Tipos de cobertura

Insurance for other people’s property while it is in your possession — the customer’s goods, not yours.

Bailee coverage insures property belonging to customers while it is in your care, custody or control for service, repair, storage or transport. It exists because both liability and property policies exclude the property of others held by you.

Por qué importa: This is the gap that catches service businesses. General liability excludes damage to property in your care, custody and control. Your commercial property policy covers your property, not your customer’s. So a dry cleaner’s fire that destroys 400 customer garments, or a repair shop’s theft of customer equipment, falls between two policies.

When a cyber incident renders hardware permanently useless — a device that is now, functionally, a brick.

Bricking is the loss of use of hardware that has been rendered permanently inoperable by a cyber event, typically firmware corruption or malicious modification, where the device cannot be restored by reinstalling software and must be physically replaced.

Por qué importa: Most cyber policies are built around data: forensics, notification, restoration, business interruption. Bricking is a physical-loss consequence of a digital event, and it sits in a gap — the cyber policy may exclude tangible property damage, while the property policy excludes loss caused by a cyber event.

Property insurance on a structure while it is under construction, including materials on site.

Builders risk, also called course of construction insurance, covers physical loss to a building under construction or renovation, along with materials, temporary structures and often soft costs, for the duration of the project.

Por qué importa: A partially built structure is uninsured by everything else. The owner’s property policy typically does not attach until completion, the contractor’s general liability covers liability rather than the work itself, and an installation floater covers only the contractor’s materials.

Replaces the income you lose while a covered property loss keeps you closed. The coverage that decides whether you reopen.

Business interruption coverage, sometimes called business income coverage, pays the net income the business would have earned plus continuing normal operating expenses during the period of restoration following a covered physical loss to insured property.

Por qué importa: Property insurance rebuilds the building. Business interruption is what pays the staff, the rent and the loan while you cannot trade — and it is the coverage most often bought at too low a limit or with too long a waiting period.

General liability and commercial property bundled into one policy, usually cheaper than buying them separately.

A business owner’s policy packages general liability with commercial property coverage — and usually business interruption — into a single policy for small and medium businesses meeting eligibility criteria for size, class and location.

Por qué importa: For most small businesses with a location, this is the right starting structure. The bundle is priced below the sum of its parts, and business interruption is typically included rather than bought separately.

Your contents coverage — furniture, computers, inventory, equipment. Covered at the premises, not out in the world.

Business personal property coverage insures the contents a business owns at a described location: furniture, fixtures, machinery, computers, tools, inventory and improvements the insured made to a leased space.

Por qué importa: This is the coverage tenants most often carry too low. A limit chosen at lease signing does not track years of equipment and inventory growth, and the coinsurance clause applies to contents just as it does to buildings.

Covers vehicles used for business. Personal auto policies carry business-use exclusions — commonly delivery, livery and for-hire work — so a vehicle used that way can end up uninsured under a personal policy.

Commercial auto insurance covers liability and physical damage for vehicles owned, leased, hired or borrowed for business use, including hired and non-owned auto liability for employee vehicles used on company business.

Por qué importa: Personal auto policies contain a business use exclusion. Deliveries, hauling equipment, travelling between job sites and transporting clients can all void a personal policy claim, and a serious auto loss is among the largest a small business will face.

Covers your building, contents and equipment against fire, storm, theft and other named perils. Flood and earthquake are separate.

Commercial property insurance covers direct physical loss to buildings, business personal property and equipment at the described premises from covered perils, on either a named-peril or special (all-risk-except-excluded) form.

Por qué importa: The two decisions that determine whether a claim works are the valuation basis and the limit. Replacement cost over actual cash value, and a limit set from a current replacement cost estimate rather than an assessed value or a rolled-forward number.

Coverage for data breaches, ransomware and system failures — split into your own losses and claims against you.

Cyber liability insurance covers losses arising from data breaches, network security failures and privacy violations. First-party coverage pays the insured’s own costs; third-party coverage pays claims made against the insured by customers, partners and regulators.

Por qué importa: General liability excludes it. Electronic data is not tangible property, so a breach is not property damage, and a privacy violation is not bodily injury. Cyber is a separate purchase and now a near-universal need for any business holding data or taking payments.

