What Type of Insurance Do I Need for a Home-Based Business?
It seems like more and more Canadians are starting up and running businesses from their homes. Running a home-based business eliminates that troublesome commute, it enables you to work longer hours and it can really make life a lot less stressful.
However, even though you live and work under the same roof, you want your home and business to be two separate entities legally. It’s important to make sure you have insurance that protects both the home and the business, as if they are completely separate. And to do that, you must take a few different factors into consideration.
What’s Your Size?
In some instances, you can get home business insurance coverage as an extension of your normal home insurance, but that may not always be the case. Some home businesses literally consist of you, working alone at home with just a computer and little else. Other home businesses require several employees and specific equipment to enable the business to operate each day.
Whether or not clients come to your home-based business is also a consideration. The larger the business gets and the more people that go there on a regular basis, the greater likelihood there is for liability. Basically, employees, equipment, clients and delivery people require a different strategy than if it is just you and one or two others.
Get Specific
The type of home-based business you run will also have a bearing on the type of insurance you need. Are you a standard freelancer? Are you an event organizer with lots of highly detailed inventory in the house at any given time? Are you a consultant that possesses a lot of secretive information from other companies? Do you work for the government?
The type of business you operate usually determines what kind of merchandise and information you have in the house on a regular basis. There is a difference between having computer files full of Word documents and hundreds of posters or banners waiting for a huge conference or event. Real Estate Insurance
You might be able to just extend the home insurance you already have, you may need a special variation designed for home businesses or you may need completely separate business insurance.
The most important element is to have coverage no matter what happens, and the best way to ensure you have that is to speak to an expert about it as soon as possible. Give us a call and we will go over the possibilities with you.
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