What is Crime Insurance?
One of the first things you notice when you open a business is how different commercial insurance lines are from personal insurance lines. For example, most homeowner insurance policies offer fairly comprehensive types of coverage for theft. In some cases, your homeowner’s insurance would cover losses from thefts that happened when you were on vacation. Commercial insurance, unfortunately, is not as comprehensive as personal insurance and that is why crime insurance exists.
What is Crime Insurance?
Crime insurance is commercial insurance a business owner can buy as a standalone policy, or as an add-on to other types of commercial insurance. With crime insurance, the business owner can determine what types of crimes they want to be protected from and what types of assets are protected. There are also general crime insurance policies that cover basic items such as equipment or cash, but most business owners prefer to put together their own crime insurance coverage ranges to cover their particular type of business.
What Does Crime Insurance Protect Against?
The protection offered by crime insurance is broad, but it can all be grouped under the concept of protecting against loss due to criminal activity. The most common coverage options protect against theft, vandalism, fraud, and illegal marketing practices by the competition. But a business owner can also get coverage against specific crimes such as embezzlement, employee theft, damage to field equipment, and a wide variety of other specific types of coverage.
How Is A Policy Put Together?
Some companies offer pre-packaged crime insurance policies, but for the most part this type of policy is specialized and personalized. Instead of paying for a broad range of coverage types, companies will examine their business processes to determine where they specifically need protection against crime.
It is also not unusual for companies such as construction contractors to take out crime insurance policies based on the needs of individual projects. For example, if the company has a large project where it will be using a lot of its own equipment, then it is going to want a crime insurance policy with more protection for stolen or vandalized equipment.
Comprehensive Coverage
Many crime insurance policies can be written to protect company assets when those assets on on company premises and when those assets are not on the premises. For example, a company that is allowing employees to work from home might take out extra crime insurance to protect the laptop computers they will have to issue to each employee.
Our business experts can sit down with you and discuss your crime insurance needs. Most businesses do not realize they need crime insurance until it is too late. Our experts can point out areas in your business operations where crime insurance can act as protection against unexpected employee behavior or unexpected third-party activities. Crime insurance is just another part of the commercial insurance world that helps business owners to have peace of mind.