CGL Insurance
So you have a business that needs to present proof of Commercial General Liability Insurance (or CGL for short). What do you do now?
You need to contact an insurance broker, this is because CGL Insurance is 95% of the time sold through licensed insurance brokers in Ontario, Canada. Unlike home, auto, motorcycle or life insurance. This is because it’s related to your business insurance needs and not your personal insurance.
Then what happens? Typically an insurance broker will take out an application and ask you dozens of questions that relate to your business, address, revenue, operations + the location you operate out of or use for tax purposes.
From there, you can expect the insurance broker to send the information to different insurance companies in the hope that they will competitively quote your business coverage. 1-2 weeks later you could hope for a comparison of a few quotes or responses related to which insurance markets may offer you coverage and for what price.
This is the way insurance brokers have done things for 50+ years. It can work but the problem with it is, most brokers are generalists which means they try and help all types of businesses. They have a very general approach to your personal coverage, life and business. This may yield positive results if they happen to hit the right questions and have the right insurance carrier engaged from the start. Sometimes if not more than often it creates a back and forth with you and the broker + the insurance carrier to get more info, better understand the business and can take weeks. I have seen this over the past 12 years happen all too often.
Now, there are some brokers who are making a paradigm shift and creating specialized approaches to core business types that they understand and have programs around. We study the markets to understand what they insure and how. This ensures that from the start, James can learn about your business, ask the right streamlined questions and develop a business insurance plan to match on usually the same day.
No more waiting weeks or filling out 1,2,3 applications to find the right approach for a generalist broker.
When we know and constantly work with the type of business you run, we have a greater understanding of your needs and exposures. We also develop long standing relationships with underwriters who cater to our needs and allow for faster and easier set-up as they trust our expertise as brokers.
So let’s look at the wording around CGL Insurance: It states that in order for a policy to be enacted a lawsuit against your business must occur. This is typically the case and some policies keep in mind can vary with wording. Once a lawsuit occurs, the insurance adjuster will also look at the details of the claim to ensure that either A) Property damage occurred or B) Bodily injury occurred. Once one of these instances is present, the policy will start to pay for your legal defense. If you have ever been through a lawsuit or even a small legal matter, you can attest to the exorbitant legal costs that can stack up quickly. With lawyers booking out at an absolute minimum of $200/hour, even the initial stages of tasks can cost tens of thousands of dollars. If you are not insured in this area, you could quickly run through cash that you would probably spend elsewhere!
In addition to the legal costs incurred, the policy will look to settle and pay the final claim amount resulting from the damage or bodily injury occurred. So it’s important here for us to assess what limit of insurance you really need. An expert insurance broker can look at your company profile and help determine what exposure you have. Routinely work on million dollar homes? Have high net worth clients? Have more than 5 employees? Then $1 million of liability coverage may not be enough. A good broker can look at precedent setting cases in your field and also assess the value of properties that you work on as both of these are crucial to review.
So what’s next? I could write all day about what, where and how a CGL policy comes into place but everyone is different. This is why I would encourage you to set 15-30 minutes aside and book a time to chat with me here. I can call you to start the process of a business insurance review. This is free of charge and there is 0 obligation. I sell on the basis of us both being comfortable with the plan and setting up of your policy the right away.
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New form build out here for CGL Insurance
Please complete the below information for information needed to quote your business insurance needs. Once we receive this data, James will begin his search for your absolute best options. As brokers, we work with over 20 insurance carriers in North America and can determine your best options.
