If you are creating a new start-up in the IT sector, there are countless things to think about. While bringing on board your talent and working on your business strategy may be the more exciting tasks involved with starting up, there is also of course the matter of making sure your business is compliant with state, national, and international requirements, and all kinds of other admin. A crucial part of this is getting the right insurance to keep your fledgling company both legally compliant and financially protected against potentially devastating lawsuits.
While there are some types of insurance you’ll only need if you have certain things, like company vehicles or expensive equipment, there are some that apply to almost all businesses in your sector. Here we take a look at what they are and how they protect you:
General Liability Insurance
A key type of insurance for any business is general liability insurance. This is because it covers you should there be any claims or lawsuits from people outside of your organization such as clients or members of the general public, who receive harm to themselves or their property either on your premises, or as a result of your business’s working activities.
How much it costs to get general liability insurance for your business will depend on a number of factors, including the level of risk of a claim your type of work introduces. If you are a reseller who installs major infrastructure on client sites, for example, there is much more risk that there will be an incident than if you are a SaaS company that does everything remotely and rarely interacts with customers on-site.
Professional Liability Insurance
Another type of insurance you may need is professional liability insurance, which insures you against errors and mistakes that cause damage to your clients and lead to lawsuits. There are lots of different fields in IT where there is the potential for errors by your business to harm clients, and this is not covered by general liability insurance. If you manufacture and sell tech products, you may also need product liability insurance, which is a similar thing but for issues with or damage caused by your products.
Workers’ Compensation Insurance
Any business with staff needs to have workers’ compensation insurance to cover injuries or losses to employees that happen as a result of them doing their jobs.
Once you have insurance in place, there are other essentials you need, such as a healthcare plan. Look for one that covers everything your employees might need, such as dental, vision, and hearing. Healthcare plans that offer supplemental healthcare solutions are likely to appeal to employees, which will make it easier to attract top-tier applicants to key roles in the company.
As you are preparing to begin doing business with your new IT company, make sure you look into insurance and other essentials that are relevant to the type of business you will be starting. It is a vital step towards compliance as well as protecting you financially from unexpected lawsuits and compensation claims.