Business Owner’s Insurance (BOP) in Colorado

Business Owners Insurance, commonly referred to as BOP insurance, combines business property and business liability insurance into one policy. This can help protect your business property from losses such as fire or theft. In the event of an accident, such as a client slipping and falling in your business – BOP insurance can provide you with the liability protection you need.

Having one simple policy to offer both property and liability protection helps simplify things for business owners. Our team of licensed insurance agents will help determine what additional coverages might be beneficial for your business. Some common coverages we recommend for our commercial clients include:

• Cyber Liability and Data Breach Coverage
• Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI)
• Personal and Advertising Injury
• Employee Dishonesty/ERISA
• Business Income and Extra Expense Coverage
• Professional Liability (Errors and Omissions Insurance)
• Hired and Non-Owned Vehicle Coverage
• Liquor Liability
• Additional Insured
• Waiver of Subrogation
• Commercial Umbrella

Cyber Liability and Data Breach Coverage can be purchased as a stand-alone policy or, many times, it can be included in your BOP. Data Breach Coverage can protect you in the event that personal identifiable information is lost, stolen or accidentally released. This can include information such as social security numbers, bank account numbers, credit or debit card numbers, driver's license numbers, email addresses, or patient history and medications.

First-Party Cyber Liability Insurance can help provide assistance covering the costs of communicating with impacted customers, providing credit monitoring services, and assisting with public relations campaigns to restore a business's reputation, among other recovery activities.

Third-Party Cyber Liability Insurance can help pay for the expenses associated with lawsuits that stem from a data breach. Legal services might also be required to meet state and federal regulations.

Any business that handles or stores private information is at risk. Data Breach Insurance can help your business quickly restore its reputation, cover response expenses, provide coverage for defense and liability expenses in the event you are sued from a breach.

Let our team of licensed insurance professionals work with you to customize the data breach coverages that work best for your business and help provide you with the peace of mind knowing that your company is protected.

Employment Practices Liability (EPLI) Insurance protects an employer against claims that legal rights of employees have been violated. The number of lawsuits filed by employees against employers has been on the rise and many have gained national attention. These lawsuits tend to target large corporations, however no company is immune to lawsuits.

EPLI can offer protection against a number of law suits, including claims of:

• Discrimination
• Wrongful Termination
• Failure to Hire
• Harassment

Personal and Advertising Injury refers to injury arising out of offenses such as:

• False arrest, detention, or imprisonment
• Malicious prosecution
• Wrongful eviction
• Libel
• Slander
• Copyright infringement

Personal and Advertising Injury protection is typically offered in BOP insurance policies and CGL policies.

Employee Dishonesty/ERISA

As a business owner, you do your best to hire ethical employees to help manage and run your company. However, it only takes one bad decision made by an employee to potentially cause your business or clients financial harm.

Employee Dishonesty coverage is also referred to as Crime Insurance or Employee Theft Insurance and provides protection against theft of money, securities, or property.

Business Income and Extra Expense

When the unexpected happens and your business suffers a loss that is covered by insurance, you want to have the peace of mind knowing that you have business income and extra expense coverage in place. This insurance helps cover important expenses such as monthly benefits to employees and other essential payments such as rent.

Professional Liability Insurance

For some businesses, professional liability insurance can be added onto the BOP. However, in many cases, Professional Liability insurance will be written as a stand-alone policy. This insurance is also commonly known as Errors and Omissions Insurance (E & O Insurance) or for medical professions it is referred to as Medical Malpractice Insurance.

Professional Liability Insurance can help protect you from claims of negligent acts or errors in your professional services, inaccurate advice, misrepresentation, and personal injury (including libel and slander). Even if you are not negligent, your client can still sue your business if they think you have made a mistake.

Without Professional Liability Insurance, you will need to pay expensive legal defense costs out of pocket. And let's face it - sometimes mistakes happen. Having Professional Liability Insurance for your business can help provide you with peace of mind.

Hired and Non-Owned Vehicle Coverage can provide liability protection if your business uses personal, leased or rented vehicles. Many small businesses need this coverage, but are not aware of it!

Do you ever ask an employee to use their personal vehicle to run a quick errand – such as making a deposit at the bank? If your employee is involved in an accident while running a business errand, hired and non-owned coverage can provide liability protection. This coverage can be added onto your commercial auto policy or a general liability policy.

Liquor Liability

In the event that your business sells, serves, or distributes alcohol, liquor liability insurance can help cover claims of bodily injury or property damage caused by an intoxicated individual who was served alcohol by you or your employees. Liquor Liability can help your business cover expenses such as legal costs, settlements and judgments, repairs and cost to fix property damage, and medical bills to treat an injury.

If your business produces, sells, distributes, or serves alcohol we highly recommend making sure that you have liquor liability insurance. Some types of business that we commonly provide this coverage for include liquor stores, grocery stores, caterers, and restaurants.

Liquor liability insurance can be added onto your general liability or BOP insurance policy.

Additional Insured

As a common business practice, you may be asked to provide coverage for a customer by adding them to your policy as an Additional Insured. This extends your coverage to the third party. In some cases there is an additional charge to add an additional insured to your policy. Common requests include adding a municipality, landlord, or general contractor to your policy.

Waiver of Subrogation

Waivers of Subrogation are frequently required as they prevent an insurance company from suing a third party to recover damages that are paid out on an insurance claim. Construction, service, and lease agreements will commonly require a waiver of subrogation. In most cases, there is an additional fee charged when a waiver of subrogation is added to your insurance policy.

Commercial Umbrella

Commercial Umbrella insurance gives you extra coverage and extends the limits of some of your primary insurance policies – such as general liability and commercial auto insurance – in the event that a claim exceeds your primary insurance policy limits. Without a commercial umbrella policy you could risk paying out of pocket expenses for claims that exceed your coverage limits.

The umbrella policy provides additional coverage on top of your underlying policies. This means you can only purchase a commercial umbrella policy if you have an underlying policy, such as general liability insurance. Companies issue policies with aggregate limits that typically range from $1 million to $15 million.