There are nearly 1.2 million small businesses operating in Illinois. If you’re one of them, you will need certain types of insurance policies to cover damages, lawsuits, and your worker’s injuries and illnesses. This doesn’t reflect on your business practices; however, it is just good planning for the inevitabilities of running a business.
So here are the business insurance policies that you should consider if you’re running a business in Illinois.
Worker’s Compensation Insurance
This is the one insurance that you’re required to get when you operate in Illinois. It is the insurance that you get for your workers and the injuries or illnesses that they may sustain.
Worker’s compensation needs to take effect as soon as you’ve hired your first employee. It underscores the responsibility you have towards the wellbeing and safety of your employees.
The policy provides coverage for all sorts of medical expenses and lawsuits that are related to workplace injuries and illnesses.
If an employee sues a company for the injuries or illnesses contracted, worker’s comp also covers any settlements or judgments and attorney fees and court costs.
General Liability Insurance
General liability insurance basically covers incidents that can occur to any member of the public when a business operates. For instance, if there are unfortunate customer or client injuries due to a business’ operation, it protects the business from lawsuits. It also helps the business qualify for contracts and leases because other businesses may require you to hold general liability insurance before they give you a contract job.
For injuries or customer property damage, the insurance can help to pay for the compensation as well as related legal defense costs. It’s not mandated by law in Illinois, but it can be expected by your clients, or your commercial lease landlord.
The insurance comes in handy even when a customer suffers a slip and fall at the company headquarters or premises. Something as simple as that can turn ugly, the client may sue. General liability insurance protects your business against that risk.
Professional Liability Insurance
Professional liability insurance is a policy that is encouraged for businesses that provide expertise or a specialized service. If clients come to your business for your expertise or your skill, you should consider getting professional liability insurance.
Professional liability insurance, also known as Errors and Omissions Insurance (e&o). This relates to insurance for unintentional or negligent errors or omissions that result in financial or physical damage. Basically, professional liability insurance protects you against lawsuits from clients that suffered damage due to an oversight or error.
Cyber Liability Insurance
Today, no company can stay afloat if it doesn’t have an online presence. Most companies work with some form of online communications; there is no way of getting around it. However, all companies that have data on the internet or on online servers are threatened by cyber attacks or phishing attempts.
Cyber liability insurance basically protects you against the financial damages that you’re in danger of. If your business is intrinsically linked with data collection or with data processing, you are greatly encouraged to get this.
Think about it this way, the average cost of a data breach can cost small businesses tens of thousands of dollars. Each year, that climbs little by little. Couple that with the fact that 61% of all cyber attacks hit small businesses.
On top of that, regulatory authorities can blacklist your company as insecure if data breaches keep occurring. Finally, you can also lose out on customers and clients due to issues with your servers and your services as a result. Cyber liability does pay the costs and shields your company from the fines that this will incur.
Business Owner’s Policy
Business owner’s policy usually bundles general liability insurance, business income insurance and equipment insurance.
There are millions of small businesses in Illinois. Even if you’re a niche business that caters to a very selective market, the competition will be hard. It is a good idea to have a safety net to deal with all that rather than hope for the best.
So, you should look at all these business insurances and choose the ones that are suitable for your business.
