Shopping for business insurance, contrary to  popular belief, doesn’t have to be painful or even stressful. In fact, some would dare call the process therapeutic. Determining your needs for risk protection is a great time for you, as a business owner, to meditate on your most pressing needs and to find out which elements of your business are the most susceptible to risk. The term “shopping” really fits when talking about small business owners’ insurance options; America’s robust field of insurance options can sometimes feel like being given near-infinite options for one problem. Anxiety, however, can set in deep when business owners think they may have missed out on a better deal or a more inclusive package. While there is no wholly wrong way to shop for business insurance, there are several tips and tricks business owners can use to make sure they are getting both the best deal and the best coverage for their dollar … as well as getting to know your business better along the way!

Know Thy Business

Before even researching what kind of coverage you may need, you need to understand what needs to be covered in the first place. Does your business have inherent occupational hazards? If so, be sure those are top-of-mind when shopping for insurance. Beyond the potential hazards inside your business, think outside the office: what natural disasters or outside accidents could happen in the area you do business? This is another essential question that should drive all insurance discussions to follow. Consider making an actual list of your most pressing liabilities and keeping the list handy during all insurance-related talks.

Separately, begin to think “worst case scenario” about lawsuits that could be brought against your business. Considering your industry, customers, location and means of doing business makes this more than a one-day job and may require some amount of legal counsel. But knowing these risks is essential. Several types of business insurance can help insulate businesses from debilitating legal fees but only if those businesses take out the proper policies ahead of time.

Quotes & Questions

Once you know what types of insurance likely suit your business best, the next step is finding the right provider. No matter how much a first or second meeting may wow you, it is almost never wise to choose a provider before collecting several quotes from similar competitors. No two insurance carriers are identical, and packages can vary in their fine print as well as bold claims. An industry standard is to compare three quotes from providers before settling on a best pick but there is no reason to stop at three; the more insurance providers you can find that suit your needs, the better off you’ll be and the more confident you will feel in your final decision.

From your several quotes and meetings, learn to think beyond the dollar price of a package and determine its value to your specific business. Companies with lower premiums obviously appear attractive outright but the reason those premiums are lower are likely quite unattractive. Be certain – and ask directly if – that the providers you are recognized as “admitted insurance companies.” This means that the carrier is approved by all valid and relevant departments of insurance; this is an assurance that the carrier cannot and will not deviate from the rates you have agreed upon. If an admitted insurance company cannot meet its financial responsibilities, in nearly all cases, relevant state or federal departments of insurance will step in to pay your claims.

Bite the Bullet, Work with a Broker

It’s not a charming thought that on top of paying for insurance you need to pay for someone to help you choose which policy to pay for. Brokers and insurance professionals, however, are likely to save you money over time much bigger than upfront brokerage fees. Especially if you are shopping for business insurance for a new business or it is your first time determining your needs, brokers likely have the expertise necessary to connect your needs with a proper policy.

Picking a broker, however, likely requires just as much forethought as picking the right insurance policy. While you don’t necessarily have to weigh as many quotes as when selecting your provider, it is essential to check brokers’ online reviews and beyond so you have a good hold over their reputation.  When searching for a broker that fits your needs, be certain to do your due diligence.  Here are a few ways to get you started:

Seek Out Genuine Referrals:  While online reviews may tell some of a broker’s story, true word of mouth is still the most full way to understand the way they work and the candid thoughts of their clients. While it may sound over-the-top to have a sit-down chat with a broker’s former or current client, remember that proper fitting business insurance has the potential to revive a business while ill-fitting policies only make bad situations worse.

Seek Out Specialists:  While insurance generalists are unlikely to lead you astray, it’s likely that a well-placed specialist may get you even closer to your goals. Try to find a broker with experience in your industry or the policies you are likely to hold. Specialists by nature, however, tend to take less clients and demand higher fees so decide ahead of time if refined expertise is worth it for your business.

Background Checks:  Consider researching your potential broker on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners consumer website This is a means to check if your potential broker has received any official complaints or enforcements while working on behalf of a client.

