Carpet Cleaning Insurance: Cost & Quotes From $11

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Just like window cleaning or gutter cleaning companies, carpet cleaning companies face risks every day during their operations. Cleaning agents might spill on a client's carpet, leaving permanent stains. You might also damage their belongings, not to mention your client or employee might sustain injuries from slip-and-fall incidents. No one expects such occurrences, but they can affect your finances significantly if a claim is filed against your business. Getting comprehensive carpet cleaning insurance cushions you from incurring losses

Types of Businesses That Need Carpet Cleaning Insurance

Many companies provide carpet and upholstery cleaning solutions. If you run any of the following cleaning businesses, you need business coverage.

• Commercial carpet cleaners

• Residential upholstery and carpet cleaners

• Sofa and furniture cleaning businesses

• Curtain cleaning

• Auto detailing involving interior-upholstery cleaning

Why is Carpet Cleaning Insurance Critical for Your Business?

Professional carpet cleaning business requires scientific knowledge and skill. There are over 300 types of fabrics used in the manufacture of carpets and upholstery, yet only a few are common in American households and commercial properties. The following are exposures related to the provision of services:

• Damage to the carpet being cleaned or any other nearby item

• Unintentional color disturbances or weakening of the fabric

• Mold or mildew damage on carpets because of insufficient drying time

• Slip-and-fall injuries sustained by clients

The chances are that you and your team of cleaners have handled many carpet cleaning projects. You're familiar with how cleaning agents and chemicals react with most carpet fabrics you clean. Still, there's always a risk of the unexpected. For example, you might use a safe cleaning product on a previously untested fabric. If it ruins the workpiece, you're liable for the damage and required to replace it.

Carpet Cleaning Liability Insurance

When purchasing business insurance, carpet cleaners begin by securing general liability coverage. The policy protects your business against exposure to basic third-party risks, such as:

• Third-party bodily injuries

• Unintentional property damage

• Advertising damages

Having carpet cleaner liability insurance protects you against claims by clients due to property damage and injuries resulting from cleaning projects. Otherwise, you'll have to pay for the replacements and medical costs from your pocket.

The insurance coverage protects you from incurring costs of settling lawsuits. Let's now dig deeper into the above risks that carpet cleaning liability insurance covers.

Third-Party Injuries

A client in your office might slip and fall or trip over your cleaning equipment. Your business is liable for their injuries, and they have the right to file a lawsuit against you. General liability insurance protects you by covering defense costs and compensation to the aggrieved party for their pain and suffering.

Third Property Property Damage

This coverage pays for repair or replacement costs if one of your cleaning professionals damages a client's property. For example, suppose a cleaner accidentally damages the carpet or uses a cleaning agent that permanently stains it. In that case, the third-party property coverage included in your liability insurance pays the replacement costs.

Advertising Injuries

If you advertise or promote your carpet cleaning business online, in print, or through broadcast media (radio and TV), you need to ensure your carpet cleaning liability policy covers advertising injuries. Using another company's logo or slogan can be a cause for an advertising injury lawsuit. If you have this coverage, you're protected against:

• Defamation (libel and slander)

• Trademark/copyright infringement

Public Liability Insurance for Carpet Cleaners

Public liability coverage is a type of carpet cleaner insurance policy that protects your carpet or upholstery cleaning business from claims filed by clients, contractors, or members of the public because of bodily injuries or property damage caused by your business activities.

For instance, someone might trip on your commercial property because of an uneven surface, or dislocate a wrist after tripping over a piece of your cleaning equipment.

Public liability insurance for carpet cleaners protects you in such situations by taking care of lawyer fees, other legal costs, and settlements.

Why Purchasing a Business Owner's Policy Makes More Sense?

A Business Owner's Policy (BOP) is a cost-effective means for carpet cleaning professionals to protect themselves against risks because it bundles general liability and commercial property insurance. It costs less than purchasing the policies separately.

Commercial Property Insurance in Business Owner’s Policy

Your carpet cleaning business has its own commercial building. Of course, you need to have that insured too. Building a commercial building takes a lot of fortune and time. Ironically, fire, extreme weather, theft, vandalism, and other perils can destroy or damage it in the blink of an eye.

Spending for building reconstruction or repair means you’ll incur losses. But if you have commercial property insurance, everything will be a walk in the park.

Commercial property insurance shoulders reconstruction costs if your carpet cleaning business’s building is burned to ashes or destroyed by extreme weather. It also covers repair costs if thieves, arsonists, or vandals damage the building.

Remember one thing though; Commercial property insurance doesn’t cover floods or earthquakes. There’s tailored flood insurance that pays if a flood destroys your carpet cleaning business’s building. In the same sense, earthquake insurance covers costs if an earthquake destroyed or damaged a commercial building.

