OFFICE BUSINESS INSURANCE

Office Business Insurance is all about serving the residents within your marketplace.  Your business and operations are primarily administrative.  Offices associates with stores, or contracting trades, of distribution or other businesses are covered under those classifications.  Office Business Insurance is designed for those who provide (mainly) a service.  Insurance agents, stock brokers, doctor and dentists offices, and accountants, are good examples of the types of businesses that can be covered by an Office Business Insurance BOP policy.  Your primary exposure is the premises liability.  Except in rare instances, any professional liability you might require is coverage that is not covered in the Business Owner Policy.

Our Office Business Insurance protection is comprehensive coverage built onto the back of our business owner policy (BOP) foundation and it provides a lot of coverage at the least possible cost.  Most offices are eligible for coverage in our Business Owner policy program when the business is properly protected and managed.  When we can use the BOP for Office Business Insurance clients you will get our most efficient and cost effective policy option available.  This aids your bottom line without compromising on the wide scope of coverage and protection today’s businesses need. We are also able to offer the more extensive enterprises our commercial package policy program (CPP) with similar pricing and policy construction.

The Office Business Insurance policy language has been carefully written to provide comprehensive insurance for most office business operations and much of your exposure is the slip and fall exposures of your premises and operations.  We know that our Office Business Insurance policy will be an excellent policy choice for your business needs but all offices are not the same so we can tailor coverage to your specific needs with coverage endorsements.

In our Office Business Insurance BOP we include comprehensive general liability and business property coverage as a start and can add the other various coverage parts that you need for your business operations.  Our BOP coverage is thorough and protecting you with solid protection is what you are after.  We can write Office Business Insurance on either a single locations or multiple location basis but this policy is designed for most operations regardless of size with limitations to total property values and area occupied.  Most office classes are freely written but the typical points of emphasis from underwriter are the maintenance and condition of facilities, cleanliness and housekeeping, along with prior loss history and respectable financial success.

The Office Business Insurance policy is rated based upon area for most situations. Typically we include many of the following coverage and options but these are your choices to make. Basic general liability and property insurance is included automatically:

Liability – Office Business Insurance Package

• Bodily Injury and Property Damage, Premises Liability
  • Limits available up to $2,000,000/$4,000,000
• Personal Injury and Advertising Liability Coverage
• Coverage on your premises or wherever you do your work
• Employment Practices Liability Insurance
• Fellow Employee Coverage
• Host Liquor Liability
• Non-owned Watercraft
• Hired and Non-Owned Auto Liability
• Products and Completed Operations Liability
• Employee Benefits Liability
• Ohio Stop Gap Liability Insurance
• Cyber Insurance – Data Breach, Cyber Extortion
• Electronic  Data Liability Coverage

Liability insurance protects against the tort of negligence in the Office Business Insurance policy.  The tort of negligence is a breach of duty that is derived from common law principles that have evolved through decades and even centuries of recorded decisions about our relationships with one another including situations involving Office Business Insurance clients.  Your primary exposure is the premises and slip and fall injuries.  As an office business it is inherent in your business to avoid these kinds of losses by maintaining your facilities in a clean, uncluttered and orderly fashion.  This requires you to maintain constant vigilance on the housekeeping, floor upkeep, and using good common sense.

While slip, trip and fall events are among the most common losses for office businesses, the product you sell are less likely to bring the most expensive loss.  That may be just your service.  For certain professions, this service and advice creates a professional liability that is not covered in the standard general liability.  Your duty in the case of product or professional liability is to use all possible caution in giving advice, performing services, and dispensing your services.  Nevertheless, a duty is an obligation we owe to someone else when our product or premises is responsible for causing an injury.  In essence, we owe each other the duty to protect them from the consequences of our actions and when someone is hurt or suffers harm to either body, property, or reputation, we may be negligent. Premises liability is based on standard liability principles.  Professional liability is specialized product liability and is subject to a stricter responsibility for your Office Business Insurance to deal with after a loss occurs.  Remember, in most instances, professional liability is not included in the general liability.

In our culture we boil down our grievances to a money damages settlement in most cases.  In the case of the liability coverage provided in our Office Business Insurance policy, we will pay for the benefit of a legal defense against the claims of injury or damage and we will also pay the amounts that become due to another because a finding of your negligence has been agreed upon.  Agreements occur through legal proceedings or an agreement accomplished through the negotiations of your insurance carrier and the other people involved in the claim.  This includes bodily injury and property damage as a result of events on the premises, through acts on and away from the work facilities, injuries caused by products, advertising injury, personal injuries other than bodily injury, hired and non-owned auto liability, and injury or damage caused due to computer intrusion and compromise when coverage is chosen.  The benefit of a defense of claims can be the best benefit of the well endorsed Office Business Insurance policy.

