Can I eSign New York Business Insurance Quotation Form

Can i document type e sign business insurance quotation form new york

good morning and welcome to our webinar on business owner insurance a special welcome and thank you to our presenter today John Jefferies from Ulster Insurance Services I am your moderator Renee Gono from the New York Small Business Development Center a quick note about the New York SBDC we are a network of 22 campus-based centers and satellite offices across New York State we provide free business advising and free and low-cost business training in person and online our services are made possible by the US Small Business Administration the state of New York and our host campuses if you have any questions during the webinar please don't hesitate to type them in your chat box and with that I will turn controls over to you John so what's the the purpose of the webinar the goal is to help you become more becoming more educated buyer the point is also to help you create a balance between coverage and cost everybody knows there's going to be a cost but you want to make sure you're getting the make sure that you're getting the proper coverage for the amount that you're paying out and also to give you some insight so that you can make changes ahead of time before applying to an insurance company kind of get your ducks in a row well my background is is that I've been in the insurance industry for 11 years I've won many hats while being in the insurance industry I've done life health business home auto and that's kind of giving a perspective for many different audiences and the ability to serve different groups and this is geared up towards people who are on the beginning stages of their business career and they have not I would imagine most people on this have not purchased business insurance before so that's perspective of where I'm coming from I'm an employee of ulster insurance services which is a wholly owned subsidiary of also Savings Bank Ulster insurance services insurance broker we are not an insurance company so if somebody goes through an insurance broker that's not the insurance company what they're doing is they're aligning you with an insurance company and that is a subtlety that I see it's often missed now we also represent many different insurance companies so that also shifts kind of the mentality and where I come from on this because I'm up for service as many companies not a single company so if you are working with agent or broker who has a single company that they're working with their perspective may be different and I take different not better not worse so just so you know where I'm coming from and the perspective that I'm using all this is based on my personal experience I've always worked for a brokerage so just that there may be biases there and if you have any questions on that obviously feel free to ask and I'd be happy to go into more more depth on it so what is insurance insurance is the transfer risk from one party to another and I think this is where many people I'll pop back in basically we're told don't put all your eggs in one basket diversify your portfolio risk management but when it comes to a business I think most people find that all of their eggs are in one basket you may find a business that all of their business concerns are all in one building so how are you going to spread it out there's no effective way of doing it you can't split the building in half you can put procedures in place you can put sprinklers in you can put make sure you're near a fire house make sure it's a masonary environment but the reality is all that risk is still in one place insurance is a way of hiring somebody else to take a part of that risk and you pay them to do that that's essentially what it says is spreading that risk out and it goes back as far as when they were sending out ships to get spices from India they found that people are putting all of their assets into those ships they sank the people were destitute and that's where Lloyd's in London what I believe was declared to be the first insurance company started spreading that risk out so that if a ship were to go down not people wouldn't lose all of the assets in one venture and that's what insurance is it's just spreading that risk out to other people and there's many different companies out there now doing it and what's a bomb within the insurance industry a bump is a business owners policy it's primarily aimed at small businesses they're self-contained what would be called mom and pops office exposures small shops like a small pet store or a salon or things of that nature it protects a business if you're sued if you have a covered loss of property or business interruption those are the main three things that it's covering so liability coverage liability coverage is covering you if you happen to be sued if you're sued and you're found liable you're covered up to the liability limit in your policy and this is where it's important to make sure that you're properly covered because you don't want to find out that you undercut this coverage and that you get sued and it's not solely covered so what one of the things that we recommend and I think most companies out there would recommend is that you go with at least 1 million in liability coverage just because we're in a little society and there's a lot of people out there that when they think suit they automatically make a million dollars and I would maximize that as much as you can get where it's reasonable in cost obviously you can't buy so much insurance that you're not making a profit but you want to cover yourself so you don't lose all that profit in one mistake one of the most important things in an insurance policy I think is the insurance company hires lawyers if you're sued we all have heard of privileged lawsuits we've heard of people slipping and falling on purpose and then suing the business I don't know there's any way to really completely defend yourself against this people are out there committing fraud are going to continue to commit fraud but the way you protect yourself against it is that insurance policy has a duty to defend clause in it so if you're sued even if it's not legitimate even if it's frivolous there's no merit the insurance company still has to pay for lawyers you don't have to go and hire someone you know how to put a retainer and you don't have to pay for their hourly fee to defend you all of what they'll do you can do this on your own but the cost there can become enormous pretty quickly I think that's among the most important things that is out there in liability coverage so and this is also you will see on your death pages your declaration page and you will see on your policy that this is one of the things that has a slash so often you'll see 1 million two million and that's where it's kind of a starting point the 1 million is for any one loss any one lawsuit and the 2 million is your advocate so that's your total throughout the year that you add up to so you can have