You have your own business. You are doing well; it is very successful. Your family is living comfortably and everything seems right in the world. That is until an accident happens at work and that person’s lawyer says you are liable. The next step will likely be him/her asking for the number of your lawyer and insurance company.
You do have insurance, right?
People like to say that it is money that makes the world go round, but the saying should be that insurance does instead. While it may cost money that you may think you do not have now to pay for it, not having it could cost you even more money or even your business later.
For the self storage industry there are a few different kinds of insurance which facility owners are recommended to have, business liability insurance, medical payments, and customer’s goods legal liability.
Business liability insurance is the basic, blanket coverage that any business should have. It will cover most things that you as the self storage owner could be hit with. It will cover against many of your typical civil lawsuits claiming bodily injury, property damage, libel, and slander. There is even coverage to cover suits involving copyright issues involving your advertising.
In some scenarios business liability insurance can help if there are criminal charges involved with a suit providing for legal defense of you and your self storage facility.
Along with business liability insurance there is something referred to as medical payments. Essentially what it does is help cover medical expenses to a pre-determined limit. This is something in addition to business liability and kicks in regardless of who is determined to be at fault, hence the term ‘goodwill coverage.’
Customer’s goods legal liability coverage is a must have for every facility. What this does is protect you from cases that evolve when a tenant’s goods are damaged from things like rain coming in through a hole in the roof. If something can be deemed to be caused from your failure to properly maintain the property than it is covered here.
Another recommended type of coverage to have is employment practice liability. These days you can never tell when an employee or former employee might decide to sue for what you had thought was simply good business practice. This helps cover you from what experts say is quickly becoming a common claim.
Pollution liability coverage is good to have as well. You never know when something that a tenant stores leaks or causes damage to your facility or another tenant’s belongings. This protects you from issues that can damage the environment. It is good to have for any self storage facility, but should be considered vital if you have RV or boat storage.
Having sale and disposal liability coverage is real important in the self storage industry. This basically protects you against conversion. Inevitably every self storage facility will have to evict a tenant and will have to remove that person’s belongings from the unit. Sale and disposal liability makes sure that you’re covered under lawsuits that may arise from this common self storage situation.
Having insurance is not a harbinger of doom at all. Chances are that if your self storage facility looks like someting might happen there they will not be doing business with you anyway, but if you maintain your facility they will see this as a good thing. With coverae like the aforementioned they can feel the security that if something bad does happen that you care enough to make sure that things can be set right again.
Sources Used:
"Six Must have Insurance Coverages for Every Self-Storage Operation." Inside Self Storage; 08 January 2011.
"Specialized Self-Storage Insurance Coverages: Essential to Business Protection." Inside Self Storage; 16 July 2010.