Home Business Insurance
According to current estimates, there are more than 43 million home offices, including corporate telecommuters who spend at least a few days a week working from home. A majority of these business owners have never given a though to the fact that their business is not insured. After all, you house does have insurance, and so does your life. You are doing business from your home, both are insured, so what’s there to worry about?
The problem comes when you consider the liabilities you might have to face, if some one gets injured while doing business with you, or if you lose valuable intangible assets, such as business records or data. In either case, the end result would be the same – Loss to your business, which could be so heavy that you might be forced to close down your business, which is not so far fetched, if you think about the heavy amounts awarded by courts to consumers.
If you decide you need additional insurance for your home business activities, you have two choices – Firstly, you can add an endorsement to your existing home insurance policy, in the form of a business pursuits endorsement (for telecommuters) or the permitted incidental occupancies endorsement (for home business owners).
The second choice would be to buy a separate business insurance policy to cover all the high risk areas for your specific business. You should contact your insurance agent, or financial advisor, about a Business Owners Package (BOP). Insurance companies provide custom insurance policy packages, or deals, for businesses, based on potential risk areas.
With the advent of internet based eCommerce, the home business sector has received a big boost, and the number of individual Americans working from home is growing at a rapid pace. Unfortunately, a majority of these business owners have done very little preparation, risk analysis or implementation of procedures to minimize risk. Under such a scenario, it becomes even more important to make sure that all aspects of the business are protected from loss or liability. A little bit of research, some comparison between the offerings of various insurance companies and a couple of discussions with a financial advisor are all that is required to protect you business and allow you to focus on business growth.