WHY YOU NEED A LIABILITY INSURANCE FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS TO RUN SMOOTHLY

APPROACH TO LIABILITY INSURANCE FOR SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH AND RISK MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION: Having a small business is a start to financial freedom and expansion. it looks far much better than just a dependent or a liability to someone, having so much depend on someone for every of your needs and sometimes become a burden to themselves seek a greater and better chances to explore our ideas, skills and opportunities and therefore opening a small business is a great platform to do so in testing those skills. 

Some may say that the reason why so many people open small business is the fact that they couldn’t afford large ones but I totally disagree because one of the advantage of starting with a small business is that you tend to know what area you are good if you know how to develop your kills (sales method), profit realization and risk management. So in starting up a small business doesn’t always seem lack of start-up capital. in this article, we shall be discussing how you can take up a liability insurance for that your small business, loan utilization, risk management as pertain to your small business. Like I said in previous articles that insurance is very essential in every sector of life like health, travel property, life and so many others, we are going to be seeing some of the advantages benefits, necessity and disadvantages up a liability for your small business and also will be included useful tips to help why it shouldn’t be necessary just yet to take up a liability insurance for that your small business but first:

1 WHAT IS LIABILITY: we have mentioned a couple of times the term liability. According to Investopedia “liability is defined as a company’s legal financial debts or obligations that arise during the course of business operations, liabilities are settled over time through the transfer of economic benefits include money, goods, or services” in other words, Investopedia is saying that liability has to do with the financial state of being responsible for something. 

As in most cases but in other cases it could be services owed to other party probably your clients leads in other services or others who you are liable to when a business is in liability (financially or by services) to others it refers to the situation where the company or business is subjected to income deduction after profit to arrive at a net profit and also services to be rendered which possibly might involve cost in carrying such services. Liabilities are very important aspect of a company because they are involved in the financial operations in the company or business and also pay for large expansions “in simpler term we can say liability is debt to a business either in financial or service aspect”. 

Do note that there is a difference between liabilities and expenses where expenses is the cost of operation as a company or business tries to generate income but due to loss in sales, or mis-management of capital and any other factor could have led to liability of the business.

2 WHAT IS INSURANCE: Insurance is simply an arrangement by which an insured transfers his risk (uncertain tendency to loss) to the insurer at an adequate fee called a premium, on promise that the insured will be indemnified or compensated upon the occurrence of the insured event. Incase of financial loss, insurance serves as a means of protection and risk management. In other words, insurance is a contract between the insurer and the insured where the insured receives an insurance policy which involves the conditions and situations under which the insurer will compensate the insured when any of such arises. 

In this policy also is a stipulated amount the insured will pay to the insurer for coverage depending on the policy taken I called a premium. In general insurance serves as a protection for un-forseen or un expected events that my occur to someone (insured)  thereby transferring the risk of uncertainty  to the insurance company (insurer) who promises to do such as contained in the insurance policy which will be taken up by the insurer and a certain amount will be paid by the insured called the premium.

Read more on Premium

3 LIABILITY INSURANCE: Having discussed briefly about “liability” and “insurance”, fusing this two keywords together “liability insurance” we will agree that liability insurance should mean a kind of insurance policy that ensures that liability of the insured are taken care of by the insurer through premium paid by the insured. Liability insurance is pain, loss, injury you caused on someone through your property. Liability insurance is mostly designed to cover specific protection against third party insurance claims that is in case of any accident; injury or loss, the insurance company (insurer) will take up or pay off every damage you cause on someone.

Please take note that incase of accident you as he at-fault party is not been taken care of rather the person/victim of the situation, most times you can be sued for claims when any injury or damages occur so it is best to own a liability insurance and most especially when you are a car owner. 

For further understanding of liability insurance, it has been treated in one of our articles. Liability Insurance

4 SMALL BUSINESS: We need not to buttress so much on this point because with its word ‘’small business” we should know what it means but for the sake of it, according to Wikipedia“small business are privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorship that have fewer employees and or less annual revenue than a regular sized business or corporation. Small business ranges from 2-50 employees”. In many countries small business are regarded as business that include services or retail operations like:

1 Convenience stores

2 Grocery stores

3 Bakeries

4 Hair dressers

5 Traders

6 Guest houses

And more also several professional operations as:

1 Accounting firms

2 Lawyers firms

3 Medical doctors (but these set of people can also work for large companies)

Small business are corporations or sole proprietorship and are limited by:

1 size

2 number of employees

3 Activities and so on….

THE CONCEPT LIABILITY INSURANCE FOR SMALL BUSINESS

Have you ever been indebted to someone or group of persons financially and unable to clear off those debts, its awful I guess, you tend to look frustrated and seek better and faster ways to come out of this debt, that’s why you should consider having a liability insurance for that your business. 