Since a broker is representing you and your interests, it’s best that they align with you as closely as possible. Unlike insurance agents, brokers do not generally work for commissions. So once you pay an upfront or split brokerage fee. To further ensure that your interests are the same as your broker’s, see if they are willing to let you be billed directly via the insurance carrier rather than through that broker; this once again will ensure that your broker is not financially incentivized by the contents of your insurance package.

Reasonable Premiums

The nature of all types of insurance is the push and pull of premiums and deductibles. Your premium is the upfront monthly, or sometimes annual cost to maintain your policy while your deductible is the amount of money you must pay in before your policy begins to cover whatever relevant cost you would like it to. Speak closely with your staff, broker, and all relevant parties when deciding the premiums that will work for your business. It is essential that small businesses find a balance where insurance both protects them and is not a financial burden; that burden can spin both ways: imagine picking an insurance package with a low premium but high deductible for a seemingly unlikely to occur policy like cybersecurity insurance. In the unfortunate event that your business suffers a cyberattack, your high deductible may just make paying your low premium worthless in the first place, as the out-of-pocket cost of repair and replacement could very possibly not reach the deductible where your carrier begins to pay into your claim.

Make detailed, and indeed pessimistic, plans of the most expensive and least expensive types of damages that could lead to claims in your business. Once you’ve calculated which types of risk cost what amount of money, you are much closer to picking the rightly priced premium.

Reevaluate Needs Annually

It’s more than natural to want to wring your hands after signing the dotted line and call it a day on your insurance policy. Getting the policy is work enough but unfortunately, insurance, like your business, must be regularly evaluated. The best businesses reevaluate their insurance packages, premiums, and deductibles at least annually in line with most insurance contract lengths. While it may be tempting to maintain current coverage, even the most innocuous change in your business may make reevaluating your insurance a worthy endeavor. For example, do you have new commercial vehicles that may qualify you for a new package or form of commercial car insurance? The only way to know is to reevaluate your insurance package with your broker or directly with your carrier. Just as well, America’s insurance market is known for its bounciness before being known for its stagnation, so there are likely new competitors to weigh against your current carrier.

The Best Insurance is the Diligently Selected Insurance

There is a reason shopping for small business insurance can feel like weighing thousands of options for one solution: every business has its own separate needs. While one small business may need a certain type of coverage, there is another that doesn’t. Finding the right coverage, however, is easier than ever in the Internet age where comparing companies, brokers, and policy needs can take an hour as opposed to taking several days. Take advantage of the time modern technology allows us and get granular with your business needs. Afterall, The best-insulated businesses are the most likely to weather the storm.

Depending on your small business’s industry, location, and customer base, you’ve likely already considered going cashless. And if you haven’t already made the switch, it can feel like the world is moving on without you considering that almost half of millennials prefer cashless or contactless payment while knowing that the CDC advised businesses against handling cash at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Going cashless, however, isn’t as simple as flipping a switch from “yes cash” to “no cash.” There are genuine pros and cons to keeping cash in your daily operations and the best choice isn’t the same for all small businesses. When deciding whether to go fully cashless, be sure to consider these pros and cons:

Pros of Going Fully Cashless

Security

Keeping cash on hand comes with inherent physical concerns like robberies or fires. By having absolutely no cash on hand the chance of internal theft or miscounted earnings is dramatically reduced. When properly encrypted and using the most updated firmware, cashless payment systems are also unlikely to be penalized on fraud-based charge backs. Businesses who are fully cashless and contactless are often taking advantage of EMV microchip credit and debit cards; according to Square, merchants who use EMV card contactless and dip to pay features will not be liable for fraudulent charges. Beyond monetary security, reducing contact between your staff and customers is still a security boon in the age of COVID-19. By not dealing in paper money, you are likely keeping your staff and customers safer by reducing the transfer of germs on legal tender; even before COVID-19 paper money has been a notorious germ sponge.

Different Operational Expenses

While credit card fees aren’t going anywhere, if you go fully cashless some other fees and expenses may reduce. If your business uses armored cash transport vehicles, that is another cost that would wholly disappear. Even if you deposit your money in person at the end of the day, zero trips to the bank will always be cheaper than some trips to the bank.

