888-900-0205Floor Covering Store Insurance
If you own a floor covering store, you will find that the housing market has quite an effect on how much business you get. Fortunately, the housing market has improved in recent years, which means you should be prepared to see a growth of about 1.5% per year for the next 10 to 15 years. Whether you sell tile, hardwood, carpet, laminate, or any other material for floors, you should check out the kind of coverage your floor covering store insurance policy should include.
General Liability
When you own a retail store of any kind, you need to be prepared for numerous customers to walk through your business each day. A major aspect of being prepared is having general liability as part of your floor covering store insurance policy. When you stock your store with heavy flooring materials, such as tile or stone, there’s a chance they could fall on a customer, or that a customer could drop them on his or her feet.Without general liability coverage, you will be responsible for paying the medical bills of injured customers.
Liability also pays for repairs when someone’s property is damaged at your store. In addition, it will pay for your legal defense if you are accused of stealing another store’s ideas or committing libel or slander. Otherwise, you might have to pay legal fees and any settlements out of pocket.
Business Owners Policy (Bop)
A BOP is important because it combines a few types of coverage that you may find helpful. For example, this part of your business insurance policy will pay for repairs to your store after it is damaged by a natural disaster or even vandalism. It will also pay to replace any items within the store that are lost or destroyed. Other issues that your BOP should cover include sewer and drain backup, equipment breakdown, and alteration and forgery.
Commercial Auto
If you offer delivery of floor coverings, you need to obtain commercial auto coverage as part of your business insurance policy. After all, if you cause an accident while delivering tile to a customer, your personal auto policy will not cover the collision. You also need commercial auto coverage if you require employees to drive for your business, since their personal coverage will not apply to accidents they cause while driving for your store.
Workers Comp
Whether you employ just a few people or dozens, you need workers comp. Not only is it legally required, but it will also protect you and your employees when they are injured at work. Without this important part of floor covering store insurance, your employees will have to pay for their own medical treatment and rehabilitation after being injured on the job. They can then sue you to recoup the money, which could put you out of business. You can avoid this by simply adding workers comp to your floor covering store insurance policy, giving both you and your employees some peace of mind.
Excess Liability
In some cases, your general liability coverage is not enough to pay for your legal costs. If a settlement costs more than the limits of your liability coverage, you need to add excess liability to your floor covering store insurance policy to pay for the excess legal expenses.