Commercial Property
What Is Commercial Property Insurance?
Commercial property insurance helps protect your owned or rented building, plus the tools and equipment you use to operate your business. It covers losses from many sources, such as:
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Fire
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Burglary
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Theft
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Wind
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Lightning
For home-based business owners, this type of commercial insurance provides more coverage than homeowners insurance. You may have heard other names for this type of insurance, like:
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Commercial building insurance
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Business personal property insurance
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Commercial real estate insurance
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Non-residential building insurance
What Does Commercial Building Insurance Cover?
Commercial building insurance helps protect your business physical assets, such as your:
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Building
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Equipment
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Tools
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Inventory
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Furniture
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Personal property
It also includes business interruption insurance. So, if you can’t operate your business because of covered property damage, your policy can help replace your lost income.
How Do You Value Commercial Property for Insurance?
Insurance companies value commercial property in three ways:
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Actual cash value: How much it’d cost to replace an item, minus its depreciation.
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Replacement cost value: How much it’d cost to replace an item with something comparable or equivalent.
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Fair market value: The cost of an item if it were to go on the market today.
What Doesn’t Commercial Property Insurance Cover?
Be aware that your commercial property insurance policy doesn’t cover every type of property damage. This coverage can’t help your business if:
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Your customer drops their laptop when they trip over a box in your office
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One of your employees puts a hole in your client’s wall
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You get into an accident while making a delivery to a customer and damage your vehicle
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A nearby brook overflows after a heavy rainfall causes flooding near your building and damages your inventory
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You or your employees intentionally damage property
You can get other types of commercial insurance to give your business more protection against these kinds of claims.
Bundle Commercial Property Insurance with Essential Coverage Through a Business Owner’s Policy (BOP)
You can get commercial property insurance as a standalone policy. But many small businesses choose to get a Business Owner’s Policy (BOP), which combines three types of essential coverage.
Learn How to Reduce Your Risk Exposure
There are ways you can reduce your company’s risk exposure. For example, you can create a plan to regularly examine and test your company’s alarm and sprinkler systems in your building or home office. Regular checks give you an opportunity to fix any issues and make sure you’re prepared if a disaster strikes.
Bigger companies that need large business property insurance can also work with our Risk Engineering team. Our consultants can help these businesses:
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Create a safe work environment
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Help reduce loss
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Improve operations