Start your year out right. Here’s 6 tips on tweaks you can start yourself to make sure your insurance actually works when you need it:
1. Make sure you have Errors & Omissions (E&O) insurance (from someone that specializes in your industry). Without it your wiring may be covered, but your panel programming isn’t. For more info, see this article.
2. Get your customers to sign your standard alarm contract on as many jobs as possible (ideally all of them). The #1 liability claim against alarm companies is when a customer’s monitored premises has a loss and the customer’s insurance pays out, but then goes after the alarm company for reimbursement (subrogation). A well-written alarm contract drafted by an alarm-industry attorney will typically stop this cold. For more discussion see this article. And talk to your alarm-attorney.
3. If you have employees, make sure you have Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI). Covers you for claims from your employees for harassment/ discrimination/ wrongful termination. Many small companies do not carry this because they don’t realize it’s not covered until they have a claim. See this article for details. This coverage is not included in any other policy and has to be purchased on its own.
4. Use a written agreement every time you hire a subcontractor. A true subcontractor will have their own liability insurance and be willing to name you as additional insured on it. A subcontractor without a contract or their own insurance doesn’t offer you any protection, and if something about their work goes wrong, they will be invisible while the company that hired them (you!) gets hit with a claim. For details on how to protect yourself here, see this article.
5. Make sure you have Cyber insurance. Can protect you for costs related to hackers getting into your systems and locking your data and holding for ransom, or impersonating a trusted party in an email and convincing your bookkeeper to make a payment to the wrong account. Also protects if hackers get into your system and then use it to get into your customers’ systems and do damage there. See this article for details. Cyber attacks are in the news daily, don’t be an unprotected victim.
6. Take a minute to decide if your insurance limits are keeping up with your operations. Most businesses don’t think about this until they have a claim. When was the last time you thought about it? Take a moment now at the beginning of the year to make sure your insurance is keeping pace with your operations, as well as inflation. For discussion on how to do this with liability insurance, see this article. For suggestions on how to do so with your property, see here and here.
Hopefully the ideas above will help you get and stay better protected. For more ideas on these and other insurance and risk management-related concerns, feel free to reach out at info@eclipseinsurance.com. We’re here to help.
