No question about it: Having small business insurance is essential to protecting your business from the many risks—and potential financial burdens—that you face. But it’s also true that obtaining that insurance isn’t a task that anyone really looks forward to!

As a real estate agent or agency owner, it’s crucial that you have proper insurance coverage for your business. There are a number of policies—what might collectively be called “real estate agent insurance” [link to real estate industry page]—that you need to protect your business from the high cost of liability and losses. That’s because your business faces many risks, including incidents like:

In some instances, your client may request that you provide them with something called a waiver of subrogation. Also called a waiver of transfer of rights of recovery, this waiver, which is associated with your small business insurance, means that your insurer gives up the right to seek payment from your client if it’s determined that the client or one of its employees was partially responsible for an incident.

Every small company needs business insurance, and every business insurance policy has a “limit,” meaning how much it will pay for a covered incident. It’s important that your coverage increases as your business risk increases—like when you hire more people, start working for a larger number of clients, or take on different types of work or new types of clients.

The different types of commercial insurance that biBERK offers provide broad coverage. However, you can get additional coverage by including what are called insurance policy endorsements. These add-ons typically enhance the base coverage in some way. And whether you ultimately choose to purchase them or not, it’s important to understand the protection they offer.

For people who work alone or own a small business, self-employed liability insurance to cover various types of business risk is essential. Without proper business insurance for self-employed people, one lawsuit can result in a financial burden that ends in bankruptcy.

Insurance for caterers is a term used to describe a group of insurance policies that are important to food service businesses. Also known as insurance for caterers, food service insurance, or food liability insurance, these policies protect food service businesses from many types of risk, such as employee injuries, injuries to customers and other non-employees, plus liability from accidents in company-owned vehicles.

Workers’ compensation insurance (also called workers’ comp coverage and workers’ comp insurance) provides financial protection for employees who are injured, become ill, or die on the job. In doing so, it also protects businesses and negates the need for lengthy and often stressful financial battles.

Company insurance is a catchall term used to describe different insurance policies that protect businesses from the cost of legal liability and losses. For example, if your employee damages a customer’s property, they can sue you. In that instance, a general liability policy can protect you. Or, if equipment you need to run your business is damaged, a business owners policy (BOP) may cover the replacement cost.