8 Tips for Lowering Your Small Business Insurance Premium

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1. Background checks on employees: minimize risk of theft or malfeasance.

One of the biggest drivers of higher premiums is claims. If you can go a full year or longer without the need to have a claim, your rates will go down. Make sure you hire employees without a criminal background to reduce your potential risks. Remember that claims can be made by clients or customers, employees or others. It is important to do all that you can to operate a “safety first” business and do everything you can to hire the best possible people.

2. Require driver education/safety classes for your drivers,

hire drivers with clean driving records and institute a random drug testing policy. If your business requires motor vehicles, it is important that you hire, train and monitor your employees for compliance. Institute preventative maintenance program for your vehicles to make sure that they are properly maintained. If your employees use their personal vehicles for business purposes, you will need to make sure that they all are properly insured and maintained before they use their personal vehicle for business.

3. Comparison shop for the best business insurance rates at least once a year.

Many small business owners are so busy operating their business and satisfying their clients, they don’t always allocated enough time to comparison shopping for their insurance. This is extremely important as your business and clients are constantly changing and your financial risk may also be changing. Sites like SmartFinancial.com and UnitedStatesInsurance.com do all the work for you. They work with the best large and small business insurance carriers in the nation to find you the best rates for your business.

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4. Bundle your types of insurance coverages.

There are multiple types of commercial insurance to protect every “risk point” in your business. They include, commercial property, general liability, workers compensation or workers comp, business owners property and vehicle. When you can have one carrier offer you all 5 types, you should be able to get a lower bundled rate than if you were to purchase each insurance separately from several different companies. The more business you have with one carrier, the less you will have to pay.

5. Bundle your personal and business policies.

Depending on the ownership structure of your business, you may be eligible to bundle both your person and business policies together to save even more. The good thing about sites like SmartFinancial.com and Unitedstatesinsurance.com, they can help you comparison shop for both your personal and commercial or business insurance.

6. Install security and safety systems in your vehicles and property.

Properly securing your valuable business assets will also be a way for you to reduce your commercial or business insurance premium. Make sure you have proper fire safety equipment on premise and that it is tested annually. Having a monitored security system in your business property and adequate security on your commercial vehicles will reduce the risk of theft or damage.

7. Maintain detailed inventory of supplies and equipment.

By maintaining a detailed inventory of your supplies and equipment, you will be able to optimize your coverage to make sure you are not over or under-insured. Oftentimes, many small business owners will estimate the value. Keeping an accurate inventory will enable you to have an optimal level of coverage.

8. Maintain good personal and business credit.

If you are a new business, your insurance company will probably use your personal credit history in its decision of what to quote you for your business insurance. You will want to work on establishing credit in your business name, this will help you to lower your premiums. This is especially true if your personal credit isn’t the greatest.

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