Businesses in Florida should be insured against the unexpected. Just like homeowners want to protect their property from catastrophe, businesses will want to protect their physical property as well as their financial interests from the losses they could incur due to acts and events that are beyond their control.
Some of these losses will be the result of physical or natural calamities, while other losses can be the result of less-tangible events, such as theft. For these reasons, businesses will want to purchase two types of insurance coverage: commercial property insurance and commercial casualty insurance.
What is commercial property insurance?
Commercial property insurance can cover financial losses or damage incurred due to safety hazards or other physical disasters. These can include losses incurred due to pollution, disease, accidental occurrences and fires.
However, commercial property insurance does not have to cover losses from all hazards. For example, commercial property insurance need not cover windstorm damage, flood damage or damage to crops caused by hail. Insurers may offer coverage for these hazards as add-ons or separate policies.
What is commercial casualty insurance?
Commercial casualty insurance covers financial losses that are not as tangible as those covered by commercial property insurance. Specifically, commercial casualty insurance can cover financial losses incurred due to burglary, theft, fraud and vandalism damages.
These damages could be caused by an outside party or by an employee within the business.
Theft damages are not covered by commercial property insurance. This is why it is prudent for businesses in Florida to carry both commercial property insurance and commercial casualty insurance.
Insurers do not always honor policies
Sadly, even if a business has both commercial property insurance and commercial casualty insurance, this does not mean the insurers will honor these policies.
Insurers may drag their feet in the reimbursement process, hoping to get you to give up pursuing your claim before they have to pay it. They may even underpay a claim or deny it altogether by stating the damages were your fault.
When this happens, you may need to pursue insurance litigation. Doing so is a complex process, and most people do not have the knowledge or experience to take on a large insurance company on their own. Businesses facing such quandaries often turn to professionals to assist them in their legal proceedings.