several suits as long as they exceed that 2 million and no one of them exceeds 1 million you have two coverage but that can be upgraded beyond that and you can even get an umbrella to go above that you just have to kind of get a feel for your business well if your pet shop the chance of somebody coming after you for 10 million dollars in lawsuit is not as likely as a person who's doing something that's a much higher risk property coverage this was pretty straightforward to protect your property protects a building there's a fire there's lightning there's something falls on the building if there's some way shape or form that the building can get damaged this is where the coverage comes in you want to make sure that it you have enough that it's going to fully cover the building if you own the building if you have to cover the building you don't want to cover if you don't have to know that's just wasted money the second is business personal property this is the equipment in the building basically the way I've heard it described is if you turn the building upside down and shake it out whatever falls that's your business personal property some businesses business personal property will far exceed the cost of building itself and this is an area where it's your business you want to draw this line you want to kinda have an idea going in what these things are going to cost what do you need to cover nor keep your business in place it's just something again keep your ducks in row make sure that you have this information ahead of time and if you're working with someone and sure it's broker or or an agent they need to walk you walk you through some of the strategic standpoint but you want to kind of have an idea ahead of time too business interruption coverage if you have damage to the building an insurance company says yep it's covered and now it's gonna take six months to recover the building what do you do to make money in the meantime you're still gonna have bills what if you have a commercial loan who's gonna make the payments on that I gonna continue to pay for all the things that are still expenses who's gonna pay the payroll when you're unable to make money that's where business interruption coverage comes in and that's part of a Bob that's one of the main features of a Bob is that it does come in and help pay for the time in between when you're able to actually when you're able to actually make money again it does come in in the it's just I could see an easy situation where somebody is unable to make money and goes out of business even though it covered expenses in there something that nobody really wants to say they business you've worked to build it you wanted to be able to persist even through a really rough time John we had a question for you apologizing for the business Russian coverage how do you determine how much that is is that something you work with your broker on or is it a month of how do you go about that calculation usually I believe the rules always a year and it's usually a deductible of 24 hours you have to ahead of time one of the things that's used in underwriting it's gross sales so it's going to be based on what you proclaim at the beginning of the writing of the policy great thank you okay so the dues be honest don't don't try to pull it over on the insurance company it will come back to bite you they do their underwriting the people that do it that's all they do is look at these things day in day out whatever trick that somebody thinks they can come up with the insurance companies are already on top of it and also if they catch one thing that looks dishonest I can examine everything else with a fine-tooth comb so just be honest plainly numbers ahead of time like gross sales like the area of the building or how many people you expect to come through the building those are things that are going to be used to develop the rate so the more of that you have ahead of time just assume whether the process is going to go have accurate details on the building the lease in the property so is your building made of brick or is it made of wood is it a hundred years old was it built last year all these things go into the rate and it's very easy to not know these things it's very common to not know these things ahead of time this is something that could easily make this the process a lot simpler so and then also know your lease we've seen people that we go through we do an entire quotes and then find out if there's something in the lease we need to reassess everything at the last second so that's something the insurance professionals you're dealing with they can't know you're Lee yes unless you give them the details so we want to do is provide them with as many details as possible so that they can serve you best and then property details if you know that there's a suspect sidewalk out front the insurance company is going to notice it so you want to address that as early as possible it makes you have enough time to shop you want to get as far ahead of it as possible they say 90 days you want to start thinking about the insurance and then you want to give about 30 days you don't want the insurance professional you're working with to be limited who they can go to because they know who's fastest because some companies are faster than others but that isn't the only judgment that you know you should use with them some companies may be slower but are a better rate and possibly have a more robust coverage package so you want to give them just enough time to go through and make sure that first you're getting like I said that balance between coverage and cost find someone you can trust and communicate with well you want to be able to talk to the people that you're dealing with you want to have that level of trust that they are doing a good job for you and that you are that they do have a level of professionalism that they do have a connection with the insurance companies that they're dealing with so you want to make sure that you feel comfortable to have a real conversation with the people you're dealing with I think this is among the most vital things possible if you don't feel that level of comfort something might not get said if it doesn't get said you may not have the proper coverage in all they do is maximize your coverage I've seen people who are on the low and risk wise who fall below company minimums when you fall below company minimums as the time to kind of maximize all the coverages you get the most of what you pay for I've seen people that only have five hundred thousand dollars in liability coverage but we're able to get up to two million with no additional cost I've seen people that didn't have any property coverage because they were trying to make sure they didn't pay too much but because they're below company minimums they were able to get property coverage and no additional cost so make sure strategy wise if you run that low and risk wise uh you are maximizing everything you can because companies do have minimums on in terms