How Insurance Protects Your Painting Business
No room, office, or building is finished without being painted. As the owner of a painting business or as a self-employed painting contractor, your job involves risks like using the wrong colour, working at heights, or spilling paint.
If you are a residential or commercial painter in Edmonton, you need painter’s insurance to protect your business.
How will painter’s insurance protect my business?
You need to protect your painting business from any potential risks it may face on a daily basis. A customer could ask for proof of insurance before hiring you, as a self-employed painter or as a business.
Without insurance, you may lose out on jobs and you would be taking a risk if something goes wrong on a painting job. Can you afford to take on that kind of risk?
As a painting professional, you know that accidents can happen. When you have the right painting insurance package it helps provide legal and financial coverage when something goes wrong on the job.
A painter’s insurance package can help protect you from these 3 common claims:
1. As a residential painter, you drop paint on your client’s sofa. The client sues you for damaged property. Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance would help cover the cost of replacing the sofa.
2. A thief breaks into your painting storage room, stealing all of your painting supplies and equipment like brushes and ladders. Your Tools and Equipment insurance policy would help cover the costs to replace the supplies and equipment.
3. You don’t properly dispose of cleaning materials and wastewater after cleaning paint and cans brushes and dump it on your client’s lawn, which results in a big patch of dead grass. This type of insurance would help with clean-up costs and property damage.
As a professional painter, here’s an insurance check list:
- Do you have the best business insurance rate that suits your type of painting business, commercial or residential, or solo painter?
- Do you have the right amount for your deductible and regularly review it to make sure it’s the right amount for your painting business?
- Is your number of employees up to date?
- Do you know the value of your equipment and is it properly insured?
- Are you or your employees using personal vehicles for painting jobs?
What’s in a painter’s insurance package?
Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance: This type of insurance protects your business against common claims like third-party property damage (damage to a customer’s property) or bodily injuries if a client slips, falls, and is injured at your painting business’s premises. CGL can help cover a client ’s medical expenses and your legal fees regardless of the outcome of a lawsuit you face.
Without this type of insurance, you would be paying for these expenses out of your own pocket.
A small residential painting company can expect to have CGL insurance with a $2-million policy limit. A large painting company would be expected to be insured for more than that amount, and a single painter, less than $2 million in CGL.
Painters doing exterior spray painting face additional risks. Ask your Western business insurance expert how much CGL insurance you will need.
Equipment and Tools Insurance: It replaces, or repairs damaged, stolen, or lost equipment and tools, accessories, or other property that you use in your painting business.
Anything valued at less than $1,500 is considered a tool and anything above that limit is considered equipment.
It can also be called equipment floater insurance instead of equipment and tools insurance.
Commercial Property Insurance: It keeps you and your painting business protected from property losses, such as theft or vandalism. You can also add earthquake insurance, sewer backup or flood coverage extensions.
Commercial property insurance protects your painting business and its contents.
Property you may need to insure:
- Buildings and other structures
- Furniture, equipment, supplies
- Inventory and computers
- Documents such as payroll, accounts receivable
Pollution Liability Insurance: It protects your paining business against claims of third-party bodily injury, third-party property damage or third-party environmental damage, including cleanup costs, caused by pollution conditions resulting from work that you do.
Contractors’ Errors and Omissions Insurance: It’s also called E&O insurance and it protects your business from damages due to faulty workmanship, recall of their work, or use of defective materials.
Cyber Liability Insurance: If your businesses is online, you likely have your customers’ names, addresses and credit card information. If your computer system is hacked, cybercriminals can steal this information and sell it.
Without cyber insurance, you will have to pay out of your pocket for the cost of restoring your system. You may also be liable for damages to third parties whose information has been stolen and you may have to pay for notification expenses to inform customers affected by a breach.
Business Interruption Insurance: If there is an insured loss at your painting business that’s severe enough to prevent it from being open, the expenses associated with getting your business running again will be covered.
This type of policy usually covers vandalism, fire, wind, flooding, and other risks (make sure to understand what your policy covers). Your policy will help compensate you for lost income and expenses that you will need to continue paying even while you are unable to work.
Commercial Vehicle Insurance: Your personal car insurance usually won’t cover your business. If you have a vehicle that you use as part of your painting business, then you need to be covered by commercial auto insurance.
How much insurance does my painting business need?
It will depend on the size of your business and the kind work that you do. It’s unlikely that all painting businesses would pay the same rates monthly or annually.
Ask your Western business insurance expert to determine the right level of coverage for your painting business.
What do I do if my Edmonton painting business has an insurance claim?
- Contact your broker immediately after any business-related mishap. Waiting to file a claim can confuse insurers about the severity of the damages to your business.
- Know your policy so that when you contact your broker you are familiar with what will be covered or not.
- Document the damage. Take photos right away and write down what happened.
- Do not throw away damaged goods after taking photos. Keep the physical evidence so that your adjustor can see it.
- Do not invite lawsuits. Don’t say anything that could be used against you, especially if you aren’t sure what happened.
- Be honest about what your damaged property is worth. Damaged commercial property is generally valued according to its actual cash value or replacement value.
Western Insurance has licensed BUSINESS INSURANCE EXPERTS to get your painting business the right insurance package. Our experts are available now to help you navigate the business insurance journey to protect your business.
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