Liability insurance helps protect your business from claims that will lead to the negative growth of your business and thereby affect your normal business operations. Liabilities of small or large business could include:

1 Advertising injuries

2 third party bodily injuries

3 sales injuries

4 Loan

5 medical payments for employees

A small business could be liable and sued for any of the above mentioned and compensation will have to be paid as long as you as the business owner is at fault but in a cause where you take up a liability insurance, the insurer provide coverage for this and relieve you of out-of-pocket expenses. This policy also provides compensation for defending or investigating a lawsuit, police report, cost of witness fees, any judgment or settlement resulting from the lawsuit filed against you or your business and court cost including attorney’s fees.

A liability insurance business covers you for a situation like coming into contact with the public on your property or elsewhere, do you have any business dealing with the public like offering services then you need a liability insurance for your business. In essence we are saying that having a liability insurance give you the confidence of going through your daily business activities in confidence knowing full well that you are covered by any unforeseen or unexpected events, you will also be needing employers liability insurance for your business.

In most countries of the world, liability insurance (public) is not compulsory for your business by law but people most times decides that it is very important that they opt in for it because it protects them from compensation cost and also satisfy the needs of their clients as it can protect you when someone tries to sue you so you need it, in simpler way we could say if you do come in contact with the public, interact with customers, suppliers or passersby in carrying out your work then you may decide to go for liability insurance cover. Having wondered if you should take up this cover or not is totally depended on you, if you can afford to meet up with the cost of compensation claim when you are sued and don’t have a cover then you could just ignore having liability insurance.

TYPES OF LIABILITY INSURANCE

There a different types of Liability insurance that you could opt in for depending on your needs or you could just decide to have the whole of liability coverage depending on your pocket and your needs but here are different type of liability insurance cover:

1 Product liability

2 Professional liability

3 Public liability

For further understanding visit types of liability insurance

Many at times we come across certain things we do not expect and thereby give us a cause to worry about and most especially these things likely reduce our finances. You are a business owner and don’t have a liability insurance for your business that may be due to the fact that you don’t need it or ignorant of it, but in our article so far we talked much about liability insurance for your small business but these are also helpful tips that you should go through for better understanding, here and now we shall be highlighting some of the advantages (pros) and disadvantages (cons) of having a liability insurance for your small business:

ADVANTAGES OF LIABILITY INSURANCE FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

1 It offers protection for your business: liability insurance offers protection for your small business in a way in which any form of unforeseen or unexpected circumstances happens then you will be covered. For example, you are into transport business (moving people from one destination to another) for every passenger in your vehicle, you are liable for its safety till he/she gets to her destination, so if an accident occurs within this period, you are liable to cover the expenses such as injuries, medical bills and any other expenses that may quickly rise up.

2 It helps defend you and your business against claim: Have thought of your clients or customers suing you for damages you never expected could have happened, if such occurs some may try to make a compensation claim then surely you will need a legal assistance in order to assist or defend your case and for sure this could be costly. Okay finally you were successful in the case, have you thought about the legal fees in which you know your small business will not be able to meet up, so having liability insurance for your businesswill ensure that your business is totally covered if anything of such occurs. In other words, to be specific you need a public liability insurance and this will cover all legal fees, loss of earning repairs of damages or injuries and any other inconveniences that might have occurred to you or your business.

3 it helps you out when you are financially down or broke: this means that certain events or circumstances might occur at a time when you are not financially capable to cover up those expenses immediately but having a liability insurance cover for your business could put you out of this stress and worry.

4 Having confidence running your business: have you ever considered running your business in full confidence that no matter what happens you are covered as long as it relates with you, your business and your clients/customers! Then this is what public liability does to you and your business. Since you have taken up a cover for any circumstances that might occur in the cause of running your business then you are confident about running your business and carrying out your daily activities but that does not mean you should create avenue for people to get endangered in your business but rather when you do this you are actually killing your business by decreasing your business patronage, increasing your expenses. Have it in mind that an insurance which decides to cover up your cost is not done for free but on your premium which you pay monthly, quarterly, yearly, or whole sum whichever way you decide to.

