Every year, small business owners suffer billions of dollars in losses due to acts of theft and vandalism at their businesses. As a business owner, an act of theft or vandalism can be catastrophic for your business if appropriate measures aren’t taken. To secure itself against uncertain losses, a business, especially a small one, must be insured. In the market, every insurance offers a separate coverage such as general liability insurance covering a business against losses due to property damage, lawsuits and medical expenses, and professional liability insurance covers a business against losses due to alleged inadequacy in delivery of services.
Possible acts of theft and vandalism are in no way to be ignored, so securing yourself in advance is essential. Commercial property insurance can help you with that. Commercial property insurance protects the property and assets of your business including building and land from theft, vandalism and natural disaster. All essentials such as tools, inventory, supplies, equipment, furniture, computers and important papers are covered under this policy.
Any business should have commercial property insurance. Small businesses in particular are at a much higher risk of encountering theft and vandalism. With commercial property insurance, you essentially get the same protections for your business as that of personal property insurance.
When purchasing commercial property insurance, you must note whether the insurance is named peril or open peril.
Named-peril insurance is a type of insurance that covers the cost from problems explicitly listed in the policy, which can be theft, vandalism or natural causes. An open peril scheme on the other hand provides protection for essentially everything except the provided exclusions. The exclusions can be, for example, any specific natural causes. In comparison, an open peril type of insurance offers much broader protection than a named peril, it also costs more owing to better offerings.
Commercial property insurance covers costs incurred due to many incidents but there are a few exceptions.
Commercial property insurance does not cover the cost due to accidents, including vehicle damage or vehicle loss due to theft. You will have to get commercial auto insurance for this purpose. This type of insurance covers vehicles that are a part of business activities such as cars, delivery trucks, etc.
The coverage is provided for theft, physical damage to the vehicle and employee injured during a business operation involving the vehicle.
BOP: Business Owners Policy
As a business owner, you’d benefit more if you buy commercial property insurance as a part of a business owner’s policy. A Business owners policy bundles commercial property insurance, general liability insurance and business interruption coverage. Buying these policies as a package would be relatively cheaper than buying them individually.
Cost of Commercial Property Insurance
The cost of commercial property insurance is highly variable, primarily depending on the value of business assets. For example, a small business with roughly 6 employees will pay a lot less than a business that has its own building and 100s of employees.
Multiple factors contribute to deciding the insurance premium, the chief ones being:
● The location of the Business: Geographical factors and potential environmental hazards are given a consideration to determine the cost.
● Type of industry
● The age of office buildings and the materials used in the construction of building a property. Fireproofing, plumbing quality, electrical architecture are taken into account.
● Type of business: Each type of business attracts different potential threats, depending on these threats the cost is calculated.
● Protection measures: It is checked whether a business place has protection measures in places such as fire alarms and sprinkler systems.
As mentioned earlier, the cost of insurance isn’t fixed. While most small businesses pay as little as $500 the cost for major businesses can rise to $500,000. That is however extreme as most businesses in the US pay a premium that is under $1000 with the average premium being $745 a year.
As we all know, no one can predict a possible theft. In case it happens and your property is stolen you will be incurring big losses. As a small business, it’s terrible to be in such a situation where there is a likelihood of your business shutting down. Therefore, getting commercial property insurance is the right thing to do. Secure yourself and your business, get insured now!