected in all ways. Ask the insurance company to assess the property and advice you on the premium. Properties that are not in good condition or look to be vulnerable to theft or fire will attract higher premiums.
All the equipment that you have installed or are planning to install, furniture, computers, office equipment, and any inventory that you may need to keep your business running must be insured with the property.
See that all the vehicles that will be part of the business, cars, vans and haulage trucks are also properly insured.
While you are running your business it is likely that you may cause hurt a member of public due to an error by one of your employees. Cover your liability for this through a proper liability insurance policy.
Insure all your workers, a Workmen Compensation policy is compulsory and you would have to cover all your staff and workers. If you put in an extra clause for Health or Life insurance for each of your employees it could help your image as a concerned employer. If some of your employees are going to remain vital to your continued operations, safeguard yourself with a Keyman Insurance policy, for any loss that you may suffer if one of them leaves your organization.
Any business can always run into problems or interruptions because of market conditions or other causes which you cannot easily predict. There are policies that will cover any such occurrence with what are called Business Interruption policies. The premium on this policy can be quite steep and you need to assess whether you need this. Study the history of similar businesses in your area and whether they have had such interruptions and then make your own judgment on whether you would take out such a policy or risk and accept what the future brings.
When you are starting a new business, factor in all these points given above and make realistic estimates of all the various parts before you sit down with your insurance agent and finalize the details of the policy that you want to take. Doing them all at the same time could save you some premium, instead of doing it in a piecemeal manner. Make sure that you have sufficient information from your agent about how you should process claims, in the unlikely event that you would have to prefer them.