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Best In-Class Business Insurance for Technology Firms & IT Consultants
Growing your small business to enter overseas markets has perhaps been a dream of yours for a while. Now that you’re financially able to do this, are you completely prepared for all the legal paperwork and insurance you’ll need to make it work?
No matter where you’re expanding, you’re going to need insurance and other protections to adhere to foreign laws. In most cases, it all relates to protecting yourself to avoid dealing with international fines or lawsuits.
Some policies are going to resemble the ones you already have at home, though you shouldn’t depend exclusively on domestic insurance for international coverage. Many policies here don’t cover issues you may encounter in foreign countries. Therefore, you need policies pertaining exclusively to the markets you’re covering.
Here are some policies to consider so you can protect your company and workers.
So many things can go wrong in countries you’re new to during your expansion. Part of this may include unfortunate things occurring to your workers or damage to your business property as you’re moving in. You’ll want to look into a general liability policy available in the country where you’re expanding.
Doing so is going to help protect against threats of kidnapping, employees becoming ill or injured, property loss from theft or disasters, and foreign lawsuits.
All of these could mire your business in heavy international litigation requiring overseas legal representation to tackle. Legal issues could also drag on for months (or years), creating a huge financial drain on your new business market.
While general liability can often cover some of the damages to your business property overseas, it’s better to obtain a separate property coverage policy. You can usually get one in other countries. You’ll definitely need this since anything could happen to your business assets.
Don’t forget to consider international moving protection insurance as you move some of your business property to another country. Typically, you can break this up into different categories so you go beyond just comprehensive coverage. Consider getting policies like weight multiplier (lump sum) protection, itemized inventory coverage, or high-value item protection.
Take some time to find this policy if you’re sending employees to work as expatriates in another country. Often, you’ll find this referred to as employers responsibility coverage in other countries, so don’t get confused by the title.
Other situations might arise where you’ll need this insurance to give your workers full protection. Perhaps you’ll be hiring third-country nationals to work in another country. You’ll need to protect them like your US-based workers.
The same goes with local employees you hire in another country to work for your new international business branch.
With this policy, you’re getting insurance coverage to protect yourself legally if one of your employees happens to die or loses a limb in an accident. Obviously, this can happen at your US location too, but dealing with such an event from abroad can present extra challenges.
With AD&D coverage, you’re getting more thorough protection than from standard liability. It’s actually a rider on basic health insurance, sometimes referred to as a double indemnity rider.
Many of these policies have strict restrictions, so it pays to work with an insurance expert to help you determine if you’ll need this.
Look out for compulsory insurance coverage in various countries that helps protection against damage or injury due to renting a car. You may have to rent cars in your new country to conduct business appropriately, especially at the beginning.
Even if this is temporary before you buy company vehicles, you’ll want comprehensive liability coverage in case an employee gets into an accident, just as you would at home.
It happens to the best of businesses. You suddenly lose that prime client or customer that you have been working with for the longest time—the one that accounts for a major portion of your revenue. In some cases, this customer may have accounted for most of your revenue, and now the loss seems devastating.
However, there are a few things that you can do to help regroup and get your business back on track.
If you are not sure why the client left, it never hurts to contact them to see if there is something you can do to regain their business. At the very least, if you are unsure of the reason for them leaving, it won’t be to your detriment to gain some insight by contacting them to see what happened.
Sometimes businesses do not fully realize their client’s expectations and needs, or know of changes that may have occurred. This happens in some cases no matter how many years you have been with the client—things just seem to change one day when, in fact, the disconnect was there all along.
By that same token, there may be something going on that has nothing to do with your business. Either way, you won’t know unless you ask.
While losing your biggest client may seem devastating at first, focusing on your current clients may lead to someone else taking the place of the big client you lost. Even if it takes a couple of clients to equal what you lost, you can still make up the loss of income through other clients by going the extra mile. The last thing you want your remaining clients to think is that they are not as important as your bigger accounts.