Office Business Insurance – Property Coverage

• Owned Buildings including multiple locations
• Business Personal Property, Fixtures, Stock, Inventory
• Computers and Electronic Records including media
• Building Limit Automatic Increase at the Time of Loss
• Valuable Papers and Records
• Accounts Receivable Coverage
• Computer Coverage and Cyber Crime
• Outdoor Signs—Attached and Detached
• Building Ordinance and Law Coverage
• Off-Premises Coverage for Business Personal Property
• Property in Transit when properly endorsed
• Earthquake Coverage (Some carriers)
• Loss of Rents, Business Income, including Extra Expense Coverage
• Coverage For Water & Sewer Back-up – Not Flood
• Equipment Breakdown & Electrical Disturbance

As mentioned, our Office Business Insurance package policies are a combination of property and liability coverage.  You do not need to own the building but at the least we must include the business personal property in the coverage including stock and fixtures along with liability coverage.  If you own the building the BOP policy expects this to be included in policy coverage too.  The Office Business Insurance policy provides a lot of coverage in a tidy package and it is flexible enough to handle several locations and variety of situations for building, business personal property, computer and cyber-crime needs, signs, coverage on or off premises, loss of business income and break down of critical building mechanical systems that may alter your ability to operate your business.

Inland Marine and Special Property

(See IM Section for more Details)

Inland Marine coverage is especially designed for mobile equipment and property that leaves the insured premises/location.  A Office Business Insurance policy should consider the value of merchandise that is in transit and add coverage for items in transit.  Also, IM is needed if you take property to a client location for demonstration purposes.  A laptop or other devices you use in the field could also be covered by the Inland Marine property endorsement.

Umbrellas for Office Business Insurance

Office Business Insurance often includes an Umbrella liability policy as an additional limit of liability protection because of the potential for large liability claims can occur. Even if you are meticulous in your facilities management, you are still exposed to claims from slip and fall and product failure and it is wise to layer up your liability coverage for the ultimate protection. Most Umbrellas do not cover over the underlying professional liability policy coverage.

Think of an Umbrella policy as an extension of the underlying liability policy limits.  What isn’t covered in the primary policies may still be picked up in the Umbrella policy when the cause of loss is not specifically excluded.  Most carriers writing the primary Office Business Insurance policy will also write an Umbrella over their underlying policies.  It is good to know what is and isn’t covered by the Umbrella so make sure to ask.

Crime, Surety & Fidelity Bonds

• Employee Theft
• Crime Inside
• Crime Outside
• Surety & Fidelity Bonds

While you are busy operating and managing your business, your Office Business Insurance can be on guard for the loss of money and property through theft, robbery or burglary, or the dishonesty of an employee. These are losses that can cripple a business of any type and tailoring your protection needs for crime, surety and fidelity coverage can be done within the Business Owner Policy but may be better handled on a separate coverage forms.

Business Auto

(See business Auto Section for Details)

Most office business do not maintain business vehicles for their business operations and needs and even if that is not true for your business there are auto liability exposures to make sure you get covered even when you don’t own business vehicles.

If you maintain and operate your own business autos, trucks and trailers, you will need a separate business auto insurance policy that can be coordinated with your Office Business Insurance policy and which can enjoy maximum discounts on premium.  One of the biggest driver of pricing for business autos are driving records, claims experience, radius of distribution and the types of equipment you use.

It is more likely that the bigger exposures for your business comes from employee autos.  If you rely on the vehicles owned by your employees for occasional delivery or business errands, you will need employer’s non-ownership coverage since the accidents of employees could become your obligation to defend and pay under some circumstances.  You should purchase liability protection in limits similar to those you carry on premises and operations coverage.  We cover non-owned auto liability with an endorsement to your Office Business Insurance policy when you don’t otherwise own or operate business vehicles.

The business auto coverage is dealt with in general detail in the business auto section.  Follow the link to this section for my information.

Professional Advice and Agency Service

Quality coverage begins with understanding your needs and the extent of the risks in your operation.  Our claims and underwriter resources have plenty of experience in insuring and providing risk control and management benefits to businesses and their owners.  Moreover, I have 37 years of experience working with business owners and have insured hundreds of millions of dollars of property through the years along for hundreds and thousands of businesses.  Office Business Insurance is a relatively common coverage policy product and while our policies are competitive and priced right, the real value might be found in working with an agent who has enough relevant experience so you get the best coverage and best rates and coverage advice that helps avoid coverage holes. I have considerable experience working with small business owners and retail store owners and am available to help you.

This agency represents quality carriers that have the ability to provide the coverage your business needs whether or not it is ultimately provided inside of our Business Owner Policy or our more flexible Commercial Package Policy (CPP) option.  Call and ask for Terry McCarthy at (513) 779-7920, 9-5 Monday – Friday most days. We’re available to meet at most any time with an appointment in advance.