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Not all have the time to go to the department store to buy what’s needed. Luckily, online businesses exist and allow people to shop right in the comfort of their own houses.
E-commerce spans a vast range of service and retail businesses. Examples are Shopify sellers, online marketplaces, and mobile shopping apps. Tailored e-commerce sales insurance is the best coverage option if you associate yourself with these.
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E-Commerce Liability Insurance
Ecommerce liability insurance is an insurance product that provides protection from third-party claims. Insurance companies offer ecommerce businesses with general liability insurance, product liability insurance, and cyber liability insurance. Let this discuss what these e-commerce insurance coverages do for you.
Ecommerce General Liability Insurance
General liability insurance is a type of e-commerce insurance coverage all carriers underwrite. It takes care of claims from vendors, customers, and other third parties. The language of this liability policy offered in tailored e-commerce insurance provides protection against the following perils:
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Third-Party Personal Injury Claims | Third Party-Property Damage | Lawsuits |
| A visitor or a vendor might visit the commercial space of your ecommerce business. If they trip, fall, and sustain injuries, a claim might be filed against you. General liability insurance will help by paying the injured person’s medical expenses your behalf | Your business operations will cause property damage to some third parties. If someone files a claim due to this, general liability insurance will reimburse the value of the damaged property | Personal injuries and property damage are valid grounds for a lawsuit against your business. Lawsuits cost $10,000 or more including attorney fees, compensatory payments, and other legal costs. In connection, general liability insurance will pay for such expenses |
By investing more in premiums, general liability insurance can provide enhanced coverage and protect you further from other exposures accompanying your ecommerce business’s interaction with vendors, customers, and other third parties. Additional protection you can add to this ecommerce insurance policy are the following:
 |
 |
|---|---|
| Advertising Injury Coverage | Rented Premises Liability Coverage |
| Being in ecommerce means that you own a website. Using copyrighted graphics for your website is a ground for a lawsuit. Also, a claim might be filed if you publish content that inflicts advertising or reputational harm to a business, vendor, or other third-parties. Advertising injury coverage provides protection against such instances. Specifically, this will cover attorney fees, compensatory payments, and other legal costs if a claim is filed due to slander, libel, copyright infringement, false advertising, and other related perils | If you’re renting a building or any other space for business operations to be smoother, rented premises liability coverage is useful. If a fire damages a rented property, it’s your job to reimburse the losses of the landlord. The job of rented premises liability coverage is to pay on your behalf |
Product Liability Insurance for Ecommerce
Ecommerce product liability insurance covers costs if a claim is filed because your e-commerce business delivered a defective product to clients. This inclusion in tailored ecommerce insurance covers attorney fees, compensatory payments, and other legal costs on your behalf.
Cyber Liability Insurance for Ecommerce Businesses
Cyber liability insurance protects e-commerce businesses from the associated risks that they are most vulnerable to – cyber-attacks. Due to the nature of ecommerce business, customer info is gathered, processed, and stored. Hackers then try to get hold of such information for their own gains through data breaches achieved by phishing, compromising credentials, and malware.
In the event of a data breach and hackers accessed or deleted any of the sensitive data that your ecommerce business was storing – be it customer data or business data – comprehensive cyber liability insurance makes sure that your business can pay claims, cover PR costs, and other related expenses.
Ecommerce Shipping Insurance
Liability policies aren’t ones included in tailored ecommerce sales insurance. There’s also insurance for shipping primarily offered as goods in transit coverage. Goods in transit insurance will reimburse losses if an item or items got lost or damaged due to fire, malicious mischief, and other covered perils while they’re on the way to you or to a customer.
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Should I Get Tailored Ecommerce Insurance As an Online Store Owner or Online Merchant?
Yes, you should. However, as we said earlier, there’s tailored online store insurance for you. Let’s discuss what this is in the next sections.
Online Store Insurance
This insurance product works best if you’re running a jewelry online store, food online store, or if you’re a merchant in the following online marketplaces:
- Alibaba
- Etsy
- eBay
- Amazon
- Facebook Marketplace
- Wish
- Google Express
Just like tailored ecommerce insurance, online store insurance primarily includes liability insurance policies as the first line of defense against business exposures.
