A Guide to Errors and Omissions Liability Insurance

You know that your business needs some form of insurance for various professional pitfalls. However, don’t forget to enroll in the errors and omissions liability insurance. Otherwise known as professional insurance, it is an important part of all businesses coverage. When a customer is angry about poor service or a competitor is threatening patent lawsuits, you can rest easy knowing your business is covered.

When deciding which insurance company to go with, you’ll need to consider a variety of factors. Every errors and omissions liability insurance will change from company to company. Before deciding what insurance will be best, you’ll need to assess the needs of your business.

The first consideration to be made is how much court coverage you’re getting. Court coverage will pay for defense fees and in court loss of profit up to their limit. If you work heavily in the service industry or somewhere that client expectations need to be met, higher coverage amounts will be necessary for you. If you are worried that this is a problem you’ll be facing, getting higher limits will be your best defense. You don’t want to close your doors or claim bankruptcy for a false accusation.

Those in the medical field should consider professional liability coverage in the case of malpractice. Fitness professionals as well counselors and therapists will also want to be insured. These fields leave much discretion to the client about whether the services were adequate or not. Every customer has the right to sue for unsatisfactory services. In this case, the claims can become very objective, and you are automatically on the defense. In that battle, you don’t want to be caught without the proper coverage.

You should also consider whether your employees are covered under your insurance. Any employee that files a W2 can be placed under the same insurance the business as a whole has. Whether the employee is at fault or the company, this will ensure that no one is caught without the proper defense.

Subcontractors that file a 1099 cannot actually be covered under the business insurance. These employees will need to acquire their own insurance. As a separate entity to the business, these people will need to enroll their own personal insurance depending on the requirements of their job. Whether you choose to pay for that as a part of their benefits package is up to you.

Along with professional liability insurance comes copyright and intellectual infringement insurance. This is important if you are in the software or networking industry. Any customer or competitor can claim infringement against you.

When choosing your errors and omissions liability insurance be sure to consider the needs of your business in particular. Depending on how you interact with customers and competitors, protection will vary from company to company. Your most important considerations to make are how high your coverage limit needs to be, what extras are necessary and employee coverage. Once you have made those decisions you can go ahead and start looking through our list of approved vendors.