It is also important to make sure that the loss of one client isn’t a pattern others may follow. Often, one client leaves due to their own personal reasons that have nothing to do with your other clients following suit. But if there is something your company is doing that may affect your customers’ willingness to keep working with you, you need to be in the know so that you can address it before other clients are lost.
There is never a time when your marketing doesn’t count, especially when you have lost a major stream of revenue. Make sure to increase your marketing efforts and focus on filling the hole in your client list. There are plenty of free platforms to get your name out there so people can find you.
Paid advertising can also help in this regard if your organic marketing efforts need a little boost. It is always a good idea to use all your resources, so a combination of free marketing with paid marketing may be your best fit to start bringing new leads and customers in.
There are some cases where you did absolutely nothing wrong to make a client leave. Sometimes it’s them, not you, and no matter what you did right, it wasn’t enough. Cases like this are why it is so important to have a good grasp of what your other clients need and not to depend on one client for your livelihood.
No company has a perfect record where they have retained all their customers for the life of their business. Things change rapidly in the business world, and only those who are able to adapt will come out on top. The important things are how you handle the loss of a major customer, how it affects your future business, and what you can do to minimize the effects.
Whether you are renting out your old home until you sell it or you own a large multi-unit rental property, it’s important that you are properly insured. If you are not, both you and your renters may get in trouble if anything happens.
Storms, slips and falls, and even equipment troubles can really mess up your bottom line if you are not prepared. Just one big payment to take care of any problems could really hurt you, especially if you can’t have renters for a while.
This is why you need to be ready with the right insurance!
If your home has a rental unit, it may be covered under your personal homeowner’s policy. However, make sure that you read the fine print to make sure that your rental property is, in fact, included.
If you have a separate rental property, there are several policies worth considering. The basic one, often called DP-1, covers the regular things such as fires and vandalism. The next step up, DP-2, would be a policy that covers storm damage, including hail damage and vandalism. There are times when this policy will cover collision in case a car hits your rental property.
The best policy that you could get would be an open peril policy (or DP-3), which covers pretty much everything unless it is specifically excluded in your plan. While you are covered with the basic insurance, the open peril policy will replace things at your cost. This will protect you much better than other policies.
You may also want to consider landlord protective policies, which cover any equipment that may break down. This can be a real life-saver if, for example, the furnace breaks down (or any other piece of large equipment).
Loss of rental income can also be covered. You may want to consider this if you have a multi-residential property. This will cover the loss of income if repairs need to be made and your units have to be left empty for an extended period of time. However, this will not cover times between renters.
No matter what insurance policy you have, make sure that you have liability coverage—and enough of it. This will help if you are ever sued. Especially with bigger apartment complexes, people are likely to fall or slip on the sidewalk. This insurance covers these claims.
Liability insurance comes in different forms, depending on how much you may need. A smaller property will need less coverage than a large property with pools, sidewalks, and even a gym.
You may need more if your property is in a high-crime area. However, you shouldn’t worry about this insurance. For only a few hundred dollars more a year, you may be able to have one million dollars in coverage.
It is important that you get as much insurance as you can afford. The more insurance that you have, the more likely your rental property will be safe no matter what happens. Though the basic plan is often enough for most rental properties, if something terrible happened, wouldn’t you rather be thoroughly protected?
No matter how much insurance you have, you should always make sure that you talk to your renters about protecting themselves as well. Renter’s insurance on their part is important to protect their personal property within the space they are renting.
Be sure to discuss your insurance policy with a professional. They will ensure that your rental venture is a success, even if there is an unforeseen disaster down the line. They may be able to tweak your homeowner’s insurance, though they will be able to go over your multiple options so that you can rest assured that you have exactly what you need and want.
If you pay any attention to automotive news, you already know that self-driving cars are a hot topic. Industry leaders claim that fully autonomous cars will be available on the commercial market within 10 years. In fact, there are already many cars on the road today that have semi-autonomous driving ability.
Adaptive cruise control was first introduced on the 1999 Mercedes-Benz S-Class and is becoming an available feature on almost every new vehicle. Adaptive cruise control uses radar to maintain a set distance between you and the car you are following. The car will automatically brake if the car in front slows down and will automatically speed back up if there is room to do so.