of of their overall premiums Oh every time they take a premium there's a cost insurance company they understand that so they do have a minimum so your coverage will never cost nothing and using the middle was around $500 if you're if you're in a very very low grace situation like a photographer or graphic artist or all you do is web design and nobody's coming onto your facilities they tend to be on the low risk side but they are the ones who can really maximize their coverages underneath that bit of them so make sure you're getting everything you're paying for and this is one that I think people overlook completely pay attention to your web sites pay attention to Facebook Street View in advertisements Street View is one that I think people don't think of at all um but now you can go on Google you can go down Main Street and you can see the front your building make sure that if you build it's a really bad photo that we're ahead of the game and then we have some prepared pictures to send over to underwriting to make sure that we're shopping effectively make sure your website doesn't have things that are extreme like if you're a lawncare don't have a picture on the website of somebody dangling from a tree cutting with a chainsaw we don't want to have this framed in a way that skews the underwriters towards thinking that you're doing more dangerous things than you are if you're a tree cutter and you're hanging off a tree cutting that's what you do that's completely accurate that's not a problem at all because we're we're telling the correct story and then Facebook all other writers the first thing we do we make a submission that going to Facebook and looking at what are you advertising what you're saying you can do and then all of your advertisements if you're advertising ten thousand different things the underwriters going to want to underwrite for all those ten thousand different things that may hurt your ability to get a proper rate when we're going to an underwriter what we want to do is make sure they have an accurate view of what you do if there's something extreme on your website that's outside of your normal operations what we're doing is we're anchoring there what you're doing to the wrong things they start having an idea that may not that may not be what your true core business is so we just wanna make sure that we're addressing those things when we go to an underwriter we hand over the know the submission to them or the risk to them we want to have it be accurate I think that's among the most important things we're not misleading but we want accuracy so you end that that's just one of the things I find is it's been catching people pretty frequently is that their websites are indicative of what they do on a daily basis don't don't over embellish what you do we will tell the true story of what you do but we don't want to give too much information if we're thinking about in five years expanding into a high-risk area we don't want to talk about that initially every insurance contract is a year contract if you think it might happen during the year we might need to address that if you're not doing it yet don't address it yet it's something you do want to back off on and put aside if it does come up mid-year now we need to address it mid-year we need to go through talk that your underwriter see if we need to endorse the pause or make a change their policy or if we need to change the policy altogether and go different direction but that's maybe year you don't want to pay more all year long because we proclaimed that something was going to be more expensive or more a higher risk it had to pay the entire year just in case more business came in I find this often happens with contractors they will say sure I'll do that sure I'll do that sure I'll do that and what they're doing is they're they're triggering the underwriter into saying higher risk higher risk higher risk if you're just a drywaller that's what we're going to say now if you think you're going to expand into electrical work that's fine um but let's not cross that bridge until we get to it and then also don't just sign up with Uncle Bob out of family loyalty just because you have a nephew got in the industry two weeks ago or somebody who's been in the industry for ten years but all they've done is homeowners policies they may not be the best source this is your business this is this is your this is paying the bills this is what puts food on the fan on the family table this is what pays for the vacation there Bob might want to go on as well we want to make sure that you're dealing with an educated professional and if that is Bob awesome because that communication levels going to be there that that's actually a good thing but make sure it's not just out of family loyalty you want to miss you have somebody who's educated who's a professional in the area so I'm certainly not talking against Uncle Bob if you have to have a Uncle Bob who's an expert in the area is the best in his field and in this area that'll be great that's awesome has somebody that you can communicate well with but make sure it's not just because of family loyalty losing the business because of choices made by something's not experienced is is just too important in my mind and obviously that's something that you have to make as a decision on your own so tips read release go through we've gone through entire policies given a quote and found on the day windows closing the business was transferring hands that the way that the least that the building that they were going into said that they had to cover the building they didn't know that our quote did not reflect that so on closing day we're not telling them that they have a huge increase in the amount that we quoted because we just weren't aware so just make sure you read the lease make sure that you're aware of what is necessary austin leases will have insurance requirements they'll often require 1 million two million coverage and again that's that 1 million for one instance or 2 million for the year in terms of total coverage don't skip hire in a not owned this is an area that's very easy to skip hired a no known this is not commercial auto insurance it is I send my my worker out to grab coffee for for everyone and they get into an accident they could file a police report close or an accident they say I'll just grab a coffee for the office if lawyers get involved they know that they can see the business for this you want to make sure this is something that you have it's generally concerned inexpensive coverage but it's a area where it could end up making a huge difference to the company if you sense we have to pick up a ream of paper I you want to make sure that you do have those incidentals if you have to rent a car for some reason for the business this is something that we've covered there but also employee cars that doing company business and even as simple as going and getting a coffee this is an area where you can cover for relatively low cost everybody knows that