Business insurance considerations and where to get it

Lesson Details:

Video Transcription – Let's talk about a common confusion point of whether you should get business insurance should you get it it depends and this is one of those things that some people some businesses get it some people businesses don't get it and it appends on a lot in some countries insurance works in some countries it's just not a thing so it's a country-by-country first of all in the Western sort of hema street like hemisphere like Canada us Australia UK other European countries you insurance is more is more common for businesses it doesn't mean that all businesses have it many businesses don't have it but if you're not in those countries it's much less of a consideration now it also depends on the type of business and this may be the most important factor because for example let's say that your business is you're leading people through some hikes in the outdoors and like there's a risk that some people might fall off a cliff and some people might break a bone or get injured now they might sue because they really are going to get injured on the other hand if your business is a puzzle game app or a software that's a calculator for something that it's pretty simple not something that like like this you know it's gonna impact people's businesses or it's not gonna impact their health it's something basic that doesn't involve risk then guess what it's it's probably you're never gonna have a reason to get sued or it is nothing's gonna really go that wrong and people are gonna realize also hey you're a small business and there's not a lot of money to get from you people usually sue bigger businesses because there's a lot of money to get from them so if your business carries with it real risk with the actual execution of the business then it's more likely that you should get insurance if your business is benign in terms of risk then it's much less of a consideration and for tech businesses often insurance is a priority just because nobody's gonna trip and fall you know there there's no physical location when people can hit themselves or fall or get injured with the hot cup of coffee or anything that you know things you see typically see people businesses getting sued for of course there's always issues like harassment and things like that but again then again if you're just a business of one person you don't have that problem next is how far along in the business you are so if you're just starting out and if you're still in the planning stage maybe insurance is less of a consideration then if you're further along and if you're making good money now then of course the more money you make the more growth you have insurance is more of a consideration because you have more of a target on your back and you're reaching more people and who knows there may be some person who just like a you know little you know like litigious person and they might want to come after you so you want to protect yourself now you also there's different kinds of insurances by the way so you want to protect yourself from like maybe equipment getting lost or something valuable that you have we'll cover that in a second actually also insurance depends on your risk tolerance and the risk I mean for how might you know like because insurance does cost you money and by paying for insurance you're losing money so it's a little bit of a balance of hey what happened you know can you just tolerate the risk of maybe losing your computers or equipment or whatever so that you actually don't have to waste your money and time getting insurance and paying for it and all that so it's as you see this issue of insurance is it depends it depends comes up on every bullet point here and so your job is to understand that the thinking points and then make the decision yourself in the end so it also depends on your financial ability sometimes you just don't have the money to pay for insurance sometimes you just need to make your product and launch it and make money there but if you're starting your business often you don't have extra money so then insurance is less of an option for you now there is a comment you can buy business insurance from a lot of companies but the leader in you know at least in the US the leader is a hick Hicks Cox business insurance and I just want to show you their website quickly again I have no business relationship with them I don't get paid for promoting them I just wanted to show you them because they're it's a good resource for you to look into next in case you are interested in insurance so this is Hiscox com it's essentially America they said America's number one online small business insurer okay and what I want to show you is all the types of insurance that they have so you got general liability professional liability there is an omission cybersecurity workers compensation all this so you see wherever you are in your business or whatever what type of thing you do they have insurance for you and if you mouse over the small business you'll get a bigger list of insurances here and if some of it resonates with you like let's say you're a lawyer or let's say you're an accountant on hmm there is an emissions insurance well of course you're not a lawyer or accountant because this is for engineers but I'm just making an example so you see that wherever your business might be like you know there's some stuff for health and IT okay then so sorry for your health and IT so you see there may be some things for you so you want to look into it more then there's by state so you might want to look at hey you know what is different states you know if you're in one of these states of course you might want to look into hey maybe there's something specific for your state so it's a good thing to browse if you're just at the idea phase it's maybe not yet for you but if you're gonna grow your business you want to start thinking at least about it so that at the right moment you'll know when to get it if you inform yourself enough.