While this technology was initially only available on the high-priced models of luxury makes, it is now available on much more affordable cars—for example, a $19,000 Toyota Corolla now comes standard with this technology.
But adaptive cruise control is just the beginning. The Society of Automotive Engineers has developed a classification system with six levels to differentiate between the autonomous capabilities of a vehicle:
Today, there are numerous vehicles available that can offer Level 2 autonomy. The ability for Level 2 vehicles to allow occasional hands-off driving varies by manufacturer. While this emerging technology seems to be developing quickly, there are still many questions to be answered before Level 4 and 5 vehicles become a reality for the consumer market.
In theory, a Level 5 autonomous vehicle should be much safer than a Level 0, as you have taken out the possibility of human error. Fewer accidents leads to fewer insurance claims, and fewer insurance claims leads to lower auto insurance premiums for everyone. Of course, lower insurance premiums will lead to less profit for the insurance companies.
Some predict that autonomous cars could be the end of the auto insurance industry as we know it. But you shouldn’t get too excited yet—there are still things that can happen to the vehicle regardless of its autonomous capabilities. The vehicle could be stolen or vandalized, a tree could fall on it, flood waters could damage it, or any number of non-driving related incidents could happen.
For these reasons, auto insurance will remain a necessity for a long time to come. As long as there is car ownership, there will be a need for car insurance.
This question poses quite a dilemma for automakers, insurance companies, and local law enforcement. Ideally, the manufacturer would be liable in this scenario, as it is their product that failed. However, there are other factors—such as vehicle maintenance— that could lead to a crash.
Next time you are in a parking lot, take a look at the tires of every car you walk past. Most likely, you will see at least a few cars driving around on bald tires that should have been replaced long ago. Bald, worn, and dry-rotted tires will only provide a fraction of the grip that a new tire will provide—especially in wet conditions.
Thus, a fully autonomous vehicle on bald tires could still spin out and crash while making a turn in wet conditions. So then who is liable? The manufacturer who made the vehicle? The owner who had no control, but didn’t properly maintain the vehicle?
This is the million-dollar question that has yet to be answered. Laws and rules for determining who is at fault in an accident involving a self-driving vehicle will need a major overhaul.
While all autonomous vehicles might be programmed to operate under the same parameters and rules, every human driver is different. Some human drivers are extremely cautious when driving, some are risky. Some drivers signal every turn, others never do. Autonomous cars will need to take this human unpredictability into account in order to operate safely.
Some might think that human-operated vehicles will be extinct as soon as autonomous vehicles hit the market. In reality, widespread adoption will take many years or even decades. There are currently over 250 million registered vehicles in the United States alone. With the exception of a few manufacturer prototypes for autonomous testing, all of these vehicles are human-operated.
Those 250 million vehicles will not just vanish into thin air as soon as autonomous cars are available. It took over 15 years for adaptive cruise control to make its way from expensive luxury cars to economy cars. Fully autonomous cars will be no different. They will be cost-prohibitive for many when they first come out.
Over time, the cost of Level 5 autonomy will come down to where it is available and affordable on every car. Until then, robot drivers and humans will have to share the road.
Jeff Henderson is a licensed property and casualty insurance producer and has been with IYC since 2010. He handles new business accounts and works with clients to quote, issue, and service policies. He is able to help any retail, restaurant, service, and professional industries. Jeff loves seeing his client’s businesses succeed and is eager to help them by providing valuable insurance coverage at great prices. In his spare time, he enjoys golf, tennis, and anything involving cars.
‘What Happens When…’ is a video series in which we’ll talk about the most common insurance scenarios and how to get the most out of your coverage! Watch the whole series and more videos about insurance on YouTube!
Picture this: You’ve just bought your dream home. The whole process was a breeze. The sellers were willing to compromise on everything, and you got it for a steal.
So, you move in, and on your first night, you hear scratching in the walls. It sounds like…chewing—because it is. It’s thousands of termites chewing through your brand new house from the inside out, and suddenly, you have much bigger problems than how many boxes you have to unpack and where to put that ugly lamp that your mother-in-law bought you.