you can raise your deductible to lower the premium you want to make this you know it approach this in an intelligent way so each year you might want to add a little more to say things um to build that deductible us to lower your overall cost this does not apply to a person who's near the minimum for instance I've seen people drop their deductible down or 250 dollars without increasing because they're below that minimum cost again so if you're in a low-risk business raising your deductible may be a bad strategy get the most for your money that that's kind of the theme always kept the most for your money when it comes to insurance add the inhale enhancements and endorsements onto your policy if if you have the ability to do so not every business has it but these are things where you add in some like debris removal employee dishonesty backup sewer drains these things come in packages they make the coverage more robust these packages are sometimes only 150 200 dollars and it can add a lot your business and a lot of things will never come up but if they do it becomes incredibly valuable and that's kind of how insurance works you hope you never need to use it but if you do it that's what becomes incredibly valuable also check your industry associations some industry associations have amazing insurance policies but I do cost you now to get to loyal to them sometimes they become too expensive sometimes there is better there there is better coverage out there and more robust coverage available so checking currency associate the industry associations you have you may be able to find coverage there that is custom cut to your needs and is less expensive it happens and that would be great but if it's not better don't go with it don't be overly loyal to it if there's something out there that's better again maximize your dollars for coverage it's it's the overall theme that I try to harp on a little bit so what's not covered under a bomb commercial auto if you have a fleet of cars that are out making deliveries that's a commercial auto policy and it's not covered under a Bop that is not what hired to not own this so if you're in a delivery situation if you're a restaurant you're running deliveries that that's not something it's going to be covered under your Bop uh if you're you know on the road you have commercial vehicles with your your sign on the side it's not covered under about that is a separate policy we'll go over more of that next week what we do though do these commercial package policies professional liability is not covered under a bomb normally so they can be added back in depending on the business professional liability is like malpractice so if you make professional recommendations and they don't go well and somebody Sue's you for it that's something that's considered professional liability in the medical industry we call it malpractice in the insurance industry we call it errors and omissions if you make a professional professional opinion or make recommendations and they feel that in doing so you harmed them they can sue you for it this is what professional liability is some industries it can be bought back under a bomb there's some riders that can can be added on to to do that but that's not a hundred percent dependent in industry you're in workers compensation is not covered under a bomb it is a completely separate policy that's if you're the people working for you get hurt that covers them for their medical expenses and we'll go over a little bit of that next week as well that is a area where you may be required to have that that may be a legal requirement workers compensation and disability they're not covered under a bop plan a bop is much simpler than that flood is not governed under bops it is specifically excluded under everything pretty much unless it's a flood policy if you're in a situation where a flood could come through or is even slightly likely flood can be incredibly valuable to a person who needs it in our local area we're in the Kingston area in the Hudson Valley we had a couple of mountain towns where they were just wiped out entire main streets were you know three four feet of water I think the same thing is happened up in the Mohawk Valley we're in New York State New York State has floods and they can be pretty pretty catastrophic if it's your business it's not a bad idea to get that but it does not cover under this policy also be aware of anything that's excluded there are going to be exclusions in your policy you want to read through make sure that nothing is excluded that you need to have some of the common exclusions that you that are out there are like war if you have a loss due to war it's not gonna be covered the insurance companies since its beliefs is Dave one of the have actually excluded war just because it's if it occurs it's so catastrophic that the insurance companies will go out of business if they covered it nuclear hazard is another one that's on every policies and exclusion earthquakes is one that's on the majority of policies as an exclusion in New York I don't know if there's been a lot of losses in regards to earthquakes but I would say most policies don't cover it that's something that generally you could buy back you can go in and get into the dortmund for it I just worked on a homeowner's policy where I found a policy where it was available to them they had asked about it and that was the first time they come up I do know we have earthquakes in New York but we don't tend to have a lot of ones that are causing property damage unless I want to wear so if you're in anywhere that happened actually show me an email actually I'd like to hear about whether that's actually occurring or not and whether that's a false statement so just be aware of the exclusions yes the next slide if you're a landlord do you want a Bob or just have the extra chart for renting to others fee that's a that's something where you want to fill it out it can be a Bob depending on how many how many units you're renting out so it may fit into a bob but we find that falls under what's called a landlord package policy which are closer to a homeowner's policy in a lot of ways or what was called a dwelling fire so the there structured a little differently so maybe depending on how large the facility is so that that's one where it's it's kind of on the line depending on the situation okay for this example it's 11 single-family properties that might begin to a commercial packaged property I would have to look at it more specifically and in different companies might treat it differently so this is an area where we would have to look at it from each company might address it slightly differently but 11 would definitely be in the commercial range so weather Bob were covered or not I would have to look if it's all on the same property or if it's something where's a commercial package where we have to look at it differently and it with properties like that if it's 11 separate properties it all can be completely different underwriting situation