Basic commercial property insurance doesn’t cover work equipment and tools. It won’t also take care of substances and other business supplies. But still, you can solve such loopholes by adding business equipment coverage and stocks and contents coverage to commercial property insurance.

The first optional policy - business equipment coverage - provides money if your carpet cleaning business’s tools and equipment got damaged or lost because of fire, vandalism, theft, and other named perils. Examples of common tools and equipment covered are:

• Carpet cleaners

• Vacuum cleaners

• Air scrubbers

• Carpet rakes

• Carpet steamers

• Carpet dryers

If carpet shampoo, defoamer, stain remover, or any other related substance becomes lost or damaged, stocks and contents coverage will reimburse your losses.

Do You Need Other Business Insurance Policies?

Buying general liability only doesn’t offer absolute protection. If you feel that it can’t fully protect you from different exposures, carriers won’t stop you from getting other policies. A custom insurance plan is the final resort if a business owner’s policy isn’t enough. The policies we mentioned above can be bundled to a custom carpet cleaner’s insurance plan together with:

• Professional liability insurance

• Commercial auto insurance

• Crime insurance

• Employer’s liability 

• Workers compensation insurance

Professional Liability Insurance

Professional liability insurance kicks in if you caused economic or financial loss for the client by committing errors and omissions. Perils covered are:

• Negligence - A new employee of your cleaning business washed an expensive carpet with bleach. The employee in question should’ve remembered not to do so as there’s a manual. The client had to spend money to replace the damaged carpet. To get reimbursement, she sued your business for property damage caused by grave negligence

• Misrepresentation - An employee handed the wrong quote to a customer. Upon asking for payment, it turned out that the service provided was more expensive. The customer then sued for misrepresentation and accused your business of making the price look cheap on paper to attract leads 

• Violation of good faith - A hotel asked you to clean the carpets in their storehouse. In the contract, it was stated that cleaning should be done by Friday. However, delays happened and your business failed to follow the end of the deal. As a result, the hotel incurred losses since the carpets were supposed to be used for a grand event. To recover, the hotel filed a lawsuit and accused your carpet cleaning business of committing a breach of contract

Ideally, professional liability and general liability must go hand in hand. This is because general liability can’t cover negligence claims. On the other hand, professional liability can’t cover personal injury and property damage claims. In other words, by having both policies, you’ll get protection from the different types of third-party liabilities.

Commercial Auto Insurance

Your 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 too. 

Consider covering your business’s vehicle with commercial auto insurance. Commercial auto insurance offers auto liability coverage, personal accident coverage, personal accident 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. To solve this drawback, consider getting personal accident coverage too. 

Personal accident coverage provides money you can use to pay for emergency treatment of injured passengers. But note that, in case the injured passengers decide to sue, the coverage won’t take care of defense costs and settlements. 

Commercial property 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

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

Workers Compensation Insurance 

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.

Employer’s Liability Insurance

Employees can sue your carpet cleaning business if they get injured at work. And understand that general liability insurance doesn’t cover employee personal injury claims. So what can protect you in such a situation? Employer’s liability insurance. This policy functions to pay for defense costs. If ever you lose the case, then employer’s liability insurance will pay settlements too.

Carpet Cleaning Insurance Requirements

Carpet and upholstery cleaners must purchase insurance to protect their businesses against risks of injuries and property damage. Depending on your company's size and operations, you might be required to have the following coverage:

General liability insurance – You'll need carpet cleaning liability insurance if you want to bid for work or undertake a cleaning project. It's a requirement that your clients and state officials often ask for. 

Workers' compensation – If you run a business with a team of employees, you'll need a workers' compensation scheme to cover your employees' work-related injuries. Failure to get workers comp is punishable. The punishment depends on where your carpet cleaning business is located. For example, if your business is in Alabama, you’ll face a fine three times the premiums you would have paid for workers compensation insurance (e.g. if the premium is $3,000 then the fine you’ll pay will be $9,000). 

Commercial auto insurance – You need commercial auto insurance if you own a business vehicle to transport cleaning equipment, tools, and supplies from your location to a job site. The insurance covers financial losses from collisions involving your commercial van or other cars. Every state has its own policies governing commercial auto coverage.

Carpet Cleaning Business Insurance Cost

Carpet cleaners pay varied rates when purchasing insurance for carpet cleaning business. Small ones usually pay lesser for insurance premiums than large well-established companies. But aside from this, several factors affect carpet cleaning insurance quotes. They include:

• Type of business; is it a residential or commercial carpet cleaning?

• Business income

• Cleaning equipment's market value

• Types of small business insurance you purchase

• Policy limits and deductible

To secure general liability insurance for your carpet cleaning services, you'll pay a median premium of $54 per month ($648 per year).  To give you a further idea about the cost, here’s a table showing the pricing of the best carpet cleaning insurance companies: