Businesses face challenges and threats everyday from multiple places.
Whether it’s injury or illness, damage or loss of equipment, theft, or even business disruption from completely unexpected situations, these risks are real, and everywhere.
You just have to look at the last 18 months and the uncertainty Covid-19 has caused to the future of so many businesses to understand why they need to protect themselves.
Business insurance is simply a means of protecting yourself and your company if you fall victim to an unexpected event that leaves you facing losses or potentially court action.
How does business insurance help?
While it’s often referred to simply as ‘business insurance’, it’s actually built up of several different insurance products based on the type and size of business you have, the kind of products you sell and what kind of contact you have with customers and the general public.
Although business insurance is something you have that you hope you never need to use, the consequences of not having it can be severe.
So, is it really worth the risk not investing in insurance for your company, knowing that you can never really be sure what unexpected events are around the corner?
Why you’re putting yourself at risk without business insurance
Here we look at some of the consequences of not having business insurance and why it’s important you have the right level of cover.
Loss of income
One of the most obvious risks of not having any type of business insurance is the immediate loss of income for your business in the event you face a claim – whether it’s from an accident, loss of equipment or anything that means you can’t work.
Without business insurance, the business (or potentially you) will become liable to pay any costs as the results of an unexpected event.
This could be anything from compensation claims for injuries at work, to replacing lost, stolen or damaged equipment, to repairing your office space in the event of something like a fire.
There’s also the loss of ongoing income if you can’t work as a result of the event.
For example, if you can’t operate because you lost all your equipment in a fire and can’t afford to replace it quickly, you’ll be losing money on an ongoing basis, not just immediately from the damage.
Unrecoverable loss of equipment
In a similar instance, if your equipment is damaged, lost, or stolen and you don’t have insurance, then you’ll have to pay the costs of repairing or replacing it out of the business’ income.
If this cost is substantial it could seriously put the financial future of the company at risk.
If you can’t afford to replace the equipment then you run the risk of your business going under.
Even the loss of a single key piece of equipment can jeopardise a business’ future without the safety net of insurance.
Large legal fees
If your business comes into close contact with the public on a regular basis, or you have employees, there’s always a risk that someone will be injured either at work, or as a result of the work going on.
If you don’t have insurance, and the injured person makes a claim against your company for negligence, then you’ll be facing potentially some very large legal fees if you want to fight the claim.
Even if you win, there’s very little chance of recovering any money from the fees, so your business will once again be at risk.
Having employers’ liability insurance in place is a legal requirement under UK law, adding to this with public and products liability insurance can futher protect you against claims and ensure your business’ future isn’t put at risk.
Legal trouble
While most business insurance is simply a safety net against potential losses or claims, in the UK some types of business insurance are mandatory and not having them can land you in some serious legal trouble.
If you have employees, by law you must have employers’ liability insurance.
It doesn’t matter if your employees are full-time, part-time, volunteers or contractors or temporary, you must have employers’ liability insurance.
This covers you and your business in the event an employee is injured or becomes ill as a result of working for your company.
If you don’t have employers’ liability insurance when you should, then you run the risk of facing large fines.
Putting your business’ future at risk
The fact is, while having business insurance can often feel like an expense, like house or car insurance, if something goes wrong, you’ll be in a better position with insurance in place.
Finding the right level of business insurance can protect your company against any and all unforeseen circumstances and cover any costs you might face and get you back up and running as quickly as possible.
But without business insurance, your business is always going to be at risk of failing because you won’t be able to survive if the worst does happen.
Contact us today and our expert advisors can help you find the level of business insurance cover you need to protect your business’ future.