so one could be brick one could be what could be made with frame so it could be made out of wood so it's one of those ones where we'd have to kind of custom cut that there's not really one answer I could give that would make sense without going into more details great they will follow up with you to get more details on that okay no problem all right oh and who are you dealing with uh and this is where I said that a world broker I'm part of a brokerage so we deal with many different insurance companies accountant is an agent who works with just one company can only work with that company they're contracted these are very similar names so this is like your Allstate State Farm farm family believe lives are mutual if you're dealing with it directly is one of them they can only deal with that company when you go to them and they do the underwriting process it's only with them they may in fact be the underwriter I'm not in that boat so if that's an accurate you apologize but I believe they may also be the underwriter they are beholden to that company they're contracted so that is something that you just want to be aware of that is not a negative thing if they have the best coverage to the best price and sometimes they do so this is not a negative thing overall just know who you're dealing with so the State Farm has bought programs and they may be very very good now as a broker because they're captive I also won't have access to that so that's why it's a little bit of a dark area for me because I'm not allowed to see it they do all of their work internally they don't deal with brokers on the outside a broker deals with many different companies or captivation deals with a company and that doesn't make it bad it just they don't have as many options but what they do do they don't do well so that there is an advantage there but it is different so just know who you're dealing with and a broker is again it is not holding anyone company so they they go out they shop the market for you and there's websites you can use websites there's nothing in general wrong with websites in fact I'm of the opinion that almost all informations available to everybody at all times and that's great but it's very difficult to know what to do we end up and now with what's called the paradox of choice there's so many options that it's hard to make any decisions a website allows you to pick up and drop coverages without necessarily knowing what you're picking up and dropping off so just be aware of that there's nothing necessarily wrong with a website many very good companies use websites but if you were to drop off an important conference you wouldn't know it until you had a loss and that's why I personally like to deal with people I like to get on the phone with them and have a conversation with them so I got to know that they understand what I'm looking for in websites will use sliders they will use just buttons it's easy to drop a coverage with just a button or a slider or some companies will come out with the personal line side pick your own rate well if your rate goes down you're losing something and I think that those things oversimplify and you may end up hurting yourself so just be very cautious with a website that does not make it bad and they if they're allowed to some of your state they that means that they are a legitimate company and they're financially viable there's nothing wrong with that just the level of responsibility falls directly on your shoulders there there's nobody else who's able to help you through with a website um it'd just be very cautious with that so that is not a good bad thing none of these are good bad it's just know who you're dealing with so that's the conclusion of the the base of the presentation thank you for listening thank you for the questions if you have any more questions now's a great time to ask if there's anything else you'd like me to go into more depth on I'd be happy to if I can and if not I just feel free to reach out I'd be happy to you know answer any questions through email phone I'd be happy to go through and do what I can to kind of make sure that you're making good decisions so the next slide is my contact information if you want to reach out email and also one thing that I would ask um any um any opinions you have on the presentation itself if you have any feedback on improvements or areas that you think it should be focused on more just let me know um I do enjoy getting feedback and learning that's one of things I do enjoy I speak in front of groups with some frequency but this is the first time they've actually spoken in front of a webinar so if you have any opinions or feedback that you think would help me in the future on that that would be very helpful so if you have any questions now's a great time great thank you John we do have quite a few questions rolling in so the first question that came in is do brokers help if a claim is needed every broker could have a different Department of how they work with that or I shouldn't say Department they're going to have a different way of addressing that oh they're gonna help they're gonna advocate for you because you're their client everyone every broker is going to have kind of a they all operate differently so there's no one way a broker's has to work the they're going to advocate for you often uh what you're going to see is that they tell you to get directly with the insurance company because the insurance company wants to deal with you directly they want to get everything that they can get notated notated they make the broker may give you steps to take as immediately as possible because one of the duties under an insurance policy is that you stop the loss so if there's a hole in the roof you want to put a tarp over or some way shape or form or move everything out of the way or put a bucket out to keep the loss from getting worse that's one of the duties you have under insurance policy so of broker make recommendations like that so they're all going to dress it slightly differently and they will help you but you're very likely going to have to directly deal with the insurance company to an extent great does your credit score impact your insurance rate it certainly affects your homeowners in the auto with no doubt whatsoever with the business insurance side they're using F I'm drawing a blank here that your tax ID number I don't know if I've drawn a blank on that they're using your tax ID number and I don't know if credit scores will be drawn from that as easily so not nearly as much if at all I haven't seen that come up frequently at all I know we do homeowners and auto policies we have to go out a disclaimer saying we're burning credit score that I have not seen come up on the commercial insurance situation depending on the size of the operation they may ask for a copy of your finances so they may want a financial statement so they may be running kind of like a background credit check from that perspective but to make sure that you're financially viable great and