Commercial Insurance Coverage
The business you own has everything to do with the insurance you should have. Our experience in serving specific industries and business sectors enables us to recommend the exact type and amount of coverage your business needs. No more and no less.
Commercial Insurance Options
Risk Management
We will come out to your place of business and go over exactly what services your business provides to your customers. The more we know about your business, the more we help our clients to identify, evaluate and mitigate any possible exposure to loss. We have spent the last 40+ years of coaching clients to minimize their exposure by eliminating, reducing or transferring the hazards involved. Providing advice about alternate methods of financing, retention, safety, and loss control.
Commercial Package Insurance
When owning a business, the most important policy that you need to purchase is a Commercial Package Insurance policy or a Businessowners Insurance Policy. Commercial Package Insurance covers physical loss or damage to building property and personal property as well as covering the cost of defense for damages that the insured is legally obligated to pay as a result of negligence.
There are two main coverage sections that are included in a Businessowners policy: Property and Liability.
Property insurance may cover risks associated with your premises, equipment, and vehicles. In addition, it may often include any associated loss of business. This is essential coverage because it may help protect your business, assets, and income. For instance, here are a few of the coverages to consider in your business owners insurance policy:
- Accidental Damage
- Fire
- Flood
- Loss of Income
- Property Loss/Damage
- Theft
- Boiler and Machinery Insurance (insurance that protects against loss from disruption of boilers and machinery by an insured peril; often known as machinery breakdown insurance)
Such coverage may be comprised of, but not limited to, building, contents (desks, chairs, filing cabinets, supplies, etc.), computers, copy machine, fax machine, fine arts, business interruption, and extra expense.
The second type of coverage in a BOP is business liability insurance. Liability insurance policies cover claims filed against your business due to a variety of accidents. The most common liability policy is general liability. General liability insurance covers basic accidents concerning bodily injury, property damage and personal and advertising injury.
If someone slips and falls inside your business, for example, general liability insurance can cover the victim's medical bills as well as protect your business against a related lawsuit. The liability coverage included in your businessowners insurance policy is important, especially if:
- You meet your clients at your business or theirs
- You have physical access to your clients' equipment
- There is a risk of injury to people or damage to their property
Commercial Property policies and Commercial General Liability policies can be written as individual separate policies as well.
It's important to note that general liability insurance usually doesn't cover risks related to professional services—meaning damages that result from you giving clients inaccurate advice, for instance.
Fiduciary Liability
No matter how carefully benefits are administered, mistakes can be made. Even false claims of breach of duty made by employees can result in expensive litigation. Fiduciary liability coverages include protection against claims like: Conflicts of interest. Fiduciary Liability insurance helps protect companies from claims of mismanagement and the legal liability related to serving as a fiduciary. If your company sponsors a retirement or health plan for employees, and if you are involved in any way with the management of that plan, you are likely considered a fiduciary.
Directors' and Officers' Liability
Are you serving on a Board of Directors of a company or an association? If so, your personal assets could be at risk! The Directors and Officers (D&O) liability insurance protects the personal assets of corporate directors and officers, and their spouses, in the event they are personally sued by employees, vendors, competitors, investors, customers, or other parties, for actual or alleged wrongful acts in managing a company or association.
Both individually owned companies and nonprofit organizations have a need for this coverage since they may have to defend their executives or directors and pay all the legal fees and settlement costs that come from litigation.
Union Liability
For over 40 years Pennjerdel has provided comprehensive insurance for Unions and their Boards. Union Liability insurance provides protection against damages, judgments, defense, and settlement costs arising from alleged wrongful acts of a union or its representatives.
Some key coverages for Union Liability policies are; the duty of fair representation, employment practices liability, financial management of the union and personal injury liability.
While the union itself and any representative of the named union is an insured, optional Labor Leader's coverage covers defense costs incurred by union officers or employees in cases where federal laws prohibit a union from paying for the defense of its officials. This can be purchased by the individual Labor Leaders of the Union.
Professional Liability
Losses and lawsuits can come from any direction. Any business that sells its expertise should consider professional liability insurance. Professional Liability Insurance protects professionals (i.e., lawyer, doctor, insurance professional, investment advisor, realtor, consultant, etc.) against claims for negligent acts, errors or omissions in the conduct of their professional business. The policy also covers allegations of improper actions or failure to exercise proper skills by a professional. This coverage is also known as errors and omissions insurance.
Bonds
Some agreements that you may enter into will require you to have a Bond. A bond guarantees the bondholder that they will be reimbursed if the principal fails to meet its contractual obligations or fulfil its services (a surety bond) or if an employee of the principal commits a crime against the bondholder like theft (a fidelity bond).
There are numerous types of bonds, however Fidelity and Surety bonds are most commonly applied to insurance. These are normally three-party contracts in which one party agrees to guarantee the acts, performance or behavior of a second party to a third party.
Employee Benefits
Insurance generally provided as an employee benefit which may consist of but not be limited to, Life, Accidental Death & Dismemberment, Short & Long-Term Disability, Medical, Prescription Drug, Dental, Vision. Some employers cover Life and AD&D at a multiple of one's salary which others provide this coverage with a flat amount of coverage that may have no resemblance to your salary or income needs.
In nearly all cases, it is important to obtain personal life insurance to supplement your employee benefit to obtain ten times your salary or as close as possible to that amount at a minimum. Disability via short or long term benefit may very well not cover a sufficient amount of your income to protect you and your family necessitating adding a personal disability policy. Medical, prescription drug and vision insurance normally has several options: deductibles, type (PPO, HMO, etc.), co-insurance, co-pay, etc. It's imperative to obtain the advice of an insurance agent who thoroughly can explain the differences in all of the options you will have for medical coverage to be certain you pick the one that will cover you and your family to prevent significant out of pocket costs. It's important also to know if you are also covered should you be out of town or out of state on vacation when an emergency happens.
Automobile Insurance
Business auto insurance helps cover vehicles owned by your business. When obtaining commercial car insurance you can usually get much higher liability coverage to reflect the fact that a business typically has more assets at risk than an individual would. Additionally, with commercial auto insurance, policies typically include physical damage coverage. This type of coverage pays out for damage to your commercial car or truck no matter who caused the collision – a protection that is required if you lease or finance commercial vehicles.
It is also worth considering employers hired/non-owned car liability coverage. This is an add-on or a separate policy covering those instances when your staff use their own personal cars or trucks as part of their work for your business. This type of protection can help reduce the risk of messy legal complications if they are injured or their vehicle is damaged during this time.
Worker's Compensation
State law requires employers to have Workers Compensation insurance in place in case there is an injury to one of your workers. Most policies provide income and medical benefits to a worker injured in the workplace. Depending on the state requirements, Workers Comp policies also provide lawsuit protection from injured workers family and dependents.
Commercial Umbrella Insurance
Underlying commercial general liability insurance liability limits should be enough to protect your business from most situations where your business is charged with legal liability for injury or property damage. However, there are catastrophic lawsuits and judgements that are increasing in frequency. Commercial umbrella insurance offers an affordable layer of excess liability insurance for your business above the limits provided by standard business liability policies and could mean the difference between staying in business or becoming a lawsuit casualty. Typically, Commercial Umbrella policy limits extended over underlying General Liability, Auto liability and Employers Liability limits to give you added protection.