Liability Insurance for Online Stores and Retailers
Online store insurance specially underwritten by insurance companies for online merchants includes the following liability insurance policies:
- General liability insurance
- Cyber liability insurance
- Public liability insurance
General Liability Insurance for Online Retailers
Business insurance online retailers include general liability insurance as the most basic protection. A basic general liability policy provides armor against lawsuits arising from bodily injuries or property damage.
General liability insurance, which you can also find in gift shop insurance bundles, doesn’t only account for personal injuries to the client but also personal injuries to independent contractors or other persons with whom you do business.
In practice, general liability insurance will pay for the cost of attorney fees, other legal costs, and compensation if an independent contractor, other persons, or client files a lawsuit for personal injuries and property damage. You can get $1 million up to $2 million coverage from general liability insurance.
Should you not think twice about getting general liability insurance? The answer is an absolute yes. On average, personal injury and property damage claims independent contractors or customers file might cost $75,000 – $500,000.
Another thing that general liability insurance protects you from is advertising injury. This will kick in if you end up getting sued for slander or if you copied the name, logo, trademark, or ad of another online merchant.
Cyber Liability Insurance for Online Retailers and Stores
You have access to the client’s personal information such as name, location, phone numbers, credit card numbers, and bank account numbers. The leakage of these data can result in heavy losses. Here are some examples:
- Neiman Marcus, a fashion and clothes online store, had to pay $1.6 million in a data breach lawsuit after a successful cyberattack exposed the credit card data of $350,000 clients
- In 2014, cybercriminals accessed Home Depot’s network and stole more than 50 million credit card numbers and 53 million email addresses. The resulting costs of the accident are as follows; $134.5 million Home Depot paid to credit card companies, $19.5 million as payment to customers the breach affected, and $25 million to financial institutions.
Cyber liability insurance for online retailers and stores will cover the cost associated with data breaches or errors in cyber security. With this included in your tailored online shop insurance, it will be very easy to pay for the recovery of data and compensation to the parties affected. If someone decides to sue, you’re ensured that there won’t be significant losses when paying for legal defense.
Product Liability Insurance for Online Retailers
When shopping for cheap business insurance online retailers typically invest in product liability insurance.
Disputes with clients over defective products are another danger that you face. You have liability if ever the product defects injured or caused property damage to the customer. Again, this incident is costly. Here are some examples:
- Amazon, the United States’ biggest online store, had to pay $1,000 for the damages customers experienced after buying defective products from sellers
- Walmart had to pay compensation to injured customers who bought defective Blitz gas cans. The cost of compensation for all customers amounts to $25 million
Product liability insurance is the policy that will pay for the cost of defective product lawsuits customers file. It provides $1 million up to $2 million so that you can pay for attorney fees, other legal costs, and compensation to the injured persons. Note that product liability doesn’t only cover defective product claims but also counterfeit product claims.
Carriers include product liability insurance in general liability insurance or offer it as a stand-alone policy.
Public Liability Insurance for Online Retailers and Stores
Public liability insurance is included in online retail insurance that will cover the cost of personal injuries or property damage you caused to a third party because of business operations. As you might have noticed, general liability insurance and public liability insurance have the same primary functions. But you need to realize that, unlike general liability insurance, public liability insurance doesn’t cover advertising injuries, slander, copyright infringement, libel, and other related exposures associated with your business’s interaction with third parties.
Online Wholesale Insurance
The exposures in online retail are different from online wholesale. And so, carriers offer online wholesale insurance for those who sell bulk products to businesses through B2B and B2C e-commerce business schemes.
Online wholesale insurance offers general liability, product liability, public liability, and cyber liability policies just like online shop insurance. However, it also offers other policies that provide protection from missed shipment, damage to stocks in the warehouse, employee theft, and employee injury claims.
Shopify Business Insurance
Shopify requests sellers to get business insurance to protect themselves. And so, insurance companies offer shopify insurance policies. The primary coverage you should get as a seller in shopify is general liability insurance with an optional ecommerce product liability insurance. It’s also smart if you decide to invest in goods in transit insurance.