we have a couple more questions do you have access to coverage for home inspectors and you have access to coverage okay same thing they wrote again so yes do you have access to coverage for home inspectors I haven't particularly addressed that specifically but I don't like a look it out that's not what I so many different industries you can't you can't know everything so that's what I'd have to look up I don't know if that's something that's standard and easy and simple or if that's something that that needs further underwriting or or commercial package I'd have to that went up because they're not working just out of a home they're actually having to go out to a facility or a site to do the home inspection so there's kind of a different it may not be a Bob there may be a commercial package okay great I'll recommend that one for reaching out to you after for follow-up what type of insurance do you recommend for a tutoring business all services are provided on students or public premises well you're gonna want to have general liability you're going out to okay so I'm assuming that you're going out to a school I would say need you need you need a general liability you may you may not need a property it really depends whether you have you know a computer or set of books or software that could be lost a lot of stuff is backed up though so you may not need coverage on that so I was like definitely gl I also it's an awkward thing to refer to but it's something it's important you're going to want to have you're gonna want to make sure you have like an abuse of molestation coverage in place you're going to school you're dealing with kids and you did it with that kind of an environment if you get accused you want to be able to have a defense uh so that's something that we're looking at something like a package that would be able to add that in and then also obviously take you want to make sure you have precautions that you're taking never made ever below and things like that so I don't know there'll be a bomb I think that's probably going to be a package and from a liability standpoint pretty low but the specific coverages like abuse and molestation might end up becoming quite pricey I don't have that I haven't had it on that specifically on a tutor before though so I wouldn't know the exact more-or-less of how much that would cost great we have quite a few more questions can you offer advice for a small service that makes house calls the service is helping seniors for government forms well that's again that's another one where it definitely have GL you're going out to the property property depends do you have an office you have computer equipment is there backup so one thing I haven't mentioned yet that I probably should have at this point is cyber liability if you're keeping files and somebody could get a hold those files if you could lose a laptop you're gonna have cyber liability if there's if we're dealing with the elderly I would say abusive molestation might come up again it's something elder abuse is a thing that that does occur and if it occurs then people can make the accusation whether you're a person that's in that boat or not and if you have employees then you can leave that so much so that's another area where it's probably mostly a GL coverage it may not be about because you're going out so frequently so that's something that you may want to address from a general liability standpoint and then also make sure that you have all the other coverages that may come up in another one that either go into people's homes I would say make sure that you have you know there's some specific criteria in mind as to how people are supposed to act great can you save money if you lump your personal home auto with a bob from just one company um not impossible um but I ever heard of any particular programs it sounds like it you can but that may be something the captive carriers can do I could be blind to it cuz I don't not a captive carrier so something like a stay farm might do something like that depending on the business some homeowners policies will have a rider for a home business so like a couple companies to come to mind might be able depending on the business if you're you know if you're making your own fireworks it's not gonna work out that way you're gonna need to have a separate policy but depending on the business it's possible to combine them all into a homeowner's falls okay would you have an estimate on how much a 1 million coverage policy would cost no it's a complete variable the terminals are referring to before where we expand as coverage to 2 million 4 million from 500 thousand without really his rates he's a graphic designer nobody ever comes over his house he works alone so it's incredibly low cost for 500 bucks a year he's getting two million dollars in coverage but if a person who's a general contractor wants 1 million in coverage he could find you know if he's doing a hundred thousand dollars in sales that could be a seven thousand dollar policy and I'm just throwing numbers out there they don't attach these to any meaning but it could be a huge variable for that 1 million dollars so now there's no way of knowing without doing the business absolutely that makes sense do you have any experience with home-based daycare insurance it's a family daycare and what is the most important thing to look at when buying that type of insurance gl property because now you have to have this stuff you have to have you know bookcases and little chairs and all that sort of things you know we do need the property coverage so the people going out I assume that they're traveling light so there may not be a lot of property but it's they're coming to you now you have to have the facilities like we're gonna have employees so now you're looking at it's possibly could do another bump but you definitely have the abuse molestation again you're going to want to have cyber if you're keeping any files on hand for the kids and if you're you know in any situation where you're dealing with the school districts like you're in a and I forgotten the term for it but locally here in the case scenario a lot of daycares work with the school districts and they get part of their funding so basically the the preschool is also it's kind of a daycare they mixed together it's possibly headstart may be the proper word for it if you're doing that then you might have a higher threshold for what you need to have in terms of coverages things they made for the threshold in there but I would maximize Oh in the insurance industry children are considered what's called a indefensible indefensible if the kid is four you're a hard person at fault automatically in insurance companies are aware of that they if the kid gets hurt it's a hundred other adults responsibility you should have prevented it and we all know the kids are going to get hurt that they're going to walk into the wall they're gonna they're gonna run into the chair so there's you just want to be a hyper aware of the fact that