Global Market Reviews

The modern society has very strong litigious mechanisms and dynamics. And small businesses risk facing professional liability that will more likely end their existence than in case of big enterprises. However, the majority of small business owners do not think much about developing a reliable insurance portfolio for their enterprises, which would provide protection and risk assessment to the right extent. And that’s certainly not the best strategy for those who want their businesses to grow and develop well.

Building up an insurance portfolio

Don’t expect to find a universal solution for small businesses, as there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all insurance portfolio for small enterprises. You will have to personally adjust and tailor your insurance policy in order to make sure your insurance needs are met to the right extent, combining numerous insurance products into a single portfolio. A typical insurance policy for small businesses is likely to include the following elements:

• Property insurance (covering damage to your buildings or property);
• General liability (covering damage to other party’s property);
• Errors and omissions (covering liability due to business practice faults);
• Workers’ compensation insurance (covering legal actions between you and your employees).

The purpose of errors and omissions insurance

Errors and omissions (E&O) is a special type of insurance coverage that is used for protecting your coverage against legal actions due to production mistakes. This is the same thing that is called malpractice in medical industry. Such errors represent a very high grade risk in any business circles. The following are some types of E&O a small business might experience (and get sued for, respectively): Read the rest of this entry »

Some insurance policies covering business include product liability coverage that is connected to the production and marketing of goods to the consumers. This type of insurance coverage protects the seller or the producer from liability due to malfunctioning or defects of the product claimed by the final customer. In case this coverage makes part of a general liability insurance policy for the business, it is also referred to as called products-completed operations coverage.

In order to understand how much importance this type of coverage may have for your business, it is important to fully understand the consequences of not having it. When you don’t have such insurance coverage, your business can face on of the following three types of claims:

1) Malfunctioning or defunct product – Such claims can arise due to errors or defects during the manufacturing process, rendering the final product defunct or even unsafe to use. One of the most recent examples of such claims are legal actions against Chinese manufacturers due to the use dangerous chemicals in the production process.

2) Defects in design – Claims of this type are caused by an initially unsafe or even dangerous design of the product. The infamous Pinto claims the Ford company had to face in 1970’s are probably the most memorable examples of such claims.

3) Unreliable warnings – These claims arise from improper labeling or instructions of the product that don’t warn in full about the potential risks and hazards of the product’s use. Think of the “coffee case” filed on McDonalds to understand better.

What people get from these claims is mostly economic and compensatory damages, medical bills and in some cases court and attorney’s fees. And if you think that a business relatively big can face such claims without serious drawbacks, think again, because there were just too many businesses both big and small that went down due to legal action like that.

Those who deal will selling and reselling products and goods are not likely to have any benefits from such coverage, at first sight. Such economic agents are simple distributors and most claims are filed against product manufacturers. But this doesn’t mean that they will not face legal action too. Some states call sellers and distributors together with manufacturers to legal responsibility for putting the product into the market and exposing customers to risks. Read the rest of this entry »