According to the US Department of Justice, personal injury trials comprised nearly 60% of all tort, contract, and real property trials in 2005. These trials – as well as any settlements or damages paid – can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.

If your business is sued, your liability insurance will cover the cost of the trial as well as any damages for which you may be held responsible.

Without the right insurance, you could end up paying a lot for accidents that aren’t even your fault.

Related: Compare price quotes from our liability insurance providers

Protect Your Finances

Most businesses are sued by a third party, such as a customer, client, or even a random passerby. Reasons for being sued include: personal injury (such as libel or slander), bodily injury, accident, or negligence.

• Your ad or press release contains misinformation about a competitor. Your mail carrier slips on your front steps and breaks their ankle. A customer walks into a shelf and is hit by a falling product. All of these situations present an opportunity for you to be sued for liability.
• Your liability insurance pays the cost of court fees and compensation up to the limits of your policy. This prevents your business from having to pay large sums to defend itself in court; after all, even if you win, you still have to pay the court and your lawyer. Liability insurance prevents your business from being disrupted during this process and handles all the fees for you.

Related: Choosing the Right Insurance For Your Small Business

Protect Your Special Events

Your business can be held liable if an accident occurs in your storefront, office, or business space. However, even accidents in outdoor or public spaces can result in your being held responsible for injury. If you hold a special event of any sort – employee picnic, trade show, etc – you should supplement your regular liability insurance with special events insurance.

• Your regular policy may not cover accidents that occur off-premise that could still be attributed as your responsibility. Check the details and limits of your policy and be sure to supplement with additional insurance when necessary.
• Many venues now require you to purchase special events insurance before they will allow you to rent their space. This prevents a legal battle over who may be ultimately held responsible for an accident – the venue, or the host (your business).
• Special events insurance is absolutely necessary whenever alcohol is consumed. If someone commits a DUI after attending your event, your business could be fined or held accountable, especially if an accident occurs.

Related: 18 Million Sole Proprietorships Exist in the US – But Is Yours Covered?

Protect Your Products

If you create or manufacture products – especially food products – you should look into product liability insurance. This protects your business should an injury arise from the use of your products.

• The cost of this insurance varies with what kind of industry you’re in – the apparel industry has far less risk of injury than electronics or consumables, and that will be reflected in the cost of the insurance.
• Insurance for food products varies considerably. You can get policies that protect you from the costs of spoilage due to equipment breakdown or power outage, and policies that protect your food while it is in the process of being delivered. Due to the risks of bodily harm inherent in food-borne illnesses, you should at the very least purchase a basic product liability policy.

The cost of liability insurance for the life of your business, even for special policies like product liability or events, is still going to be less than the payout should you be held responsible for an injury, accident, or other damages. Furthermore, liability insurance offers you peace of mind – if you get sued, even erroneously, you won’t have to front the money for a defense or pay court costs.

No matter what kind of business you run, you are going to face some risks, and small businesses are especially vulnerable.

Small business insurance can protect your company from a wide variety of legal and financial risks that might otherwise cause irreparable harm.

While businesses may need industry specific insurance for themselves and employees, there are two general types of insurance that you will definitely need: liability insurance and property insurance.

Liability Insurance

Whether you like it or not, you can’t stop accidents from happening; from an employee slipping on the job to a rock through your front window. In the event of an accident, liability insurance will cover the cost of legal claims against your business. These claims are generally in regards to accident, injury, and negligence.

• General liability insurance covers bodily injury, property damage, defending lawsuits, settlements, or judgments. For example, if a customer fell in your store and sued you for negligence, your general liability insurance would cover the court costs and potential settlement.
• Product liability insurance specifically covers the products your company produces or distributes should those products cause injury. Therefore, the amount of product liability insurance you need depends upon the kind of products you deal in. A customer service business that does not sell a tangible product does not need product liability insurance; a chainsaw manufacturing company does.

Property Insurance

While your employees and the people who frequent your business need coverage, your property does as well. A tree through the roof can be expensive, but with property insurance, you can breathe easy knowing you’re covered.

• Commercial property insurance covers damage to company property, including its buildings and material assets, lost income, business interruption, and money, due to weather, fire, vandalism, and other uncontrollable events. All-risk policies cover a wide range of risks, with certain exceptions, faced by the average small business. Peril-specific policies cover damage from a specific type of damage for which the company is at a high risk of encountering, such as flooding or wildfires.
• Home-based businesses are generally not covered by homeowners’ insurance policies. Owners of home-based businesses can add riders to their homeowners’ policy to cover certain aspects of their business. They often must purchase additional liability insurance to cover risks outside the purview of homeowners’ insurance.

Small business insurance can help protect you and your company from a wide variety of risks, from personal injury to property damage. Insurance can be purchased through most major insurance companies. Compare the coverage provided by different companies to make sure that you are getting the best rate as well as protection against likely risks to your business.

Photo credit: choosewhat.com

Any business owner would agree that employees are essential to (and in some ways completely responsible for) the success or failure of a business. In other words, treating your employees well is the sign of a company that knows the value of their employees’ work, and this appreciation can go a long way.

If you want to treat your employees’ right, take it from me, a current employee – good health insurance is the way to go.