Efficiency

Going fully cashless is likely going to help speed up your check-out line and even streamline employee training. Modern NFC and QR Code transactions can happen in a fraction of a second and training new staff to use cashless POS systems is likely to be much easier than their cash register ancestors.

In the back end as well, cashless can lift a major weight off bookkeepers. Every small business owner can count, likely in combined months, their lost time maintaining their sales books. By accepting only card and contactless payment, you can likely take advantage of the slick merchant systems like Square and Clover which organize all your sales records in one place.

Cons of Going Fully Cashless

May Exclude Certain Demographics

Cashless operations have the inherent flaw of alienating, well, people with cash. The people most likely to be affected by the swap to cashless are lower-income people and those without bank accounts. This accounts for more Americans than you may think; the FDIC determined in 2019 that 5.4% of American households were “unbanked” meaning they had no access to a checking account or credit card. If this type of population overlaps with your customer base, going fully cashless may lead to a different kind of efficiency than we listed above: customers simply not being able to shop at your store.

More Fees

Depending on your choice of cashless POS, you may be paying more fees than switching to cashless is truly worth. Also, attaching card fees to every sale at your store is an unquestionable loss. Big industry players in the cashless POS world generally charge a processing fee of at least 2.3% + 10¢ per swipe for Clover with competitor Square close behind at 2.6% + 10¢ per swipe. These fees can add up especially compared to cash’s processing fee of zero dollars.

System Crashes Mean Service Stops

The frustration and stupefying sensation of essential systems crashing knows no equal. By depending on one system to handle all your transactions and removing all alternatives, you may see a momentary disaster when your Wi-Fi goes down or the POS’s internal system crashes. The beauty of old school cash registers and traditional transaction logic is that the only failure can be in the mind; if you can still count, the show goes on. Technological dependence means putting faith into a system that often you are not allowed to understand the full machinations of. While the biggest cashless POS systems are obviously exceedingly reliable, small business owners need to decide if the lost sleep over cash-related issues is worth trading for the lost sleep they may get with their cashless system.

Privacy Concerns

In the age of information breaches and cyber-attacks, no company is too big to crack. Scanning your customers’ credit card information through your cashless POS system introduces a new privacy concern for both your business and those cardholders: is everyone involved with the transaction comfortable sharing their information with a third party? If that answer is no, cashless transaction systems are likely a nonstarter for your business.

Cashless POS terminals are often connected to your local Wi-Fi network which introduces new cyber threats, as the device is connected and interacting with Internet of Things on your local network. Internet of Things cyber breaches are becoming increasingly common, especially for small businesses. Small businesses with public Wi-Fi networks may want to consider changing their network to private before introducing a cashless POS.

Debilitating for Some, Liberating for Others

Going fully cashless can be equally attractive or impossible depending on a multitude of factors. Beyond what is good for your business, some cities in the United States outright ban fully cashless businesses, so be certain to research your municipal laws before making the switch. Current events are pushing corporations and small businesses away from cash, but the time still isn’t right for every small business to make the hard and fast swap to cashless. Switching to cashless can make your small business patently agile and streamline bookkeeping so efficiently that making the swap is a no-brainer. Small businesses servicing rural areas or exceedingly young or older clientele, however, will likely look at cashless as an unnecessary venture. Sit down with your team and see if the advantages of a flashy cashless operation are worth the fees and technological dependence that come with it.

Whether you are still in the process of planning out your small business or you have been in operation for several years, small business insurance should always be on your mind. Protecting your small business from risk is a full-time job in and of itself; and picking the right policies to insulate your business can seem just as taxing. When choosing what insurance policies your business needs, or more generally ought to have, there is a lot to consider. Let us, then, look over the bare minimum, the baseline of small business risk protection that all small businesses may (depending on your state) require before even opening their doors or hiring their first employee.

Unemployment Insurance

While unemployment insurance isn’t a policy meant to protect employers, it is still a type of insurance that every small business with employees must pay into. Employees who are laid off or let go for circumstances beyond their control can apply for unemployment benefits which are funded — in large part — by business pay-in. Pay-in percentages will vary by state but every American small business with employees must pay into unemployment insurance.

The Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) requires that employers pay 6% of the first $7,000 in employee wages per employee per calendar year into unemployment insurance. Depending on your state requirements, you will likely have to pay another percentage rate on top of the federal rate. This additional amount can range widely by state, so be sure to investigate your state rate as well as federal when determining employee wages.

Long-Term Disability Insurance

This is another policy built to protect your employees that employers in some states are required to have. Disability insurance functions similarly to unemployment insurance in that it covers instances  that occurred outside the employee’s control; but in this case, the employee is rendered incapable of working due to an event at the workplace. The states and territories which require long-term disability insurance are California, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, Rhode Island, as well as Puerto Rico. Businesses in these states and territories can find sufficient packages often through existing state programs or other private insurance companies. In California, for example, employers can pay into the existing California State Disability Insurance (SDI) program or they can apply for a separate, usually private, voluntary plan in the place of direct state coverage.

Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Workers’ compensation insurance is required in some capacity in every state but Texas and South Dakota. Among those states who require workers’ compensation, pay-in amounts and policy guidelines can vary wildly, as the program is run at the state level. Workers’ compensation insurance covers employees who suffer injury or lasting disease at the workplace but not to the extent where they would apply for long-term disability benefits. Workers’ compensation insurance can also — in some capacity — insulate employers as, in most states, employees collecting workers’ compensation cannot sue you for the injury for which they are already collecting workers’ compensation.

Professional Liability Insurance

Professional liability insurance, otherwise known as errors and omissions insurance, is built to protect your business in cases of negligence or when a client believes you have made a mistake and they are due recompense. Currently, professional liability insurance requirements vary by state — with some having no requirements and others requiring very large packages.  Additionally, there can be requirements based on industry that can supersede or add onto state requirements. For example,  law firms and private medical practices most often require some amount of insurance regardless of whether or not your state requires it. There can also be state-by-state nuances regarding professional liability insurance.  For example, South Dakota, while not requiring this insurance, does require that uninsured medical practices disclose on document letterheads if they have no malpractice insurance.

Even if your state does not require it, professional liability insurance is something you should at least consider as it can be supremely helpful for more than just doctors and lawyers. In most cases where a company is sued because of a process central to the business, professional liability insurance can help cover legal costs stemming from the claim.

Commercial Auto Insurance

If your business owns any vehicles, there is a good chance you will need commercial auto insurance. Every state but New Hampshire and Virginia require businesses to carry commercial auto insurance policies for vehicles owned by the business. Commercial auto insurance will often help cover legal costs, medical bills, property damage and sometimes vandalism associated with your business vehicle.

Depending on if you use a personal vehicle at your place of business, you may also want to look into covering your personal vehicle under your commercial plan. Commercial auto insurance will only cover vehicles which are owned by your business directly unless you choose a more lenient policy. For example, if you are transporting inventory in a vehicle only under your personal auto insurance policy, that inventory may not be protected under your consumer policy. Small business owners should speak to a trusted insurance company or broker to see what policy best suits their needs.

Hazard Insurance

Business hazard insurance can help cover the costs of replacing or repairing property, materials, or equipment damaged in natural disasters, fires, thefts, or some other uncontrolled circumstances. While nearly all states don’t require hazard insurance, it is usually a necessity for a different reason: a loan guaranteed by the SBA does require that your business have a hazard insurance policy. Many lenders offering loans not secured by the SBA also look highly on small businesses with hazard insurance.

If your business is run at a home and already covered by homeowner or consumer hazard insurance, be sure to check with your insurance provider to see if you have further coverage options and to confirm if business assets in the home are covered by existing personal policies.

Helpful, but not Required, Business Insurance

General Liability Insurance

While small businesses technically aren’t required to have general liability insurance, this type of policy will likely come in handy. Unlike professional liability insurance which covers occupational errors and omissions, general liability insurance often covers customer injury or property damage which occurs at your business. If a client or customer attempts to sue you for injury faced at your place of business, general liability insurance may also help cover legal costs.

