General Liability Insurance
Much like car and home insurance, you need to have liability insurance coverage should your business cause damage to someone or something. Even if you have an office insurance risk. If someone hurts themselves in your office, you could be held responsible for paying for their medical damages. Even if you are not responsible, you still have to legally defend yourself from a lawsuit. If your business is served a summons & complaint to start a lawsuit, you will need to turn this over to your business liability insurance to respond to the complaint. The Insurance company will determine from there how they want to proceed with the complaint. The Insurance company provides a defense to the lawsuit on your behalf, which is covered under the liability insurance.
For damage to property, if you are negligent or at fault as a result of the damaged property, your business insurance will pay for those damages.
Property Insurance Coverage
The primary types of Property Coverage are for Building Coverage and Building Personal Property Coverage. Building Coverage is coverage to the repair or replacement of a property that you own in the business. Similar to home insurance, the insurance company determines a replacement value for the building that you own. Also similar to a home insurance coverage, you are covered from weather related, non weather related losses covered within the insurance policy.
There is also your business personal property that can be covered on your business insurance policy. Your personal property can be insured in a few different ways. First, there is Business Personal Property Coverage. This is property that is kept at your location that does not leave the premises. For Restaurant Insurance, this can be the food product that you have at the location, the furniture, the computers, the cooking equipment. If you tip the building upside down, everything that falls out is your personal property coverage.
For our Contractor Insurance coverage, there can also be a form of what’s called Inland Marine Insurance coverage. This is for equipment that travels around with the contractor to perform their job. We have a lot of plumbing insurance. Plumbers will transport all of their tools & equipment to perform their plumbing job. The equipment in this case is Inland Marine coverage.
Workers Compensation Insurance
If you have employees, you are required by the state of Minnesota to cover your employee should they become injured. Workers Compensation Insurance provides medical coverage for your employees. It also provides coverage for lost wages while that employee is out of work until they are able to return back to work. For those employees that are injured at work will be unable to work for a period of time, they do not receive 100% of their lost wages. It is often closer to 66% of what your wage would have been.
These are the three main insurance coverages that your business should have. You may also need Cyber Insurance, Professional Liability Insurance, Employment Practices Liability Insurance, & Umbrella Liability Insurance. For a review, on your Minnesota Business Insurance, you may call (763)767-0522 or use the short contact form listed below.