As a business owner, you have annual tasks requiring your attention, from preparing taxes and completing employee evaluations to maintaining equipment and conducting safety checks. Some of these are check-the-box duties you perform every year without much thought, while others require preparation, analysis, and action.
What type of effort do you put into reviewing your business insurance policy when it comes up for renewal?
Your business is always evolving in some fashion, and your business insurance policy should, too. The one question you should always be able to answer when something unfortunate happens is, “Am I covered?”
What changes did you make to your business in the last year? Identifying those changes can help you decide to add or remove insurance coverages to better protect you and your business, while keeping an eye on costs.
Here are questions to consider when renewing your business insurance. Did you:
You’re not alone in this. A quality insurance provider will ask you their own questions to help provide the best coverage for your business. However, it’s beneficial to do a self-analysis ahead of time.
Take notes on how your business has changed and come prepared with questions on how that impacts your business insurance policy and costs. Share the risks you experienced in the past, along with what you’re currently facing. This will help shape what you might need in the future.
While you should look over your entire business insurance policy, here are a few specific coverages to focus on:
You should add or adjust each of these coverages based on your answers to the earlier questions.
In addition, look at your liability limits and consider changes. When you first bought your insurance policy, you may have gone with less coverage simply because that’s all you could afford. Adjust those limits to your current situation. Conversely, you may have downsized and don’t need as much coverage.
Go with a provider that offers a range of coverages that fit your business. Working with one provider saves you time versus working with two or three carriers, and that provider gets a full picture of your entire operation and what coverages will work best for you.
You don’t add new products or services before analyzing the pros and cons and weighing how that change will impact your business. That same type of analysis should go into your insurance policy. Not preparing—and discussing your current business situation with an insurance carrier—can lead to you renewing your policy with the same parameters as before.
Planning ahead and having a conversation with your provider also allows you to anticipate and plan for possible rate changes to your policy.
At Hortica®, our professionals only serve the horticultural and floricultural industries, offering you a full range of coverages. In addition, we provide our customers quality claims service and safety programs to help manage risks in the workplace.
Our representatives are available to help protect your business and can guide you through the insurance process. Contact us to learn more.
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