Shopify Shipping Insurance
There’s a tailored Shopify shipping insurance e-commerce platform that’s available for the sellers of the online marketplace. Shopify’s ShipInsure is available to merchants shipping from the United States. Eligibility requirements are as follows:
- Items must be shipped from the US
- The label must be purchased through Shopify shipping
- The items to be shipped must have a tracking number included
- The items must comply with Shopify’s terms of service
Shopify Cyber Insurance
While Shopify recommends a wide range of insurance, many store owners wonder whether it’s worth getting their hands on cyber insurance if they work on the platform. Shopify does a good job of ensuring that their clients’ details are as secure as possible and so this business insurance e-commerce might not be that useful. The only case in which it would make sense to have cyber insurance is if the login info for your store is compromised since that is what attackers will need to access sensitive data relevant to your store.
More Insurance for Online Stores, Online Retailers, and Other Ecommerce Businesses
Commercial Auto Insurance
Commercial auto insurance is a coverage for the commercial vehicle of an online store, online retailer, or other ecommerce businesses. Having this is a must if you regularly use a van or any other vehicle to transport products, goods, and labor. Commercial auto insurance offers the following protection for your business
| Coverage | Function |
|---|---|
Auto Liability Coverage |
While transporting labor, goods, or materials to other businesses or customers, your commercial vehicle will cause an accident and injure third parties or damage property. In such a situation, auto liability coverage will pay for medical treatment and hospitalization. Auto liability coverage will also reimburse the value of damaged property |
Physical Damage Coverage |
As an online store, online retailer, or any other ecommerce business, it’s important to take care of the vehicle used for business purposes. Physical damage coverage will help you with this. This has two types: collision and comprehensive. Collision physical damage coverage takes care of parts repair or replacement expenses if the commercial vehicle incurred damage after running into an object or another vehicle. Comprehensive physical damage coverage will take care of parts repair or replacement costs if hail, wind, storm, fire, animal collision, and other covered perils damaged the commercial vehicle. |
MedPay/Personal Injury Protection |
MedPay and personal injury protection will take care of the driver’s and the passenger’s medical treatment if the commercial vehicle caused an accident or got involved in an accident. But still, unlike personal injury protection, MedPay provides compensation for lost income |
Workers Compensation Insurance for Online Stores, Online Retailers, and Other Ecommerce Businesses
An online store, online retailer, or any other ecommerce business needs to get workers’ compensation insurance as soon as there are one or more employees. Workers’ compensation insurance will help you pay for expenses when an employee experiences carpal tunnel, fractures, repetitive motion injuries, eye strain, disease, and other work-related hazards. Workers’ compensation insurance provides coverage for the following:
| Coverage | Function |
|---|---|
Employee Treatment/Medical Procedure |
Workers’ compensation insurance will pay for the cost of surgery, hormonal therapy, radiation therapy, and other types of treatment/procedure the attending physician requests your employee to have |
Hospitalization |
Some injuries and illnesses will cause your employee to be hospitalized for days or months. Workers’ compensation insurance will pay for his/her medical bills on your behalf |
Medication |
Aside from medical treatment/procedure and hospitalization, your employee also needs money for medication. This expense will also be catered to by workers’ compensation insurance |
Rehabilitation |
Some injuries and illnesses will result in temporary or permanent impairment. In connection, workers’ compensation insurance will help with rehabilitation that will improve the employee’s quality of life |
Lost Income Compensation |
The attending physician might advise your employee to stop working momentarily. It’s also possible for an injury or sickness to force an employee to stop working completely. Another job of workers’ compensation insurance is to ensure that the employee has money during his or her unemployment. The policy does this by providing compensation for lost income equal to two-thirds or 67% of the average weekly wage |
Death Benefits |
If your employee dies because of a work-related injury or disease, workers’ compensation insurance will provide death benefits such as payments for funeral expenses and allowance to dependents |
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Ecommerce Insurance Cost
Tailored ecommerce insurance cost $65 per month or $780 per year for one million general liability coverage. Factors that affect pricing are the type of ecommerce business, products or goods sold, location, number of employees, business history, claims history, and more. Here’s a table showing the pricing of the best ecommerce insurance companies for more idea about the cost of premiums:
| Cost per Month | Cost per Year | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CoverWallet | $63 | $756 | Ecommerce insurance quotes comparison online |
| Thimble | $64 | $768 | On-demand and short-term e commerce insurance |
| NEXT | $68 | $816 | Business owner’s policy for ecommerce businesses |
| Hiscox | $78 | $936 | Ecommerce insurance with liability coverage having generous limits |
Online Store Insurance Cost
The bullet below shows how much online stores and online retailers pay for the coverages included in tailored online store insurance.
