General Liability Insurance

Businesses of all sizes, small businesses included, must institute strong risk management plans to be ready in case of any potential hazardous events. Some of these might be liability lawsuits that arise when your mistakes or negligence accidentally harm others.

You never know when someone might claim that you caused them harm. Even if these accidents were unintentional, you might still have a legal obligation to repay them, and just fighting a lawsuit is going to cost money. General liability insurance is the benefit that will help you cover these losses without your business having to take a massive financial blow.

General liability insurance policies are designed to cover the most common liability risks that are present in most businesses. These include:

• Bodily Injuries: If a client trips over a broken tile in your store, falls and gets hurt, then this coverage can pay them for medical costs and other expenses or lost income.
• Property Damage: In the course of your work, you might cause property damage to another party’s belongings. This coverage can help you pay for their losses.
• Personal Injuries: Someone might allege that you committed such acts as libel, slander or copyright infringement. If you must settle with them, then you might be able to use your liability plan.
• Products/Completed Operations Liabilities: Sometimes, the products you make or the services you provide someone might cause them harm. For example, a coffee cup you manufacture might unexpectedly shatter and spill burning liquid on a client. If they sue you, then liability coverage can help you fight back.

Besides the payments made to others, general liability insurance can provide you with financial support, too. For example, it can help you cover your own legal fees if a liability lawsuit goes to court. That’s a huge relief when it comes to fighting back against issues you can’t control.

Talk to one of our agents to learn more about the best way to structure your general liability policy. In certain industries, you are required to carry this coverage based on different regulations.

General liability insurance is designed to make it easier to cover some of the costliest accidents that might happen in your business. That’s why you’ll want to closely tie the value of your liability coverage to your business’s net worth. In other words, you want to make sure that your plan can help you minimize your financial losses in case of some very expensive legal challenges.

Keep in mind, general liability insurance alone is not all-encompassing. Therefore, you’ll often need to augment it with multiple more specific types of coverage such as:

• Errors & omissions (E&O) insurance
• Hired/non-owned auto liability coverage
• Commercial auto liability insurance
• Employment practices liability insurance
• Cyber liability insurance
• Directors & officers (D&O) liability insurance

There are numerous ways to get the right general liability insurance policy. However, one of the easiest solutions for small business owners is a business owners policy, also called a BOP. A BOP offers numerous types of coverage, including general liability insurance, in one package and at affordable rates. BOPs are designed to make it easy for small businesses to get the right plan and easily manage it.