Flor & Associates Insurance Agency

El Paso Texas Insurance Agent Flor & Associates Insurance

Business Insurance

What General Liability Insurance Doesn’t Cover

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With General Liability Insurance there are many benefits, but there are limitations! There are some things that your coverage doesn’t extend to, such as damage to your product, damage to your work, wrongdoings by an executive of a company, employment related lawsuits such as sexual harassment. These types of events are outside of the coverage a General Liability Insurance plan due to these events being extremely unpredictable!  

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One other exclusion that should be mentioned, is that most General Liability coverages exclude liabilities that sprout from social media and social networking. Since these events can get so large so fast, it is hard to forecast for them and hard to cover them! The effects of a wrong move on social media can be devastating, and makes it smart to create a social media policy of some sort! 

Since these events are not covered it is always good to either find other kinds of coverage, or to be watchful over your business and make sure it doesn’t happen! Always be careful! 

Gaps In Your General Liability Plan

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When you are a business owner you put everything you can muster into your business, your blood, sweat, tears, and reputation. If you do not protect your business properly you can find yourself at a giant disadvantage or even worse—out of business! Due to this it becomes necessary to identify gaps in your General Liability insurance coverage so you can make sure that you are completely covered from losing your hard work! 

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Read through your General Liability Insurance Agreement and if you find that your insurance does not cover your all of your activities you have a few options as to what to do: Avoid doing the activity if at all feasible, self-insure yourself (pay out of pocket if you are liable), or find a coverage to insure the activity if it is a vital part of your business! 

Moral of the story here is, go over your General Liability Insurance agreement and see what gaps you may have—then try to find a good way to cover them by asking your insurance provider! Don’t leave yourself at risk! 

Why Would I Need General Liability Insurance?

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Purchasing General Liability Insurance is one of the best decisions a business owner can make! This kind of coverage protects your business assets in many ways such as if you or your employees are accused of causing injury or damage to property while conducting business, or if someone if injured at your place of work. 

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One of the best examples to give would be if someone were to trip and fall due to an unmarked wet floor within your business. This normally would be a very daunting occurrence to go through, but with General Liability Insurance it can help you weather the storm with assistance of your insurance company! 

In today’s society, it seems like lawsuits are a normal part of running a business—but it never hurts to be protected with a General Liability Insurance plan! 

Shopping Around Always Saves Money, Let Your Agent Do That For You

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It’s always nice to have someone help you save money, especially when it’s in their best interest to do so. Independent agents are there to help you, and usually they can do this by giving you the best coverage for the least amount of money! They want to keep your business for when you have to renew, due to this it is not in their interests to push insurance products that are of no use to you or your checkbook.

Outside of just price, independent agents have a vast understanding of the way different companies work, so they can lend insight to the claim process with each company. This might be an important factor for some and this can be a valuable tool in your search as well!

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A captive agent may steer you towards a certain product knowing that you will probably come back if you are exhibiting that level of loyalty to go with a single company in the first place! Avoid that conflict of interest and go with an independent agent in order to be good to yourself, your assets, and your wallet!

Independent Agents Can Provide a Variety and Security

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Going back to the candy shop analogy, what if a candy shop sells only one kind of candy? Now there aren’t many places that I can think of that sells only one kind of candy, but the idea doesn’t sound very appealing to me. I want to be able to pick and choose, and if I want something different I want to be able to have it! This same concept can be applied to many different things, but it really rings true with choosing insurance. 

Story time: Once I had a couple of windows broken from a storm and had a claim filed to get them replaced (Double paned windows are very pricey!), and a couple of weeks later my car was damaged by hail, and naturally I did another claim—a week later I received a nice letter from my insurance provider telling me that my coverage was going to stop forever upon my coverage end date!

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Hail is not fun

And yes, I was using a captive agent to get my coverage at the time; being with a captive agent was not fun since I was not able to go back to her and had to find someone new, so I really learned my lesson with that experience and went with an independent agent!

What is an Independent Agent?

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An independent agent is someone who is representing several insurance companies and can shop around while remaining in-house when making a pricing decision for a customer. Due to this independence, an agent in this capacity is able to make objective decisions when it comes to which policy to choose for their client.

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All those choices!

With this choice to choose, the best interest for the client is usually always taken, so for example if your rates go up and you have an independent agent you can shop around for a better rate with many different companies if you want to keep the same amount of coverage. There’s a huge upside to this in if you have a great relationship with your agent, but not with your insurance company due to a botched claim. If that happens you can just get coverage with another company through your trusted agent!

Like a candy shop there’s many different options, shouldn’t you be able to choose what you want and who makes it?

What Is A Captive Agent?

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An insurance agent that only works for one insurance company is a Captive Agent, but they are not literally held captive as their name would imply! They can work for only one of the many insurance companies out there, and will offer plans under their label. Much like a cook from Taco Cabana cannot work at Taco Bell!

Different taco places don’t share cooks!

Captive agents usually have a very deep understanding of their company’s product offerings, but there’s a downside to this as they cannot help people that do not qualify for their product offerings since they are limited to only what their company offers and their thresholds. But there is an upside to this though, if there is a rate pricing concern a captive agent will be able to work with the customer on price rather than just reducing coverages to achieve this.

They sometimes have quotas!

Captive agents will also sell products that their company asks them to sell over others, so they do have quotas and due to this it causes them to push certain products only to meet their numbers—not just because it was in your best interest. So it becomes a question as to if this staying with one provider is an important factor to you, and if you accept both sides of that coin!

Save Time When It Isn’t Time You Want To Waste

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christmas-tree-1856343_960_720A couple of holiday seasons ago, I had a neighbor who loved to cut down a tree on a plot of land he owned in New Mexico and bring it back to decorate with his family. When he was backing up his truck near the front of his house, he gave it a little too much gas and ended up knocking down a brick wall and badly damaging his truck!

He had a good laugh about it and brought his tree inside for his kids to decorate. I remember that the very next day, him having an agent come out and look at both his house and truck—and within a 2 week span he had everything fixed without a hitch. He thankfully had his insurance bundled, and was able to just take care of everything in one afternoon!

Since this was the time between November and December, he was able to be done with it house-2595330_960_720before the upcoming holiday and without wasting any undue stress on the whole situation! Now, not all accidents happen around the holiday season, but if it does it might be possible to save time and money with a bundle! Don’t waste the time you could have with your family!