Protect your business from a manufacturer’s faulty products you sell or distribute

You've worked hard to create a safe and pleasant environment for your clients and visitors at your floral shop, garden center, or wholesale floral distribution store. So, it only makes sense that you'd want to protect yourself from defective, toxic, or faulty products that are manufactured by others. When you sell or distribute products manufactured by others, you open yourself up to certain liabilities. Additional insured—vendors insurance can help protect you.

Additional insured—vendors is an endorsement to the manufacturer's or supplier's commercial general liability policy, protecting you when selling or distributing items on behalf of a manufacturer, or sourced from a supplier, particularly when the supplier is providing goods manufactured offshore. The Insurance Services Office, which advises insurance companies, created the additional insured–vendors endorsement (CG 2015) which covers liability arising from the sale of a product.

But very few retail florist or garden shop owners specifically ask for the endorsement from the manufacturer or supplier, often for one of these reasons:

• The retailer or wholesale distributer doesn't understand that specialized coverage exists, or know when to request it

• The retail florist, garden center, or wholesale floral distributor may feel they don't have any bargaining power and doesn't ask the manufacturer or supplier for coverage

• Some garden centers believe they have sufficient coverage, because their manufacturer's or supplier's policy contains a regular broad form additional insured endorsement

Here's how a vendors endorsement differs from the standard broad form additional insured endorsement:

• Vendor's endorsement: Provides more specific coverage for the retail florist, garden center or wholesale floral distributor for liability arising out of the named insured's products.

• Standard broad form additional insured endorsement: Provides coverage to a vendor as an additional insured for liability that's caused in whole or part by the named insured's acts or omissions.

Remember, a smaller business faces many of the same exposures as a larger one. That's why you should be sure to ask your manufacturer or supplier about an additional insured—vendors endorsement, particularly from manufacturers of products that can be more dangerous, like chemicals, tools, lawn and garden equipment, and electrical devices.

Hortica specialists are readily available to help answer these kinds of questions for you, as well as questions about the other forms of coverage you might need.