So what happens when you buy a house? Or what can happen during the home-buying process?
Well, unless you’re buying the house in cash, you have to have insurance on the home before you can close on it. And even if you can afford to pay for the house like that, you should still have insurance in place as soon as the property is legally yours. Otherwise, you’ve paid in full for something that, if an accident were to occur, you’d be paying thousands of dollars out of pocket to fix instead of one reasonable premium per year.
When you buy a house, the insurance company will first inspect it. They want to make sure they’re not insuring a property that has anything hazardous that could cause a claim. If the property already has something wrong with it, they want to know so you can’t submit a claim later to try to get them to fix it for you.
Which brings me to my next point…
You may not be aware of this, but even after a supposedly successful home inspection that yielded only some minor, easily fixable problems, your new property might have more issues that you’re not aware of. And whether you knew about them or not before closing on the new house, pre-existing issues are not covered under a homeowner’s policy. The insurance company does not sign on for any damage, neglect, or problems left behind by the previous owner, and it can leave you footing the bill.
Our advice to you? Since you can’t guarantee that every problem or concern will be addressed simply by a home inspection or the insurance company coming out to look out the house, be prepared to research the area to find out if it’s prone to any pest problems, infestations, flooding, or other things that could affect your home.
Also, ask your own questions to have peace of mind and full disclosure. It’s not that you don’t want the house, as every pre-owned home comes with its own quirks. It’s just that you’d rather be proactive than reactive, especially when these kinds of situations can lead to significant out-of-pocket costs if left too long.
Just keep in mind that what happens when you buy a house can be a lot more than you bargained for. So if you’re looking for a more extensive list of things to look out for or you want a consultation on a potential new purchase, give us a call today! We’ll help prepare you for all those scary “what happens when” scenarios!
New small business owners have a lot of things they need to take care of.
If you’re providing a certain product, you need to make sure that production is going on smoothly and that the product is meeting the standards you’ve set for yourself. Plus, you need to get into marketing and drive up the demand for your product.
Similarly, if you’re providing a service, you need to make sure that you have several good providers of that service on your payroll (unless you are the only one providing that service.) And marketing is important in this scenario too.
The point is, the smooth functioning of any business takes a lot of work. There are many things that must be considered and taken care of—administration, HR, sales, accounting etc. Given that a small business owner is usually going to have to pick up all these skills in a hurry, it’s quite likely that one aspect might get ignored.
Often, it’s bookkeeping/accounting that doesn’t get the necessary attention.
Sometimes, bad bookkeeping is just due to oversight. But other times, it happens because the small business owner might actually be afraid of what good record-keeping will reveal.
Many small businesses go out of business in the first six months due to a lack of capital. Running a business costs more than most business owners anticipate.
But this doesn’t mean you ignore accounting/bookkeeping altogether. In fact, managing your books well from the beginning will help you to make sure that you don’t go over the budget you’ve set for yourself.
The most important thing you need to know is what your company’s overall budget is.
Make sure you have a number in your head. Write that number down where you’ll see it every day. Tell people to remind you of that number every time you spend money on your business. Knowing where you’re starting out from is going to be the most important aspect of getting your business off the ground.
If you’re not in a place where you can hire a bookkeeper/accountant to help you out, you need to start writing things down yourself. This is also a task that you can assign to an assistant/manager, as long as that person is detail-oriented and has a good head for numbers.
Writing things down has the advantage of making things seem more real and might even help you to curb your expenditure in the long term.
Matching a job to a person can be a very stressful and difficult task. There are candidates that meet the needed requirements—and there are candidates that do not.
Finding the right person for a position means telling someone that they are hired, and it means telling a lot of other people that they did not get the job. Unfortunately, this can lead to some pretty sticky legal situations for companies who don’t employ best practices when dealing with prospective employees. It can also be a financially ruinous scenario for a company that does not have employment practices liability insurance (EPLI).
In this video, Alan discusses what you can and cannot say when interviewing potential employees, and how to avoid legal action down the line.
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