Protects individual directors and officers — and the organization — against claims arising from management decisions.

Directors and officers liability insurance covers defense costs and damages arising from claims against individual directors, officers and sometimes employees for wrongful acts in their management capacity, along with the entity in defined circumstances.

Por qué importa: Personal assets are the exposure. Claims against directors and officers are made against them individually — by investors, regulators, employees, creditors, competitors or members — and corporate indemnification may be unavailable exactly when it is needed, such as in insolvency.

Legal liability for harm caused by a person you served alcohol to. General liability excludes it if you are in the alcohol business.

Dram shop liability refers to statutes and common law making an establishment liable for damages caused by a patron who was served while visibly intoxicated or who was underage. Liquor liability insurance is the coverage that responds.

Por qué importa: The exposure is not bounded by the tab. Damages are bounded by the injuries in the crash, which is why liquor liability claims are among the most severe a small hospitality business can face.

Part Two of a workers’ comp policy. It covers injury suits that fall outside the statutory benefit schedule.

Employer’s liability coverage, Part Two of a workers’ compensation policy, covers an employer’s liability for employee injury outside the statutory benefit schedule — including third-party-over actions, loss of consortium and dual capacity claims.

Por qué importa: Workers’ compensation benefits are the exclusive remedy for most employee injuries, but not all claims fit inside that bargain. Employer’s liability is what responds when they do not, and on a construction site those are the expensive ones.

Covers claims from employees — wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, retaliation. Not covered by anything else you own.

Employment practices liability insurance covers defense costs and damages arising from employment-related claims by employees, former employees and applicants, including wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, retaliation and failure to promote.

Por qué importa: This is the fastest-growing liability exposure for businesses under 100 employees, and nothing else in a standard insurance programme touches it. General liability covers third parties; workers’ compensation covers injury; neither covers an employment claim.

Pays the extra costs of staying open — or reopening faster — after a covered loss. The companion to business interruption.

Extra expense coverage pays the additional costs an insured incurs to avoid or minimize a suspension of operations after a covered loss: temporary premises, rented equipment, expedited shipping, overtime and relocation.

Por qué importa: Business interruption pays for the revenue you lost. Extra expense pays for the actions that stop you losing it — and those actions are usually the better outcome for everyone, including the insurer.

The base liability policy: third-party bodily injury, property damage, and personal and advertising injury.

Commercial general liability insurance covers claims by third parties for bodily injury, property damage, and personal and advertising injury arising out of the insured’s premises, operations, products and completed work, including the cost of defense.

Por qué importa: This is the policy every commercial contract asks for, almost always at $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate. It is the foundation of a business insurance programme and the reason you can get on a job site or sign a lease.

A workers’ comp policy with no covered payroll. It produces a certificate and pays nothing if you are hurt.

A ghost policy is a workers’ compensation policy issued to a business with no employees and with the owner excluded from coverage. It exists to satisfy contractual certificate requirements rather than to provide benefits.

Por qué importa: General contractors and property managers require a comp certificate from everyone on site, including one-person businesses, because an uninsured injury on their job can land on their policy and because they get charged for you at their own audit otherwise.

Property coverage for things that move or sit off-premises — tools, equipment, goods in transit, installations.

Inland marine insurance covers movable or specialized property, including contractor’s tools and equipment, property in transit, installation materials, exhibitions, fine art and property at unnamed locations, on an all-risk basis in most forms.

Por qué importa: Standard commercial property covers property at the described premises. It largely stops at the door, which leaves everything a mobile business actually owns uninsured — the tools in the van, the equipment on the job site, the materials in transit, the machine at a client’s facility.

Covers materials and equipment you will install, from the moment you buy them until installation is complete.

An installation floater is an inland marine form covering materials and equipment intended for installation, while in transit, in temporary storage and at the job site, until installation is complete and accepted.

Por qué importa: There is a real gap between purchase and completion. The material is not at your premises so your property policy may not cover it; it is not yet the owner’s so builders risk may not reach it; and general liability never covers your own property. An installation floater fills exactly that window.

A small general liability sublimit that pays minor injury costs without any finding of fault.

