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Nearly all businesses are going to require some kind of liability insurance, so before starting up your enterprise, it is important to know what the business liability policy of your insurer covers, and just what kind of liability insurance your business should be purchasing.
There are four kinds of liability insurance: general, professional, product, and employment practices liability insurance (EPLI). Each refer to a specific kind of business practice, and often multiple liability insurances will be purchased for a particular industry. General business insurance refers to liability insurance that covers property damage, false advertising and bodily injury. Professional insurance (or as it is more commonly called, Errors and Omissions) protects professionals and their firms from negligence that may occur in the fields of medicine, law, dentistry, real estate and accounting. Product liability insurance protects manufacturers from lawsuits that might arise from product malfunctions and injuries from misuse, and EPLI is a relatively new form of insurance that protects businesses from unlawful employment practices such as sexual harassment, wrongful termination and discrimination. Because these insurance policies will be combined in many cases, it is often wise to combine them into a single business liability policy known as umbrella insurance. This is an excellent way to save money on your business liability policy.
It is always important to be informed about your insurer, so you need to know how to be informed about the nature of your insurer and their reputation in the business market. One of the best resources for customer review is JD Power and Associates. JD Power conducts customer surveys and logs the satisfaction of the various industries covered into a comprehensive ranking and helps you make a highly informed decision about the insurer that you want to purchase from.
Getting a business liability policy is absolutely essential to a sound business practice. It is important for legal protection, both personal and business, and more importantly, it is the law.