5 This insurance policy can actually cover you for your business loan: if you have taken up a loan to help boost your business or clear debts whatever the case may be, you could actually run into bad debts in the cause of doing this, then you should take up a liability insurance for this purpose.

 For better understanding on this read “insurance as a tool for loan utilization”

TIPS: When taking up this type of coverage try as much as possible to go through all the benefits or advantages that is been stipulated in the policy and have a knowledge about it in order for you to measure it with your business needs depending on your activity but this kind of insurance policy should/must cover the above mentioned advantages and benefits which have been explained in this article.

Where there is an advantage, there should also be a disadvantage(s) even if not much, here are few disadvantage of this policy.

DISADVANTAGES OF TAKING UP LIABILITY INSURANCE FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

1 Kind of activity(ies) involved in running your business: if you are the type of business person that involve in hazardous activities or communal action then this coverage will not over you of such.

2 Most times claims are slow because the insurance company needs to assess the damage and possibly determine the accurate and precise loss and this could take a long time and sometimes after all this the insurance company mat decide not to pay for the claims giving you reasons and excuses. (but you could file a case in court).

3 In general term, insurance is expensive and most times your small business may not b able to meet up with its premium.

4 Some insurance company only pays out money up to a certain amount after which you will have to pay the differences but there must be a payout eventually.

WHEN IS JUST NOT YET TIME TO TAKE UP LIABILITY INSURANCE FOR YOUR BUSINESS

So far so good we have talked about liability insurance for your small business, types, benefits, advantages, and also disadvantages, as we have seen in this article that there are a lot of benefits and advantages you could actually get if you take up a liability insurance for your small businessbut you also might want to consider the disadvantages as regards the cost of insurance, the type of activity you carryout in the cause of running your business and also method of payments of a claim but in essence all this should not discourage you as I can rightly tell you that taking up a liability coverage is very important for that your business. 

Irrespective of this “when is just not yet time to take up liability insurance for your small business” is what I will explain to you but why you should take up this liability insurance are the advantages and benefits which have been explained here.

1 Now, have you considered the income of your small business especially when you are still at the start up level or grassroots level, probably your business has not been generating much to start paying on huge premium for insurance coverage 

then taking up this coverage could directly or indirectly affect your business? So if you are at the beginner’s level then you might not want to consider an insurance policy just yet.

2 If your activities do not directly deal with clients/customers or you don’t closely come in contact with them then a liability insurance cover may just not be the right time.

Read also Third party insurance

3 I bet you most times you don’t want to go through the hassles of making a claim. Some insurance company can be pretty difficult when trying to payout a claim, so this could also discourage you from taking up a over.

4 Your business environment is also a factor that could help or force you to take up an insurance cover for your business, let’s say you have a quiet, calm, serene and easy going business environment where customers/clients are always careful and cautious of doing things then you might not just yet consider taking up a liability insurance cover but what happens if someone gets injured, or property damaged by you or your business activity and  claims are been made against you then you need a cover for it.

 In essence am saying that you might not want to take up liability insurance if you are familiar with your business type, people/customers/client very well and understand how your environment would work for you.

In conclusion, I would say try as much as possible to take up an insurance cover for your business, it is not necessary you take up the whole of liability insurance coverage but you could just study and understand what you need, dangers ahead in your business on people that’s your customers, property and employees and pick a specific liability insurance cover for your business and you should also take note of different insurance premium of different insurance company as it differs from state to state and country  by country and do your thorough research.

 We have listed some types of liability insurance cover and a link for better understanding that you could take for your business but if you didn’t get that, here is another types of  liability insurance and feel free to drop your comments on what you think about this article.

HOPE IT HAS HELPED YOU IN ONE WAY OR THE OTHER????

WHAT DOES THIRD PARTY INSURANCE REALLY MEAN

 THIRD PARTY INSURANCE | METHOD TO SAVE A THIRD PARTY

Third party insurance is a term used in insurance world and it is usually a third person involved in an insurance contract, yea that is the simplest form of third party insurance definition you can ever think of. In broader term we can say third party insurance is where an “Insured” which is the first party purchases a “liability insurance” from a second party which is the insurer (Insurance Company) for protection of another party called the third party for claims whether the insured (First party) is liable for its own damages or losses, whether it was caused by him/herself or the third party.

