With all the violence one reads about, business owners may wonder if their insurance policies will help them deal with a crisis– things like evacuation of personnel, lost income if the business is damaged, and counseling or post-incident care for employees.
The answer may be found in crisis-response coverage.
Insurers offer endorsements that add important crisis-response coverage to commercial property, liability and umbrella liability policies. Such coverage can increase the payout available under your original policy and expand benefits to things that aren’t included in the underlying policy. For example, a crisis-response policy might provide coverage for psychological counseling for victims, evacuation from a worksite or other hostile location, and public relations expenses. Coverage may even be available for business events held away from your coverage premises. (Imagine a hotel or conference center that falls under an attack of some kind.)
In some cases, you may suffer a loss of business income. A mass shooting, a bomb and foodborne pathogens are examples of incidents that could shut down your operations for several days—or longer. Some crisis-response policies amend commercial property insurance to extend business income protection. Coverage may be available for extra expenses, such as costs to avoid or minimize a reduction in operations or to move operations to another location while your premises are closed due to the incident.
