| NEXT (Best) | Thimble | Hiscox |
|---|
| Aggregate limit | $5,000/$10,000 | $2,500/$5,000 | $5,000/$25,000 |
| Covers hired and borrowed equipment? | $5,000/$10,000 | $2,500/$5,000 | No |
| Miscellaneous equipment also covered? | $5,000/$10,000 | No | No |
| Offered as an endorsement to general liability insurance? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Deductible | $500 | $500 | $0 |
Carpet cleaning machines aren’t cheap. Those made for commercial purposes cost $1,000-$2,000.
You don’t want to spend a lot of money in case something happens to your carpet cleaning equipment. That said, it’s smart to get tools and equipment insurance.
Tools and equipment insurance takes care of repair or replacement expenses in case your carpet cleaning machines get damaged or lost because of fire, theft, vandalism, and other covered perils.
Use the table above to compare the tools and equipment insurance of companies we recommend.
Commercial Property Insurance For Carpet Cleaners
| CoverWallet | NEXT (Best) | Hiscox | Thimble |
|---|
| Building coverage limit (minimum) | $50,000 | $25,000 | $25,000 | $25,000/$500,000 |
| Contents coverage limit (minimum) | $50,000 | $25,000 | $25,000 | $25,000/$500,000 |
| Outdoor signs | Excluded | $2,500 | Excluded | Excluded |
| Accounts receivable | Excluded | Excluded | Included | $5,000/$10,000 |
| Money and securities | Excluded | $2,500 | Included | $1,000 |
| Lock and keys | Excluded | $2,500 | Excluded | Excluded |
| Business interruption floater | Excluded | Included | Included | Included |
| Equipment breakdown floater | Excluded | Included | Excluded | Excluded |
| Inland marine insurance floater | Excluded | Excluded | Excluded | $10,000 |
| Employee dishonesty floater | Excluded | $5,000 | Included | $2,500 |
Chances are that as a business, you've accrued some assets that you'd want protected. This might include building space and supplies. The best way to protect said assets is with a commercial property insurance policy.
Carriers offer you the option of either insuring the assets at either replacement cost or actual cash value. Use the table above to compare the commercial property insurance of companies we recommend.
With the replacement cost option, you'll end up paying a tad bit more upfront, but you are assured that the reimbursement for losses will be equal to the original market price of the building or equipment covered by commercial property insurance.
The actual cash value is less pricey but the reimbursement you’ll get might not be enough to totally cover the loss. It’s because the amount of money you’ll receive will be equal to the depreciated value of the item or equipment that commercial property insurance covers.
Business Owner’s Policy For Carpet Cleaners
| CoverWallet | Thimble | NEXT (Best) | Hiscox |
|---|
| General liability aggregate limit | $2,000,000 | $1,000,000/$2,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $300,000/$2,000,000 |
| Commercial property coverage limit | $50,000 | $500,000 | $25,000 | $25,000 |
| Optional policies can be added? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Name additional insureds for free? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Some carpet cleaner insurance programs allow you to bundle general liability insurance and commercial property insurance into a business owner's policy (BOP).
Use the table above to compare the business owner’s policy of insurance companies we recommend.
A business owner’s policy grants a quick and comprehensive shield against the financial losses that result from lawsuits and damage or destruction of your own business property.
Note, however, that for you to qualify for a BOP, there are a few prerequisites that you must meet. These include the following:
Have fewer than 100 employees
Make less than $1 million in annual revenue
Operate from a small commercial space
With the BOP, you are assured of getting the same coverage you would have if you would have purchased individual policies at a fraction of the price. An insider tip would be to have your insurer include a business interruption clause within the BOP. This business interruption policy covers part of the operating costs in the event that you are forced to close down your business because of renovation, relocation, or economic crisis.
Workers' Compensation Insurance For Carpet Cleaners
You need to invest in employee welfare - and we don’t mean life insurance. Aside from this, you also need to buy an insurance policy that covers employees immediately in case they become injured or sick while working.
