What Is Important When Insuring Commercial Businesses?
What is important when insuring a commercial business? What are the most important things I, as an agent, need to out for and understand? These are spot on questions and questions that any insurance agent that has ever had the pleasure of getting involved in the commercial insurance industry has undoubtedly felt compelled to ask at some point at the beginning of their endeavor. I am Nevin Shennett and I have worked in the insurance industry for four years. For three years I have owned my own insurance agency.
During my time as an agency owner I have had the pleasure of working with business owners to insure that the insurance needs of their businesses are met and exceeded in order to guarantee the success of the operations undertaken by their companies. As I have utilized my time to insure so many companies, I have learned the keys to what is important when insuring a commercial business.
The greatest tool a skilled insurance agent may have at his disposal when assessing what is important when insuring a commercial business is understanding the importance of the business type you are insuring. A clear grasp on this concept is the defining nugget of knowledge that allows some agents to effortlessly be granted the ability to insure commercial businesses properly, and is what causes so many other agents to struggle with being able to handle the business properly. An agent that understands what goes into a particular business type has a leg up on the competition.
An agent that understands how the owner of the business feels when something goes wrong and understands the uncertainty that may come along with the industry in which said business owner operates can see problems on the horizon that have not yet manifested themselves and also has the ability to bring solutions to the table before they are needed. The agent that possesses this skill will realize fairly quickly that the ability to understand these key points in clients’ needs is invaluable.
An example of how understanding the business operations and the perils faced by business owners may play out in the favor of the agent is individual coverages needed by specific business types. To be more specific, a meat processing facility that ships its products all over the United States does not have the same needs and wants for insurance coverage as a company that specializes in shipping hand made pianos to many different areas in the United States. The meat processing company has a need for spoilage coverage.
This coverage is specifically designed to compensate the insured for products that reach their destination and for whatever reason is no longer capable of being sold to a customer. The insured has to forfeit those profits in that situation. However, if the insured carried spoilage coverage, the company that purchased the product from the meat processing company would be reimbursed for the products that were purchased and not received in sellable condition due to the product spoiling in transit. In this case, the insured is saved from being forced to reimburse the client company for the spoiled product, on top of not receiving profits from the spoiled product.
An agent with the ability to understand client needs will know that in the case of the hand made piano company, they will need quite a bit more coverage from a financial standpoint to cover the pianos in transit to protect against dings, scratches, and damage that may be incurred to the delicate parts of the instruments. This is something that would be of the utmost importance to the owner of the piano company because it has a direct correlation with being able to protect assets and allowing the company to maximize profits while operating by not losing money on transit mistakes that damage their excellent quality products.
It is possible that this fact alone once presented to the owner of the piano company could persuade him to bring his business to this insurance agent simply because of his knowledge base and ability to see problems in the business before they happen. Knowledge of the field of business and operating perils are what are important when insuring commercial businesses.