Third party insurance is a type of insurance that insures you for any death or injury on another person either it was caused by you or any person as long as your property was used on causing this damage.

This is how the third party insurance works:

1.     If you damage someone else’s car the insurance company covers the cost of repair or replacement of that car and not your car unless you take up a comprehensive cover for it.

2.    Third party liability coverage comes with a policy that covers you for claims by other car owners against you after the incident that i,s the insurance company takes up the cost by fixing or repairing the other car rather than fixing yours.

3.    The insurance company uses the money you paid for in your premiums to cover your cost and definitely if your premium is yet to be paid for a third party car insurance then there won’t be any compensation for it in case an accident occurs so you are left to cover out of your own pocket.

4.     An insurance company will save the stress of cost associated with accident assuring your car crashes on another person’s car or you injure a pedestrian; the insurance company will cover for damage or medical bills whatever is the case and more also if in the case of injuring a pedestrian then the insurance company will save you off being apart by the family members of the injured pedestrian.

      

5.    An insurance company comes up when you think everything is crashing on you. The greatest thing that can happen to anyone is when you find yourself in trouble and someone just came to rescue and take off the burden. And that is what an insurance company does, they serve as a quick recovery of any accident or bad event you find yourself.

      Having an idea of how insurance company works is not only what is necessary. You also need to know how the third party insurance cover works which have been explained above.

      But most people do not have an idea on how to make a claim after an accident and they allow the injured person or victim to take advantage of them. Am gonna quickly give a rundown of information you must put together after an accident:

      First of all, you need to contact your insurance company and give them a brief information/summary of the incident and they should include:

1) The exact date and time in which the accident occurred and if there was any unfavorable weather conditions.

2)  Source out for information of the affected person or car (Know if the person was registered in an insurance company or not)

3) There should be a detailed information of the driver or passengers, if there was any injury or damages to the car or property in the time of the accident.

4) You should be able to take exact photos of the injured or affected person is trying to add up the cost

5)  Check if there was any witness at the event and get every details about the witness.

NOTE: be intelligent enough to know when you are at fault in an accident event, it perhaps you weren't at fault you could make a claim for damages and person’s insurance company will cover up for your cost like injury compensation or repairs.

WHY WHOLE LIFE INSURANCE IS THE MOST POPULAR OF INSURANCE POLICY

WHOLE LIFE INSURANCE: THE INSURANCE WITH THE MOST  SECURITY AND FUTURE BENEFITS

Whole life insurance or whole of life assurance is a kind of insurance policy that remains valid throughout the insured’s entire life – time as long as the required premiums are paid or the maturity date. Whole life insurance is a contract that is entered between the insured and the insurer as long as the terms and condition stipulated in the policy are met. 

The insurer’s duty is to pay death benefit of the policy to the policy‘s beneficiary policy usually have a fixed premiums based on the issued age, and usually do not increase with age. The insured party usually have to   pay his or her premium while death unless for a limited pay policies which may be paid up in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years or even 65 years. Whole life insurance includes also to the “cash value” category of life insurance which also belongs to universal life variable life and endowment policies.

Whole life insurance policy is the most popular of life insurance policy because it can guarantee payment to the beneficiaries upon the death of the insured. An interesting part of this policy is that it has the savings portion called the cash value including the death benefit. Making a cash value grow is an essential component of whole life insurance.

CASH VALUE

For a policy holder to build up cash value, he/she can remit payments more than the normal premium. In addition, dividends received can be reinvested into the cash value and earn interest. The essence or advantage of cash value is that it:

1)    It can serve as a source of equity (Asset – liabilities = equity) to the policy holder.

2)   The cash value offers a living benefit to the policy holder (In order to access this, the    policy holder requests a withdrawal of funds or a loan).

3)    The owner can withdraw funds up to the value of total premiums.

 In essence, the cash value increases, it gives the insurer a reduced net amount of risk that is to say “more cash value, less risk involved”. For example, Getbeg insurance company issues a 30,000 life insurance policy to James Rodler, the policy owner and the insured and as time progresses the cash value accumulates to 15,000. Eventually when Mr. James Rodler dies, the insurance company will pay the full death benefit of 30,000. Which eventually means the insurance company will only realize a loss of 15,000 due to the other 15,000 accumulated cash value. “The net amount of risk at issue was 30,000 but the death of the insured Mr. James Rodler was 15,000.

