Does Renters Insurance Cover My Business Or Home Office?
One of the most common questions we get at Effective Coverage is “Does renters insurance cover my business?” There are a couple of different angles to look at, and it’s important to understand the details. Learn more about renters insurance and home business below our Texas Renters Insurance Video Guide.
If you have Fort Worth Renters Insurance, does it cover your business? There are two major areas to look at, namely property and liability. Let’s take property first because it’s actually the more complex question.
First and foremost, this will depend on your policy form. Texas renters insurance underwriters can essentially develop their own policy forms, so the language may vary more widely than in most states. In most cases, however, “business personal property” is excluded from renters insurance. What’s “business personal property?” That would include things that belong to the business, for the use of the business. Those would not be covered under renters insurance, or would be subject to significant sublimits. But there’s a catch.
What if you’re just starting a business, or running a business that doesn’t require significant equipment. What if all you need is your computer to run your business, and you already owned that? If that computer is stolen, is it covered? If you run a very small business from your home and the computer is a personal device, it might be covered.
You own the computer in that scenario, and you are insured. The fact that you use it to make money sometimes isn’t strictly relevant, because you also use it for social media and personal email and primarily for personal use. In the case of computers, however, there’s another catch.
Often, when there’s a loss to a computer that’s covered by renters insurance, commercial software that was on the computer will be replaced. The data are not recreated, of course, but the software package can be replaced. It’s easy enough to get a new copy of Word or Excel – those are programs that are installed on nearly every computer anyway, and are often part of a personal use package.
If, however, you have something like QuickBooks installed, that’s not really a personal software package and it’s unlikely to be replaced because it would be considered to be business personal property. Your computer could well be covered if it’s a personal device that you use from time to time for business. If you have inventory or business equipment, that would not be covered by your renters insurance policy.
But what about liability?
Does Renters Insurance Cover My Business Liability?
No.
There, that was easy! We told you that property coverage was a little more complex.
Fort Worth Renters Insurance will never cover business liability. It’s just not within the scope of the policy. The policy is designed to cover the risk of you as an individual causing bodily injury or property damage. The policy doesn’t contemplate those losses in the context of you as a business, and it certainly doesn’t contemplate things like product liability, liability for completed operations, and the many other ways that a business can incur liability.
Because your business liability isn’t covered by renters insurance, there also is no defense available against those claims under the policy. That’s an important distinction. Your business will want the insurance company to cover the cost of defending against that liability claim, rather than having to cover it out of pocket. That’s why you need a commercial policy, because renters insurance doesn’t cover business liability.
The good news is that it’s easy to afford renters insurance in Fort Worth, which leaves you with plenty of cash to get the commercial policy you need for your business, as well.
The national average price of renters insurance is just $187.00, according to the III. That works out to as little as fifteen dollars per month. The vast majority of families can budget renters insurance easily at those prices.
Additionally, it's important to note that renters are at a significantly higher risk of experiencing loss than homeowners. Renters occupy roughly one third of total housing stock in the country, and yet they are fully fifty percent more likely to experience theft than homeowners, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
It only costs a few dollars a month to protect your family, and this cheap renters insurance is a great way to mitigate the additional risks that come with being a renter.
To find out more about what renters insurance covers, just call (800)892-4308 or click to get covered - whether you need Fort Worth renters insurance quotes online or coverage anywhere else!
Effective Coverage offers the nation's only completely mobile platform to quote and purchase renters insurance right from your phone or tablet in just one minute. Get an online renters insurance quote today and protect your family.
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