How to Boost Your Business Owners Policy

A business owners policy is a great way to bundle property coverage and liability coverage into one policy, but it doesn’t cover everything. There are many dangers businesses face that cannot be covered by a standard business owners policy. Luckily, there are ways to adjust your policy to feature additional coverage. 

The property damage coverage featured with a business owners policy can be changed to open-peril coverage, meaning that it will cover both named and unnamed perils. A standard policy will only cover mentioned perils, meaning that if “fire” isn’t named on your policy, it won’t be covered. An open-peril policy covers mentioned and nonmentioned perils. 

Other additional coverages to add to your business owners policy include: 

• Business Interruption: Business interruption insurance is a common coverage added to a business owners policy. It provides monetary compensation for income lost if the business cannot operate for a certain amount of time after disaster.
• Professional Liability: Unlike general liability, professional liability (also known as Errors and Omissions insurance) deals specifically with incidents involving an employee causing a client to lose money through poor advice or error.
• Cyber Liability: A lot of work is conducted online now. Cyber liability can cover against data breaches, cyber-attacks, cyber blackmail and more. This does not cover the physical computer or monitor.
• Employment Practices Liability: This liability insurance steps in if an employee sues their employer due to sexual harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination or other claim in which the employee believes their rights were violated.
• Hired and Non-Owned Auto: If your company rents or borrows vehicles for work, you may want to purchase hired and non-owned auto so that a potential accident doesn’t fall back on your company to pay for. This is especially important if you already have a <commercial auto insurance> policy. 

There are also many coverages specified for certain businesses. Restaurants may want to invest in spoilage of merchandise while law firms may want to purchase a lawyer’s endorsement.  

What is the Cost of a Business Owners Policy? 
The price of a BOP depends on the industry of your business, the amount of coverage and the business’ average annual income. On average, a business owners policy costs approximately $1,200 a year. General liability alone for a business can cost up to $2,758 a year, saving over $1,558 a year for both general liability and property insurance coverage.