Insurance for Home-based Businesses

If you work from home, be sure to talk to your broker about adding property and liability coverage to your home insurance policy.

In this Internet Age, one of the fastest growing sectors today is the home-based business.More and more Canadians are operating successful businesses from their homes. What they may not know, however, is how this might impact their home insurance

Home-based business coverage is available as an extension of your home insurance but it’s important to understand that most residential policies do not provide coverage for businesses operating from home.

And, even if you’re only operating a home business part-time, you should consider home-based business insurance to make sure you and your business property are covered.

Benefits of a home-based business insurance plan

A home-based business insurance plan will cover your office equipment, business inventory on and off-premise and business interruption insurance if anything were to happen to your home because of an insured loss.

It covers the things you need to run your business, including furniture, equipment, desktop and laptop computer, software, cell phone and fax machine. It also includes items you stock, or goods you hold for sale.

Most importantly, it will cover you for additional liability for clients, delivery personnel and employees.

Should I insure my home-based business?

The answer really depends on what your business activities consist of.

If you have a lot of high-value equipment and no clients or employees coming to your house, it may be less expensive for you to add your equipment to your existing home coverage as an additional endorsement.

If you do work for the government or other high-profile agencies such as working as an author, event organizer, HR consultant, marketing consultant, translator or for a non-profit organization, you may want to consider Errors & Omissions insurance – in the event your business is held to be liable if a client claims financial loss due to an error or omission on your part, or that of an employee – which is required for some contracts.

Note that if clients or employees come into your home for the business purposes, you may not be covered under a standard home insurance policy for liability.

Additionally, if your business is larger than the typical one to two-person home-based business operation, you may need to consider standard business insurance. Your broker will be able to advise you as to what your particular situation requires.

We offer home office insurance extensions to bridge the gap between your residential policy and the needs of your small, commercial business. Talk to us!