Commercial Property Insurance

Like hazard insurance, commercial property insurance covers all physical assets and buildings related to your business that are on the covered commercial property. Most commercial property insurance policies cover businesses in the event of damage from natural disasters, fires, or theft. There are also some policies that can protect projected business income if your business cannot operate normally after suffering from a covered disaster. Small business owners should discuss with a trusted insurance company or broker to see if they could benefit from holding a commercial property insurance policy in addition to hazard insurance.

Employment Practices and Liability Insurance

Employment Practices Liability Insurance or EPLI is meant to protect employers in cases where employees believe their legal rights as a worker were violated at your business. This type of insurance can help pay legal costs if your company is sued for wrongful termination, breach of contract, harassment, discrimination, and several other possible employee lawsuits. While not legally required, EPLI can be a means of survival for businesses who are found negligent or guilty in lawsuits against them.

The Minimum Protects You the Least

“What insurance policies do I need?” is a question with about as many answers as there are small businesses. Depending on your state, industry, and number of employees your requirements could be as many as all the policies listed here or as little as none. It is then essential that small businesses investigate not only the policies they need to protect them in court but also the policies they need to stay above water following unforeseen circumstances.

Amid supply chain delays, inflation and renewed COVID-19 fears, business owners may not be saying “happy new year” with renewed gusto. And let’s not stop there: 2022 is likely to be a landmark year for advanced cyberattacks at both the corporate and small business level. As your business begins to take on  2022, don’t let cybersecurity slip to the bottom of your priority list. In the eternal cat-and-mouse chase between cybercriminals and protective tools, it is essential that small business owners are keenly aware of the types of cyberattacks most likely to affect them. The most effective means of threat prevention is the knowledge to identify tell-tale warnings of a cyberattack or data breach. Small business owners must be as equally vigilant as their larger counterparts to these trending cyberthreats, as they are often even more likely to be a targeted.

Ever-Advancing Ransomware

Ransomware attacks are a type of cyberattack in which cybercriminals hold a target’s files hostage by intricate locking or encryption and agree to remove the lock only after they pay a cash ransom. These types of attacks are profoundly frustrating for corporate entities and small businesses alike, as there is relatively little a person can do once their files are encrypted.

Ransomware attacks are not expected to slow down in 2022.  And on the contrary, attacks like the Solar Winds breach in 2021 may prove to become commonplace. Increasingly, advanced ransomware programs have made their way onto unsuspecting computers. The nature of ransomware attacks also makes it exceedingly difficult to prevent attacks outright since encryption methods for such attacks are constantly changing

Industry experts also warn of new types of ransomware programs called “human-operated attacks” where cybercriminals groom and target a specific quarry. These types of attacks profile their targets to see what kind of devices are on the quarry’s network and incrementally lay plans for the attack before activating the ransom. These types of attacks are especially brutal; cybercriminals often learn their quarry’s financial standings and then use that info to set a ransom they are likely to pay.

These sophisticated attacks also have the risk of becoming a double extortion attack which means that the encryption attack is not isolated to one machine, but every machine on your network. This can be especially damaging for businesses with multiple terminals.

Social Engineering and Phishing Aren’t Going Anywhere

There is no cybersecurity program to fight social engineering or phishing; this is because the breach is human, not machine. Successful phishing and social engineering attacks function similarly to a traditional heist: attackers attempt to trick someone into giving them sensitive information they can then use to breach a secure system. In the same way a robber might steal a key from a bank manager to kick off a heist, phishing attacks start with the theft of a digital key, often a password.

There are several ways would-be phishers attempt to lift confidential information, but modern phishing attacks are often as targeted as a bank heist. Phishers study the identities of the people they plan to scam and play on their target’s trust of everyday mechanisms, like caller-ID or convincing phony webpages, to trick people into sharing information they shouldn’t.

