As a smart business owner, one of your major goals is to strive hard to reduce the costs of running your business so that you can increase your profits. Getting insurance coverage for your company is one of the smartest business decisions that you can make but the challenge is in paying insurance premiums. Insurance premiums could be very costly for the business especially when you are getting coverage for all aspects of your business.
A lot of business owners make the mistake of continuing to pay insurance premiums without actually thinking of ways to reduce these premiums. There have been cases of companies who continued to pay insurance premiums on assets they no longer own and staff members who are no longer on their payroll.
Insurance is not a one-time thing; it’s something you have to continue to review from time to time and find ways to reduce costs. However, reducing insurance premiums doesn’t mean looking for ways to cut corners and end up putting your business at risk. Here are some safe ways to reduce business insurance premiums without endangering your business-:
13 Safe Ways to Reduce Business Insurance Premiums By 47%
1. Before you buy any insurance policy, you must ensure that you get as many quotes and prices as you can from various companies and agents and get yourself the best deal out there which would provide adequate coverage for your business and would also be cheaper. The first step to spending less on insurance premiums is taking time to shop for the best coverage in the first place.
2. Create a file for your insurance where you would have all documents and all contracts and agreements related to your insurance policy safely kept.
3. You should also ensure that you review your insurance at least once a year. Check out all your assets that you have insured to see if you still own them all. If probably you have sold some motor vehicles or equipment out, you would have to remove those things from your policy which means fewer premiums to pay.
4. If you have insured employees, you should also review the number of employees you have in your insurance contract as against the number of employees that are currently in your payroll and make the necessary additions and deductions from your insurance policy.
5. Another tip to help you reduce business insurance premiums is to look in your contract for irrelevant or repetitive coverage. Sometimes, insurance policies come with some gaps and overlaps and if there are overlaps, you would definitely be paying way more than what you ought to be paying in insurance premiums.
6. Group insurance is also helpful in reducing insurance premiums. Some insurance companies partner up with trade unions and associations and offer their members some discounts and reductions in insurance rates. If you belong to such a group, you may be able to get cheaper rates than what you would get individually.
7. You should also consider getting an umbrella plan as opposed to getting individual policies for all of your businesses. For instance, you can get commercial General Liability Insurance which would cover for most aspects of your business. You would be able to pay less premiums than if you had to take separate policies and pay premiums on all of them separately.
8. Look out for new insurance products regularly. You don’t have to stick with one insurance company forever. There may be other new companies or products in the market that would offer you better coverage for less money so you should continue to look out for new products but you have to be smart about it so you don’t end up falling for cheap scams and misleading advertisements.
9. Reduce your risks
You may be able to pay lesser premiums if you have facilities in place that helps to reduce risks. If you have a fire alarm for instance, you may be able to pay less premium on fire insurance and if you employ professionals for your business and ensure that they are always adequately trained, you may be able to pay less on employee liability insurance premiums because one of the things that the insurance companies look out for is your level of exposure to risk.
High exposure to risk means high premiums while less exposure to risk would translate to less insurance premiums.
10. You can also talk to a professional who would suggest risk reduction strategies and help you suggest ways to reduce risks. You should do this before taking or renewing your insurance policy.
11. It won’t hurt to talk to your insurance company or brokers about opportunities and ways through which you can reduce your insurance premium. You never can tell, your insurance broker or agent may be able to give you viable suggestions that would help to reduce your insurance premiums. However, you should only take suggestions and advice from people whom you are sure have your best interests at heart and not people who are only concerned with how to make more commission off you.
12. Protect your assets
Yes, you have insurance coverage but even that is not enough. You have to protect your assets and employees because sometimes, when you become careless and an incident happens as a result of your carelessness, the insurance company may elect not to pay and come up with some kind of clause or limits or all of that jargon why they cannot pay claims.
Then you would have wasted all of the money you spent on premiums. Now you would not only have wasted your money, you would also have to repair and replace your property, and in the case of claims, pay all of the claims all on your own. This is not something you would like to experience so to avoid such; you should protect your assets and follow all occupational health and safety practices as much as possible.
13. Have a budget
Having a budget also makes things easier. You should always have a budget on how much you are willing to spend on insurance each year. That is a good way to keep an eye on your expenses and avoid overspending.