Is my business covered for that? 7 common business insurance gaps

As an employer, you know that there are certain rules and regulations you need to follow for how you treat your employees, and what you can reasonably expect from them. These days, with more people working from home, and added health and safety considerations for those in the workplace, it can be more difficult than ever to know exactly the right approach—potentially increasing the risk of an employee suing, based on claims of:
 

• Sexual harassment
• Discrimination
• Breach of employment contract
• Wrongful evaluation
• Failure to employ or promote
• Wrongful discipline

Company management is also at risk—directors and officers can be personally sued by employees, vendors, competitors, investors, customers, or other parties, for actual or alleged wrongful acts in managing the company.

Consult your insurance broker about adding these coverages to help close the potential gaps:
 

• Employment Practices Liability Insurance – to protect against lawsuits filed by employees who claim their legal rights as employees have been violated.
• Directors & Officers – to protect your company’s officers and directors if they are personally sued for acts or omissions committed in their capacity as corporate officers or directors.

When you provide professional services, there is a chance that a customer may claim you failed to complete the services in a satisfactory manner, made a mistake, or provided incorrect information that resulted in a financial loss for them. While you would hope that you could work things out amicably, that may not always be the case. If your business is sued by a customer for either actual or alleged financial damage, appropriate professional liability insurance may help cover the costs.

Consider adding Professional Indemnity insurance to help protect against claims directly related to your professional services.

If your business suffers a physical loss and you need to close part or all of your operation, you may lose revenue and incur additional expenses, such as:
 

• Mortgage, rent, and lease payments
• Employee payroll
• Taxes and loan payments
• Relocation costs if your business must move due to physical damage to the premises

To help cover the potential gap following a covered property loss, ask your insurance agent or broker about adding business interruption insurance to your property policy.

You may have heard about data breaches or cyberattacks on large companies. Cybercriminals are not focusing solely on big money, they are looking for vulnerabilities. Small and mid-sized businesses who use outside IT services or have limited IT resources may be more exposed than they realise. If you have employees, your risk is even higher, because each employee is another potential gateway for cybercriminals to access your business.

Consider procuring a commercial cyber policy to help provide solutions and services for privacy breaches, network security, incident response, and media liability.

Advances in technology have led many businesses to rely on increasingly sophisticated equipment. If your business is one of them, consider what would happen if your mechanical or electrical system broke down, and the resulting impact to your business. You could lose valuable resources needed to make the products you plan to sell.

To help close this potential gap, consider Technology Property Insurance to provide the funds and resources to get you back up and running quickly after a covered loss.

Floods can happen, anytime and anywhere. If your property is damage by flood, you could be stuck with the bills to replace damaged propert, rebuild to code, and remove debris, on top of operating costs and loss of income during the resoration period.

Ask your agent or broker about commercial flood insurance options available such as Business Pack.

If you or your employees travel abroad as part of your business, you may want to make sure you have appropriate coverage that extends beyond Australian borders. For example, how could you help an employee who had a medical emergency while outside the country, lost a passport, or needed to get out of a country due to a political uprising?

To help cover this potential gap, consider group business travel insurance – to provide resources for international travel, including emergency medical, cash and document replacement, local country reports and travel alerts, and more.

Regardless of the type of business you run, it may be smart to talk to your independent insurance agent or broker to make sure your business is appropriately insured so that you can focus on keeping your business running smoothly, even if you experience a loss.