Good health insurance protects your employees and gives them a sense of security for themselves and their families – something that is sure to boost morale around the office and make your company attractive for hires in the future. While this may seem like a no-brainer, many companies find themselves in over their heads because the cost of health insurance can be so high.

The question then becomes: You want to help your employees, but you’re on a budget. How can you find health insurance that is affordable?

Due to the economy, health insurance prices keep going up. Consider some of the numbers and points myhealthcafe.com gathered from research conducted by America’s Health Insurance Plans, a national association for the health care industry, in 2010:

• The average monthly premium for small-group health insurance was $426 for single coverage and $1,117 for family coverage.
• The cost depends on the size of your company. Small businesses with 10 or fewer  employees paid an average of $446 for single coverage in 2010 as opposed to the $406 companies with 26 to 50 employees paid.
• Premiums also vary by state depending on if your state has considerable enrollment. Due to this factor, premiums can range from $565 to just $302 for single coverage across the states.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Health Care Plan

The high cost of health care is affecting many small businesses across the country not only from a financial standpoint, but from a hiring perspective. If you want to keep the talent on your side and not lose it to big business, but still require a budget, consider a few of these tips to find an affordable health insurance plan:

1. Talk to Your Employees and Ask for Their Opinions

Figure out what aspect of a health insurance plan is an absolute necessity to your employees, both long and short term. If you are looking to save some money in this area (while still providing quality health benefits), you may find that a plan with a lot of benefits is expensive, but expensive plans are not always needed. Once you assess your employees’ requirements you can pick the plan that fits with your employees’ needs and your company’s finances. It is also possible to let your employees pay for a portion of the insurance if they want certain benefits. This way, everyone will not have to pay for the benefits that only a few people find necessary, and you will have more flexibility to choose a plan when the time arrives.

2. Get Rate Quotes from Different Companies

Once you know what your employees are looking for in a health care plan, you should get quotes from different insurance companies. You can do this one of two ways: either contact insurance companies directly, or talk to an insurance broker. The companies will lay out a plan for you complete with the details of each. This will lay out the different benefits each company has to offer so you can easily compare and make sure you stay affordable.

3. Pay Attention to Deductibles and Co-Pays

If you are looking to stay affordable, than be sure to check out the deductibles and co-pays. Both are money that your employees will have to pay whenever they get sick or need to be hospitalized. While a plan may look great because the monthly premiums are so low, there may be a high deductible, which would not make your employees happy, so do not be fooled.

4. Know Important Health Insurance Terms in order to Avoid Hidden Costs

While deductibles and Co-pays are the big numbers to watch out for when researching, you will be prompted to analyze several parts of a health care plan. If you do not know what some of the key terms mean when it comes to choosing a plan, you could make a wrong, very expensive decision. The major terms to know include:

• Premium – the amount you pay to the health insurance company each month in order to continue coverage.
• Coinsurance – the amount you are required to pay after you’ve paid any co-payment or deductible. In other words, if they will pay for 80% of charges, the extra 20% is the coinsurance you must pay.
• Maximum Out-of-Pocket Costs – Deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance are considered costs that you pay out-of-pocket. An insurance company will set a maximum on these costs, so this is an easy way to see if there are any fees you disagree with—simply ask.

Searching for a quality health care plan can seem overwhelming, but do not simply sign off on something that covers it all. It is very common for small businesses to choose a basic health insurance plan. In fact, if you have a health insurance plan in place for your small business, you are already ahead of the curve and looking very attractive to potential employees.

Photo credit freecahealthinsurance.com

Editor’s Note: This “How To” blog geared towards small business owners will run each Wednesday, the goal being to assist small business owners in their day-to-day operations. As a small business owner, is there a topic you would like to see covered? If so, email: Amanda.DiSilvestro@resourcenation.com

With the health care bill being passed, small and large businesses alike will have some reading up to do on the new law.  Keeping up-to-date with the bill now, will help you next year when it is in full swing.

One provision you should take note of is the, “grants totaling $200 million over five years for small companies that start wellness programs focused on efforts such as nutrition, smoking cessation, physical fitness and stress management.” This new health care bill looks like the right thing to do. Having a healthier workforce could save the economy hundreds of millions of dollars. Plus, it could even help to decrease the number of workers’ compensation insurance claims.

To qualify your company has to have fewer than 100 employees, and the launch date for these new wellness incentives only count after March 23, 2010.  Robert Gould, the CEO of Partnership for Prevention, a Washington nonprofit, tells CNN that, “it is not an enormous amount of money, nor is it guaranteed to be spent…it’s authorized in the legislation, but it has to be appropriated. We’ll be encouraging the appropriation, but it’s going to be a fight, given the obvious issues with the [federal] budget. But it is the right idea.”

If the money is indeed spent, what are some ideas to get your workers hitting the gym?

1. Talk to local gyms around the office, and see if you can get a group discount rate for memberships.
2. If your company’s office allows room–have a yoga class in your office.  This could help clear minds of your employees and keep stress levels down.
3. Start a group fitness contest, similar to what some companies are doing down with the Biggest Loser contest.

What ideas do you have to get your employees to be healthier?