that the insurance needs to be in place for the bigger things so you you definitely want to have coverage in place I was imagine a pop could cover it but you're gonna want to have the workers comp for the employees you're going to have abuse molestation in place because again an accusation could sink the business cyber if you are going to be sharing any files with outside sources great when you mention employee related coverage is there a difference between 1099 and w-2 workers huge difference if their w2 you're gonna need workers comp 1099 you may need workers comp if they're truly a 1099 there truly are a contractor and you got to look at the governmental definition of it of a 1099 if there are a 1099 you don't need workers comp from a legal standpoint but you may want to have it anyways because if they get hurt and they don't have workers comp for health insurance and they start looking for somebody help pay for bills under New York state law it may still come back to you so you do want to be very wary of that on a 1099 and if they're 1099 you may want to have them prove that they have workers comp we find this with contractors often because workers comp specially in the contracting business you know something so we working in office is less likely to get hurt than somebody who's swinging a hammer you know in that's an area where we find that the rates go way up pretty quickly so yeah a w2 they're an employee you need workers comp you need to have disability insurance in place by law 1099 it may be a really good idea to have that in place we have seen major companies get hit with this think it was several years ago now that Walmart I can't remember the numbers we're I think we're talking like 30 million dollars that they had to go and pay for a backlog of workers comp because the people who are cleaning were considered 1099 and then the Labor Department said no they're employees and then they had to go back and pay for all the workers comp because the definition of an employee so be very careful with your definition and the role that you expect your 1099s to play if you're managing managing their work on a daily basis they're probably employees so just be very wary of that and there are a lot of sources on that and I'm not a lawyer but just be very wary of it and if you're doing a lot with 1099s you may want to speak to a lawyer to make sure that you're dealing with them in a way that doesn't come back to bite you down the road great do you have a list of top-rated Bob insurance companies no I don't am best is going to have a list of them I would look for a rated or better there's a lot there's a lot of companies out there that are competing in this industry and a lot of are very very good so and I don't want to get into starting the list of ones that just I deal with um and we only deal with you know a rated um and you want to work with an admitted company when you can and most pops are admitted you're gonna find almost everything that's populated is is admitted so that that means that they're licensed to do business in New York State they meet interstate rules some of the outliers like somebody who's making many manufacturing fireworks or so he's doing let's say they're working on high-tension power lines and insurance carrier was admitted in New York State may not be able to do those kind of risk you may have to go outside New York State and then you may find the ratings start to fall um in terms of what's available to you but yes they admitted and I would say stick for a rated um and there's just there's a lot of write out there's a lot of competition in when you can I would go that route is to just am best and just check but I would say finds a point person who's able to advise you in the right direction once you get that once you get a person that kind of push in right direction if the record recommendations check the recommendations make sure that they're legit companies that hold up well and the Internet provides a lot of a lot of these things in a ambassador's kind of been around forever doing these sort of things and finding their financial viability one area where I would loosen the restriction on what the am best rating is is on health insurers the health insurance always seem to have low ratings so you may find a very good health insurer only having a B or C rating so that's one area where I found that am best I think is prudently rating but it looks worse than I think than it is great we have another credit score related question does your credit score impact you to buy a bond for your business I haven't dealt with bonds uh I don't know I would imagine it does but I don't know that offhand so I that's what I can get back down I just don't know that I personally have not worked in that particular field great thank you what type of insurance do I need for an employment agency well you're gonna need the office coverage so you're gonna get a bob for the office and then it's an employment agency you're going to get workers comp because I'm going to share an employment situation and you need your workers comp and your dbl your disability and then you couldn't want to have your employee practices coverage which everybody should have but in your case it would be a focus because the on-boarding and off-boarding of people is gonna be far more frequent so mistakes are more likely to happen and that's an area where I would definitely protect myself is that area because people don't always leave on happy terms so just and if you're an employment agency I would imagine this some of that if you're in the shared employee situation but you know workers comp general liability but I could see the the people that are working for you in your office staff a bappa cover the vast majority of your but I would definitely get additional policies for the risk specific to that industry great thank you what are the typical insurance limitations for working in multiple states I'm sorry I'd miss the end of that question I apologize what are the typical insurance limitations for working in multiple states as well as it's under written properly you shouldn't be limited as long as that's what we want to be up front and have a good level of communication with the the insurance professional you want to be able to go through and make sure you tell them that initially so you don't have any exclusions you're not aware of I'm trying to think of any in particular um and I can't think of any that I've run into but I haven't dealt with a lot of multi-state risks so if that's something that you're concerned with and I would definitely just address it with the insurance professional to make sure that it's not something that's excluded is there's no loopholes and they'll likely just call if t e underwriter and have a conversation with them a lot of the stuff is just communication great and we have a few more rolling and is there a package of insurance that would cover the basic needs for real estate investors I assume the needs would change as a project is renovated