3 Ways to Reduce Your Business’s Insurance Costs
Running or managing a business always comes with inherent risks and a host of expenses, in particular, insurance costs. Making a good profit requires learning to manage those risks and expenses with the right balance of safeguards and common sense.
Improving your business insurance spend is one of several ways you can cut your business costs. Here are four ways to improve your spend upfront, which will not only help your costs immediately but will result in better cost and increased savings for your business in the long-term, as well.
Short-Term: Improve Your Insurance Costs with Professional Services for Safety, Security, and Planning
Insurance companies will factor in your overall risk to help determine the amount you’ll pay. Not only will your risk be lower when your business is well-protected, but many insurance companies will actually offer you discounts or reduced insurance costs based on the security features you have in place.
While the amount you’ll save depends on your insurer, as well as the other factors involved in insuring your business – such as size, assets, etc – you can pretty much count on your premiums being lower than they otherwise would when you take these steps for better cost:
1. Get safety training for employees.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” as they say. Prevent loss before it has a chance to happen with well-prepared employees.
From workplace violence, to how to handle on-the-job hazards, a lot can go wrong in a day on the job. It’s your responsibility to make sure your employees are prepared to handle whatever the job may throw at them, safely and effectively.
Having safety training programs in place and conducting corporate security training makes your workforce wiser and more prepared. This can help prevent you from ever needing to file a claim, and also can improve your workplace security and efficiency, saving you even more on insurance costs!
2. Perform annual reviews on your policy and performance.
As a business owner or manager, you have a lot on your plate. But when you’re trying to watch your bottom line, it’s crucial to stop and review. Companies often bank on you neglecting to go over the details. It’s easy for your policy provider to raise prices without your even noticing it when you’re just going through the motions on a busy day.
When renewal time is getting close, make a few calls. Call your agent or broker to ask them about rate changes or discuss changes you’ve made in your business. You may want to price out a new insurance company.
You’ll also want to take another look at any new risks that may have come up in the last year as your business has grown and re-evaluate whether you’re doing everything you can to protect your company’s assets.
The time you spend will be well worth the money you save insurance costs.
3. Implement effective security and safety systems
Fire Alarms and Sprinkler Systems
Did you know fire claims are ranked in the top five most common and top five most costly claims for small businesses?
On average, fire claims impact about 10 percent of small business owners and cost roughly $35,000. Protect your business and your employees from physical damage from fire and smoke.
Make sure that your worksite safety systems are up to code and kept in good working order to ensure a lower rate on your premiums and insurance costs.
Security and Surveillance Systems
Business Security:
Keep your building safe from intruders with effective technology. Do you have a security system in place? Increased your on-site security with measures such as card access control systems, intrusion alarms.
Having a business security system in place to limit access to authorized personnel and protect your assets from the outside will show your insurance company that you are serious about reducing risk for your business.
Business Surveillance:
Research shows that properties under surveillance are less likely to be subject to theft and robbery. Reducing your risk of such makes you a more attractive client to your insurance policy provider.
No business should be without a strong surveillance system to deliver enhanced internal security – especially when you consider that 30 percent of business failures are caused by employee theft.
While your standard surveillance camera systems will simply record what happens on-site, and security guards can be expensive, remote monitored video surveillance delivers a good balance of effective and affordable. Hosted/remote video surveillance can give you strong, responsive security at a fraction of the cost of security guards.
Plus, you have the added benefit of saving on insurance costs long-term.
Long-Term: Reduce Claims Spend Over Time with Security Solutions
With protective precautions like training programs, security systems, and high-tech surveillance on-site, you can rely on employees to follow protocol more thoroughly, behave more professionally, and work more efficiently.
The result will be an overall better spend, a reduction in claims, and improvement in your premiums as you continue to minimize risk.
And it gets better – reduced claims over time help feed into lower premiums and lower insurance costs, so you continue to see savings year over year.
Additional Savings from Professional Security Solutions
Having proper training, security and surveillance in place creates savings in more areas than business insurance.
- Mitigate costs with clear evidence in case of a legal case or insurance claim
While the goal is to avoid needing to file a claim in the first place, that’s what insurance is for, after all, you’ll be grateful if worse comes to worst to have clear evidence of your on-site incident to corroborate your story and simplify the claims or legal processes involved.
- Identify additional risk with professional assistance
When you’re doing business with a professional security company, they will perform an assessment to identify your site’s risk factors. This additional layer of insight can help you determine the level of infrastructure needed for your small business security based on your location and line of work and help you find a budget-friendly solution to your security challenges like harsh conditions and outdoor spaces.