- Online stores and retailers pay $56.25 a month or $675 a year for a $1 million general liability policy
- The cost of cyber liability insurance for online shops and online retailers is $64 a month or $768 a year
- Online retailers and stores pay $43 a month or $516 a year for public liability insurance
- The cost of product liability insurance for online stores and retailers is $41 a month or $492 a year
Compare E-Commerce Insurance Quotes
Get all the best quotes from leading providers in a click of a button!
Best E-commerce Insurance Companies
You have many carriers to choose from when it comes to buying tailored insurance for online stores, online retailers, and other eCommerce businesses. Nonetheless, in this section, we’ll provide a review of the best ecommerce business insurance companies. Read to know their pros, cons, and pricing for a $1 million general liability coverage.
CoverWallet E-commerce Insurance
Pros
- Compare quotes from the best ecommerce insurance companies
- Easy policy management
- Customizable insurance solutions
- Cancel a policy anytime
Cons
- Not an insurance company but a broker selling the insurance solutions of its partners
CoverWallet offers a streamlined insurance process for ecommerce businesses. This insurance broker has an online quotes comparison platform you can use to get the ecommerce insurance quotes of different companies. Also, CoverWallet has a tailored ecommerce business insurance plan made by customizing the offers of its partners. You have four to choose from – general liability with products and completed operations coverage, general liability and commercial property insurance, business owner’s policy with workers compensation insurance, and a custom plan.
Best for: Ecommerce insurance quotes comparison online
Average cost: $63 per month
Our rating: 10/10
Thimble E-commerce Insurance
Pros
- Thimble offers on-demand insurance products available as short-term policies
- Allows you not to have a deductible
Cons
- Customer support is only reachable via the Thimble app or website
Thimble offers on-demand insurance products that ecommerce businesses can get as a short-term policy lasting for only hours, days, weeks, or months. Inclusions in this company’s tailored insurance for ecommerce are general liability insurance, stand-alone auto liability coverage, workers compensation insurance, cyber liability insurance, and more.
Best for: On-demand and short-term e-commerce insurance
Average cost: $64 per month
Our rating: 9/10
NEXT Insurance for Ecommerce
Pros
- Allows you to save up to 30% on premiums
- Free certificate of insurance
Cons
- Doesn’t offer cyber liability insurance
NEXT is an insurance company that takes pride in its digital-centric insurance process. This insurance company uses big data technology to provide the best coverage, track premium payments, and other processes. NEXT’s tailored insurance for ecommerce businesses include commercial property insurance, commercial auto insurance, workers compensation insurance, and liability insurance policies. You can also opt to get a business owner’s policy to enjoy cheaper premium rates.
Best for: Business owner’s policy for ecommerce businesses
Average cost: $68 per month
Our rating: 7/10
Hiscox E-commerce Insurance
Pros
- 94% of ecommerce businesses are satisfied with Hiscox
- Flexible payment options
Cons
- Doesn’t work with ecommerce businesses in the food and beverage sector
If you run a smaller business and you’re looking for ecommerce insurance, then you usually can’t go wrong with Hiscox. They offer a wide range of policy types and even offer breach management and cybersecurity resources with their policies.
Best for: Ecommerce insurance with liability coverage having generous limits
Average cost: $78 per month
Our rating: 7/10
