Massachusetts Home Business Insurance
How to connect with a local adviser in minutes
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Candace Jenkins is a licensed insurance advisor with over a decade of experience. She is also a writer and loves to write on all things insurance. Candace writes for TrustedChoice.com on a continuous basis and is here with the facts about all your insurance inquiries.
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Jeff Green has held a variety of sales and management roles at life insurance companies, Wall street firms, and distribution organizations over his 40-year career. He was previously Finra 7,24,66 registered and held life insurance licenses in multiple states. He is a graduate of Stony Brook University.
There are 669,224 small businesses in Massachusetts. When you work out of your residence, the right coverage can be confusing. Home-based business insurance is necessary to avoid financial exposure.
Fortunately, an independent insurance agent can help you find a policy for a fair price. They do the shopping for you so that you can save time. Connect with a local adviser to get started.
What Is Home-Based Business Insurance?
When you operate a Massachusetts business out of your home, there are several coverages you can acquire. Some homeowners policies will extend limits of protection by endorsement. Others will need a slew of separate business policies. The following protection could be utilized for your home business:
- Liability insurance: Pays for lawsuits for bodily injury, property damage, or slander.
- Equipment breakdown insurance: Pays for the replacement or repair of business equipment damaged due to a power surge, outage, and more.
- Business property insurance: Pays to replace or repair any business property damaged due to a covered peril.
- Professional liability: Pays for legal fees when you're sued due to possible faulty professional services offered.
What Does Home Business Insurance Cover?
Your Massachusetts home-based business insurance can protect against a number of risks. The type of coverage needed will depend on your industry, exposures, and the property associated with your company. Check out some options below:
- Homeowners policy coverage: If you simply do desk work from your home office and don't have any business property or any other risk exposures, then you may be able to extend coverage from your homeowners policy. This coverage will only give you your current liability limit, and that's pretty much it.
- Separate business policy coverage: If you have a more robust business with equipment, inventory, business property, and more, you'll need separate business insurance. These policies may need to come from your same home insurance carrier, depending on their guidelines. The policies can include general liability, commercial auto, business property, equipment breakdown, professional liability, and more.
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What Doesn't Home Business Insurance Cover?
Like any Massachusetts protection you purchase, exclusions will apply. Each policy will have coverages that will need to be added separately or not covered at all. Typical policies will not include the following coverages without adding them individually:
- Inventory: If you have business inventory, your policy will not provide coverage for its replacement or repair. You will need a business property policy that endorses this protection.
- Business equipment breakdown: Equipment breakdown due to a power outage or more will not be covered under your home or standard business policies without manually adding it beforehand.
- Customers on premises: If you have customers showing up at your house to pick up an item or come inside for business purposes, your policy could exclude this. Most homeowners policies will prohibit this risk. Some business policies may pick up this exposure depending on what's involved.
- Commercial auto: If you use your vehicle to run your business, you may need a commercial auto policy. This is separate insurance that will need to be quoted and is not automatically included.
- Professional liability: If you offer professional services like accounting, you'll need to have your own professional liability coverage for any poor advice or negligence that could occur. Your standard business insurance policies will not provide coverage for this type of lawsuit.
Do Home-Based Businesses Need Insurance?
Home-based businesses may not think they have significant risk factors, but they do. In Massachusetts, $8,060,079,000 in commercial insurance claims were paid in 2019 alone. If you're trying to protect your business from all the what-ifs, the right coverage for your home is necessary as well.
Your business operations put not only your livelihood at risk, but your residence and personal assets too. In order to avoid an attack on your personal and business investments at the same time, the right policies are needed for both. One claim could put you into financial ruin quickly, but an adviser can help.
How to Connect with a Massachusetts Independent Agent
Your Massachusetts home-based business can be tricky if you're not a licensed professional. There are several coverages that could be missed when you're not trained in insurance. Home business insurance can help protect all your risk exposures.
An independent insurance agent will have access to multiple markets so that you get the best rates for an affordable premium. Since they do the shopping on your behalf at no cost to you, it's a no-brainer. Connect with a local expert on TrustedChoice to get started today.