and is completed and switches to a rental property that's held yeah yeah that's where the landlord the landlord policy pops in depending on how large again it might be a commercial policy they do cover buildings under renovation differently than they do a fully renovated building so that would be what it's called a builder's risk and that it's more likely materials get stolen from the building under under construction so those risk covers those type of things because that's what the higher risk is is is in theft or vandalism because there's nobody living there so yeah there's a way of kind of custom cutting for that specific need great can you review the difference between business auto and commercial auto coverage well this is a commercial are kind of synonymous hired and none owned is a rider on the Bob that's what the occasional I'm running out for coffee I sent somebody to go pick up paper can you deliver these papers to our client just run them out it's a one-off random thing it covers you for incidental usage of an employee's car or a vehicle that you had to go rent for a particular purpose you're going on to a trade show you never do that but you have to rent a van to get everything to the trade show that's where hired on own comes in commercial auto is I'm running uh let's say like a propane company and I have trucks on the road all the time it's specifically it's a completely its own risk group it's not occasional it is your business plan it's how you operate so it's one's incidental but if something were to happen high risk and the other is and if you slap your name on the side of a vehicle it's a commercial vehicle in terms of your liability so just be very careful about that it's it's an area where I don't think most people understand that they're taking that risk on that if you put the picture on the vehicle and you're just travel around at night they cook up their business because they're gonna immediately associate that vehicle with the business thank you what type of insurance needs what I need to keep in mind for wedding and event planning business is I would go with I would I would first thing goes to a - professional liability you're basically being asked to make a hundred thousand recommendations so what's going through my head is a professional life doing that's what kind of caught me caught me off guard there for a second but you're going to want to have you know general liability if you're supplying any of the the chairs tents the trick the trellis anything like that you're going to want to have property coverage there if you're just meeting with people in coordinating that with others then property may not be an issue property coverage is totally fine to have but you don't wanna pay for property that's not necessary if you have a 500 laptop and that's all your property wipe unit you know extra on a policy for it if you can get it freeze and get it covered but if it's gonna fall below deductibles and it may not be necessary but if you have infrastructure that you're bringing with you to an event then you want to have that covered the but the professional is when I would jump to almost immediately if you own the venue then you want to have liquor liability if if you're if you're owning the venue people going to be drinking you wanna make sure you have some kind of liquor liability in place even if it's just a day policy and I would probably develop a relationship in your contract that they're going to actually acquire wedding coverage which is not an expense of coverage but if they get wedding coverage then if something happens they go to their insurance company instead of going to a lawyer and then they come after you it's just one more thing I would I would kind of work that into my into my business plan right off the bat if I was an event coordinating or in wedding coordinating great thank you John well we are at an hour so I don't know if you want to field one more question and then if there's any other follow-up ones I can email them to you would that work for you sure okay great the last one for today do you need a liquor liability for an Airbnb house rental the response that would be are you providing alcohol if you're providing alcohol I would say it starts to become a very valid concern to have liquor liability if you're selling alcohol certainly and then you have to legal I'm not sure one you need to get a liquor license but if it happens to be there I it's an area that I have not heard anybody address yet but I could see that being something that's prudent it in I believe it was in New York State we heard about somebody who did the Airbnb they did in their parents name and then showed up in like 20 teenagers and they're all drinking and nobody was quite sure who to sue when somebody got hurt so yeah the Airbnb czar kind of a cloudy area still so I would be I would make sure you read through the policy very specifically because Airbnb as a business is still very cloudy companies are still trying to their hands around it it's not something that it's been around long so you know when you when you're running a dentist office the insurance companies are pretty certain what the risks are they got this stuff down they've been doing it for 90 years Airbnb is still emerging same thing with the the car rentals are the uber and lyft and things like that they're still trying get their hands around it in a way that you know serves people and also that they're not gonna open themselves up to massive cost that they didn't anticipate so I have not heard that one yet I would say it's probably not a bad idea but I'm not sure who would actually sell it either because it's kind of a mix between private private and commercial absolutely and in this situation its guests bring their own it's not being provided then I don't think any of its on the person but again I'm not a lawyer so that might be something you want to talk to with a lawyer because there was that situation where those teams and I think everybody got sued because somebody got hurt or somebody left and got into a car accident after I was like 20 teens in a house that was Airbnb and basically it came back and the people rented house should know him better and then the parents should have known better and basically did without her and everybody's looking for somebody to blame and then there there wasn't really a good answer to that I didn't hear the conclusion either I may still be going on and I camera where it was I believe it was in central New York that that had occurred and I think everybody's kind of looking for the answer on that but I have a feeling it's in the course great thank you again John and thank you to all those who attended and for the great questions if you have any follow-up questions on the presentation for John his contact information is on the screen and if you have any questions for the New York SBDC on our business advising or trainings definitely check out our website at NY SBDC org or you can follow us on social to get more frequent updates