Medical payments coverage, sometimes called med pay, is a general liability provision paying reasonable medical expenses for bodily injury to a third party on the insured’s premises or arising from its operations, regardless of fault, usually with a sublimit of $5,000 to $10,000 per person.

Por qué importa: It exists to close out small injuries quickly and quietly. A customer trips, needs an urgent care visit and a scan, and the bill is $1,800. Med pay handles it without a liability investigation, which frequently prevents a small incident becoming a claim.

A property form that covers only the causes of loss it lists. Anything unlisted is uncovered.

A named perils policy covers loss only from causes of loss specifically listed in the policy — such as fire, lightning, windstorm, hail, vandalism and theft — with all unlisted causes excluded by default.

Por qué importa: The burden of proof runs against you. On a named perils form you must show the loss was caused by a listed peril; on an open perils form the insurer must show an exclusion applies. That difference decides contested claims.

A property form that covers every cause of loss except those it excludes. Broader, and the insurer bears the burden.

An open perils policy — the special form, sometimes called all-risk — covers loss from any cause not specifically excluded, placing the burden on the insurer to establish that an exclusion applies.

Por qué importa: This is the form you want on your building, contents and equipment. Coverage is defined by what is excluded rather than what is listed, so novel or unusual causes of loss are covered by default.

Pays for the code upgrades a rebuild triggers — which standard property insurance excludes.

Ordinance or law coverage pays the additional cost of complying with current building codes when repairing or rebuilding damaged property, typically in three parts: loss to the undamaged portion required to be demolished, demolition and debris removal cost, and increased cost of construction.

Por qué importa: Standard property policies pay to restore what was there. Building departments require what the code requires now — sprinklers, updated electrical, accessibility, energy standards, seismic or wind provisions. That delta is excluded from the base policy and it is not small on an older building.

Coverage for storefront glass, mirrors and signage — often sublimited or excluded on the base form.

Plate glass insurance covers breakage of building glass, including storefront windows, glass doors, mirrors and glazed signage, along with the cost of temporary boarding and frame or lettering repair.

Por qué importa: Storefront glass is expensive, exposed and frequently sublimited. Base property forms may cover glass as building property, cap it at a low figure, or exclude it depending on the form and the carrier.

Liability for injury or damage caused by something you made, sold, distributed or installed.

Product liability is legal responsibility for bodily injury or property damage caused by a product’s defect in design, manufacture or warning, extending to manufacturers, distributors, retailers and installers in the chain of distribution.

Por qué importa: Anyone in the chain can be named, not just the manufacturer. A retailer or installer who never touched the design is routinely sued alongside it, which is why vendors demand additional insured status and why your own supply chain matters.

Covers the financial harm your advice, design or service causes a client. General liability explicitly excludes it.

Professional liability insurance, also called errors and omissions, covers claims alleging financial loss caused by negligent acts, errors or omissions in the insured’s professional services, including defense costs. It is normally written claims-made.

Por qué importa: General liability covers bodily injury and property damage and contains a professional services exclusion. So a consultant, designer, accountant, agent, IT provider or healthcare practitioner with only general liability is uninsured for the claim they will actually face.

Coverage for money you were tricked into sending. Usually a small sublimit, and usually the claim you will actually have.

Social engineering fraud coverage responds when an insured is deceived into voluntarily transferring money or securities to a fraudster, typically through a fraudulent email, phone call or impersonation of an executive, vendor or client.

Por qué importa: Business email compromise is the most common serious cyber loss for small businesses — more common than ransomware and often larger in dollar terms. The pattern is consistent: an account is monitored, a legitimate payment is intercepted, and altered wire instructions arrive from a convincing address.

Extra liability limit sitting above your general liability, auto and employer’s liability. The cheapest limit you will ever buy.

Commercial umbrella insurance provides additional liability limits above scheduled underlying policies — typically general liability, commercial auto and employer’s liability — following the terms of those policies and responding once their limits are exhausted.

Por qué importa: A $1 million liability limit is the contract standard, not a risk assessment. One serious auto accident or a multi-party injury can exceed it, and everything above the limit is collectible from the business and sometimes from owners personally.