Workers compensation insurance kicks in if an employee gets injured or sick because of work. It helps to pay for the employee’s emergency treatment, hospitalization, after-hospital visits, and medical expenses. If the employee needs to stay at home to continue healing, workers compensation replaces a portion of the income lost. Furthermore, this policy provides benefits to the family if the employee dies.
You can add an employer’s liability coverage to workers compensation insurance. So what is this carpet cleaners insurance policy anyway? An employer’s liability coverage takes care of settlements, legal expenses, and court judgments if an employee holds you liable for his or her work-related injury or disease.
Commercial Auto Insurance For Carpet Cleaners
Your carpet cleaning business certainly owns one or two vehicles. Vehicles are useful for taking employees to different projects. Moreover, they’re handy for transporting different kinds of work equipment.
Consider covering your business’s vehicle with commercial auto insurance. Commercial auto insurance offers auto liability coverage, physical damage coverage, and emergency roadside assistance. Let’s discuss how these help.
Auto liability coverage in commercial auto insurance covers costs if your carpet cleaning business’s vehicle caused an accident and injured third parties or caused property damage. You can use the insurance money from auto liability coverage to pay for defense costs and settlements to aggrieved parties. Remember one thing though, auto liability insurance might not help if the vehicle’s driver is driving under influence.
Auto liability insurance only covers the injuries of third parties. It won’t provide money to take care of the injuries of your business vehicle’s passengers.
Commercial auto insurance’s physical damage coverage can be classified into two types - collision and comprehensive. Collision physical damage coverage shoulders repair or replacement costs if your business’s vehicle collided with an object or another vehicle.
On the other hand, comprehensive physical damage coverage takes care of repair or replacement costs if fire, theft, vandalism, and extreme weather damages your commercial vehicle. But understand that there are exclusions too, which vary from carrier to carrier.
Think about scenarios where your carpet cleaning business’s vehicle suddenly stalls during the trip because of issues. Of course, you’ll have to spend to get it running once again or haul it back to the office.
Emergency roadside assistance sees to it that you can recover losses if such things happen. In a nutshell, this optional coverage in commercial auto insurance reimburses what you spent for battery jump start service, tire repair or replacement service, towing service, and more.
Crime Insurance For Carpet Cleaners
Crimes can happen to any business. That’s why carriers underwrite special protection called crime insurance.
Basic crime insurance helps you recover financial losses if third-parties manage to do the following successfully against your carpet cleaning business:
Fraud
Theft of equipment or money
Destruction of equipment or money
Social engineering
Unauthorized credit card transaction
Unauthorized use of cheques
Misrepresentation
Document manipulation
Purchasing crime insurance isn’t common as most businesses decide to self insure. However, this can be very helpful if losses are worth millions of dollars.
Not only third parties but employees can commit a crime against your carpet cleaning business. Employees might do bad things because they’re not paid well enough, feel that the organization lacks opportunities, or are simply dishonest. No matter what the reason might be, understand that basic crime insurance doesn’t cover losses resulting from an employee’s crimes. And so, decide to add employee dishonesty insurance.
Employee dishonesty insurance covers financial losses and PR costs if an employee commits any of the following:
Siphoning customer refunds to his or her own personal bank account or any other platform that stores money
Stages a scene with someone to steal money, valuable equipment, or materials from your carpet cleaning business
Inputs the wrong figures on financial documents to cover theft
Destroys your business’s money, cheques, bonds, or securities
Other kinds of activities constituting fraud or dishonesty
Surety Bonds
Suppose, due to an unprecedented event, you are unable to finish a contract. This leaves your client exposed, which is where a surety bond comes in. The latter is a three-party agreement between your business, the client, and your carrier of choice. The insurer agrees to compensate the client in the event that you fail to complete the job as per the agreement on the contract.
Note that while you are bailed out in the short term, you'd still be expected to pay the bond company the exact amount that was paid out to the client.
Moreover, surety bonds come in particularly handy if you were to win a big commercial contract. In this case, the client could mandate that you present proof of your commitment to the task at hand, which is where the surety bond would come in.
