There are a wide range of insurance covers available to small business owners, some of which are a legal requirement and others which are optional. Which you choose will often depend on the type of business that you run as well as the risk exposure that you have in certain areas such as whether you own your business premises or offer professional services to clients, amongst others.

Here we take a look at some of the main insurance covers available to small businesses and consider how they can help ensure your business continuity should you experience an insured event.

Office Buildings Insurance

If you own the building that your business operates from then you will likely want to consider having buildings cover in place. Buildings insurance will typically provide cover against any damage caused to the physical building by events such as flood or fire, including the rebuilding costs. Some policies may also include cover for accidental damage.

Office Contents Insurance

Office Contents insurance will provide cover for the contents of your business premises – you will want to consider this cover whether you own the building or not. It will usually protect business equipment such as computers and office furniture against events such as theft, water damage and fire damage.

Public Liability Insurance

Public Liability insurance is designed to provide cover for claims made against your business by clients or members of the public who have sustained an injury or damage to their property in connection with your business. For example, someone slipping on a wet floor within your business premises or someone injuring themselves on some of your work equipment. Public liability insurance will provide cover for legal costs as well as any outcome of the legal action such as compensation payments. It is available to business owners as well as self employed individuals.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

Professional Indemnity insurance is designed to provide cover if a client should make a claim against you for things such as advice, services or designs which they believe have had a negative impact on their business. Again, available to business owners and self-employed individuals, the insurance will provide cover for legal costs as well as compensation costs that may be awarded if your client wins the claim.

In some cases, if you belong to a professional body, they may require you to have indemnity insurance in place before you practice. In other cases, having a policy in place ca be a requirement that clients put in place when deciding on suppliers.

Employers Liability Insurance

If you employ staff in the UK, then it is a legal requirement for most businesses to have Employers Liability insurance in place. The policy will provide cover for claims made against you by employees who have injured themselves or become ill as a result of work carried out for you. Legal defence associated with defending the claim and compensation awards are typically covered by the insurance. Policies can be tailored to cover full time staff, part time staff, freelancers or contractors working for you short term, volunteers or trainees.

Business interruption Insurance

Business interruption cover can be key to ensuring your business continuity as it is designed to provide cover for lost revenue and income if your business is unable to trade following an insured event. It can be overlooked by some businesses with the assumption being that such losses will be covered by other insurance policies.

Read more about business interruption insurance in our recent blog.

Cyber Cover

Cyber-attacks are becoming more and more of a threat to businesses of all sizes. In fact, some sources suggest that small to medium sized businesses are particularly at risk. Cyber insurance can provide cover for a business’s liability as well as helping you to manage the impact of an attack on your services and finances.

Could you cope if you were the victim of a ransomware or extortion attack or be able to get to the bottom of a data breach and restore your system security? These are both areas that cyber insurance can help support you in.

Whilst having insurance in place is a good way to protect your business and your business continuity, the ability to act quickly if disaster should strike is also critical. Being able to respond quickly and get your business back up and running can be key to your long-term business success.

Having a disaster recovery specialist on your side like First Recovery can also be reassuring. We provide small and medium sized businesses with specialist disaster recovery services and in the event of disaster will aim to get you back up and running in a recovery centre as quickly as possible and within 24 hours. If you have any questions or would like to understand more about how we could help your business get in touch with us today.