Social engineering, however, has seen some new trends likely to catch fire in 2022. Scareware is a unique kind of social engineering that tries to convince targets that something is already wrong with their computer and that they then must download a fix ASAP. The trick is, of course, that nothing was wrong with their computer in the first place and their new “fix” is some type of malware ready to wreak havoc. Scareware attacks often show up as pop-ups on untrustworthy websites or in email attachments.

Mobile Security Threats

Years ago, cell phones attained processing power to match computers; yet, cell phones do not have nearly as many cybersecurity prevention methods as their desktop and laptop cousins. And now that more and more businesses integrate cell phones into their daily operations, cybercriminals have been keenly targeting cell phones and mobile devices for cyberattacks.

Cell phones have become the point of access of choice for banking, email, and several other avenues for private information. Cybercriminals have breached mobile phones and successfully eavesdropped, crashed devices, and reaped private information in the past but with the increasing number of remote workers using their cell phones in coordination with laptop workstations, it is especially important that small business owners know the methods cybercriminals use to breach phones.

Anyone can make an app and cybercriminals are aware of this. The most likely way a virus will make its way onto your phone is through an app you intentionally downloaded. Either through copycat apps or seemingly innocent apps with embedded malware, such cyberattacks function similarly to social engineering, tricking users into accidently downloading malicious software.

Traditional methods of virus dispersal, like embedded websites and email links, are just as likely to infect your phone as they are to infect your laptop or desktop computer. Plus, modern sophisticated attacks can infect all other devices on your Wi-Fi network after entering your phone, making it especially important that business owners are vigilant about mobile cybersecurity.

Convincing Deepfakes

This threat is two-fold. It is devastating for businesses who are targets of defamatory deepfakes, but it can be equally dangerous for businesses who are successfully hoodwinked by modern, convincing deepfake technology. Businesses who are the target of deepfakes meant to defame their businesses must work quickly and definitively to clear their name but deepfakes meant to trick rather than defame are on the rise and likely to hit a fever pitch in 2022.

Small businesses are likely to be the target of voice deepfakes meant to impersonate someone they trust. Such attacks have already successfully scammed massive corporations in the past and as the tech becomes more commonplace, small businesses are likely to be thought of as easy prey. Successful voice deepfakes are quick, targeted calls usually mimicking caller-ID, and much more impressively, the supposed caller’s voice. The fake caller will usually then ask for a quick piece of information, a password or a PIN is usually enough. While even two years ago, technology like this was squarely in the hands of high-level hackers, it is entirely possible that small-time or even local cybercriminals could access tech convincing enough to genuinely trick an employee into giving private information over the phone.

Internet of Things (IoT) Breaches

Fresh off the lot, the Internet of Things or IoT is well on its way to becoming a household name. Justifiably so, as IoT refers to the local network containing all of your “smart” devices like Google Assistants, Wi-Fi-based surveillance systems i.e. Ring cameras, or really any physical object with an active connection to your Wi-Fi network. IoT cyberattacks are especially dangerous for small businesses as this type of attack can happen entirely remotely. Does your business have public Wi-Fi, or do you allow customers to connect to your network while they are in your store? Once their device connects to your network, they have entered your Internet of Things.

A device with malware built to navigate through a network can easily embed itself in other devices simply because they are on the same network. Concerningly, IoT attacks can also hijack the video or audio feed of devices connected to networks, meaning that Wi-Fi-based security systems are vulnerable. The best safeguards against Internet of Things attacks are both to keep traditional cybersecurity methods in good order and regularly updating router, modem, and audio/video device firmware.

Operate on an “Assumption of Compromise” Mentality

If 2022 didn’t seem bleak enough already, yes, our advice is to assume you have already been breached. This method isn’t nihilist, it’s more so accepting. Small business owners should be aware that they are quickly becoming major targets for cybercriminals, and in turn, accept that their systems may need to be upgraded or overhauled to meet modern baselines. Cyber-breaches don’t have the same hallmarks of traditional break-ins, but damages from a successful cyberattack can easily outpace those from old school robberies. Those businesses who assume they are compromised, or easily could be compromised, are the ones who will most effectively probe their current security sphere and are the most likely to see good results in the ever-uncertain future for small businesses and cyber security.