Death benefit of whole life insurance

The benefits at the death of the insured stipulated in the policy contract. Some policies allows for the payments of dividends. The beneficiary(ies) to this policy be held in account and distributed in allotments. And more also, if the insurance policy was sold before the death of the owner, then there nay likely be taxes assessed on the proceeds from that sale.

 In other words, death benefit of a whole life policy is normally the stated face amount where the death benefit will be increased by any accumulated dividend values and/or decreased by any outstanding policy loans. Death benefit of whole life policy is usually paid at the death of the insurer or the maturity age “100” depending on whoever comes first and when such person crosses or goes above the age of 100, it is known as “matured endowment” and therefore the person receives the face amount in cash.

But on research findings, maturity ages have been increased to 120 but also depend on the insurance company.

The whole life insurance can be very useful and attractive because it offers coverage for a very long period of time. This policy covers the personal and family needs and also the business needs and these personal and family needs include:
·        Supplemental retirement income

·        Surviving spouse income

·        Funeral expenses and

·        Estate planning

The disadvantage about this policy as rightly said is because it is relatively high on premiums when insuring:

•  Growing families with large needs and less source income
• ·Large debts
• 
  
• Temporary needs such as years in which children depends to meet the daily needs
• 
  
• The business needs include:
• 
  
• Finding of buy-sell agreements
• 
  
• Death of key person
• 
  
• Deferred compensation
• 
  
• The supplemental executive retirement plans (the E.S.R.P)
•  

TYPES OF WHOLE LIFE INSURANCE

There are different types of whole life insurance, in order to find the one good enough for you and meet your needs, you have to careful look at the laid down policy or statements in the policy and choose the one best suits you and they are as follows:

1. ·        Participating whole life insurance
2. ·        Non-participating whole life insurance
3. ·        Economic (whole Life Economic)
4. ·        Single premium whole life insurance
5. ·        Indeterminate premium whole life insurance
6. ·        Interest sensitive whole life insurance
7. ·        Level premium whole life insurance
8. ·        Limited payment

Participating Whole Life Insurance: This offers the policy holder an opportunity to have an increase cash value from the policy because the policy holder is eligible for dividend payments from the insurance company. If the insurance company account performs well, the participating whole insurance account will additional cash payments as a result of increase. But this policy usually have a higher cost due to the additional cash payments.

·     Non-Participating Whole Life Insurance:This policy is usually simple and low in cost, it involves a fixed death benefit, level premiums, and a guaranteed cash value over the policyholder’s life. In other words, non-participating whole life insurance means the policy holder does not participate in the investment activities of the insurance company. This company. This policy is a low risk proposition for policy holders which definitely means little potential for growth.

·     Economic Whole Life Insurance:In this type of whole life insurance plan, the policy holder receives additional death benefit as time goes by. But when the insurance company’s investment do not perform well due to economic melt-down, the policy holders death benefit might actually go down with it not necessarily within that period of economic instability

·     Single Premium:In this plan, the policy holder pays up front the total amount of the policy premium. This plan is mostly needed for investment purpose since the buyers need to have relatively large amount of money at hand in order to make the single payments. But one disadvantage with this plan is that these policy holders have significant fees they have to pay if the eventually decides to jettison their policies during the first few years.

·     Indeterminate premium: This plan allows for policy holders to pay a variable amount which depends on the company’s financial performance instead of making the same premium payment every month.

      Interest Sensitive: In this plan, the interest on the policy’s cash value fluctuates according to market conditions. As the insurance company makes profit, you make higher gains and vice versa. The death benefit is constant for life but the premium cannot increase more than what has been stipulated in the policy. This can be advantageous for those who want to secure a “guaranteed death benefit” while looking forward for higher gains in their cash value.

Level Premium: This plan is common and widely accepted, the premium are calculated based on the full duration of the policyholder’s life (up to 95 or 100) and the policyholder pays an equal premium every month or probably his life period. This plan gives the policyholder full stability and assurance in knowing exactly how much he/she will be having on the premium each month and the premiums never increases.
     
      Limited Payment: This is the opposite of the level premium where you would rather have not to pay a monthly premium but a full payment premium in a shorter time frame let’s say 10 or 20 years and this insurance policy is paid off and cannot be voided but one thing about this premium is that is quite higher than level premium plans because of compressed payment schedule. 
           

            Have you read TERM LIFE INSURANCE, READ HERE