Blood, sweat, and tears go into a new business startup. You have enough to worry about with establishing your corporate structure, your accounting system, your location, your office layout, your stock, your inventory, and more. However, you also need to protect your investment — and you need help!
One of the most important assets you need to protect is your employee. Nothing costs an employer more than having to train and re-train staff. Start with good hiring practices by clearly defining the position and the requirements. You may want to conduct a proficiency test to evaluate the candidate’s skills and verify information that is presented on the application.
Once you have decided upon a particular person for the position, you must train them on the job with responsibilities including operations, internal controls and customer service. Never assume they know in advance of how you want the job done. You should be very specific, so that they do the job correctly.
Employees will work hard for you if they enjoy their job and the environment, but they are not just working at your business for fun. They expect to be compensated, and even if they love working for you, they will leave if a better offer comes along. So, how can you keep them on your team? You can establish certain retention targets and add employee benefits as they meet the targets. There are lower cost options such as life, vision, dental and telemed types of benefits, and you can grow into health and disability and retirement offerings. As your business grows and your team works with you to make it more profitable, you can all benefit from the success, and most of the benefits are tax deductible for your business.
Most industries need some combination of the following coverages, but it is best to work with an insurance advisor to be certain you are adequately protected.
- General liability insurance. This coverage provides both defense and damages if you, your employees, or your products or services are alleged to have caused bodily injury or property damage to a third party.
- Property insurance coverage provides building and business personal property, which includes office equipment, computers, inventory or tools protection from fire, vandalism, theft, smoke damage and other perils. You may also want to consider business interruption/loss of earnings insurance coverage to protect your lost earnings if the business is unable to operate.
- Business Owner’s Policy (BOP) will often provide a package of insurance including business interruption insurance, property insurance, vehicle coverage, liability insurance, and crime insurance all in one policy contract, which you can tailor to your specific needs.
- Commercial auto insurance protects a company’s vehicles and vehicles that carry employees, products or equipment.
- Worker’s compensation provides wage replacement and medical benefits payments to employees who are injured on the job.
- Professional liability insurance will provide defense and damages for failure to or improper rendering of professional services, and is critical for any professionals such as lawyers, accountants, consultants, agents — any profession providing services.
- Directors and officers insurance protects the board of directors and the corporate officers of a company with legal defense for their actions that may detrimentally affect the profitability or operations of the company.
- Data breach coverage provides protection in the event of data loss of sensitive or non-public information, and all of the compliance requirements and legal action necessary following a breach. There are different requirements in every state in which you may do business, and the exposure is very costly in the event of a breach.
