Business Owner’s Policy for Veterinarians
As a veterinarian, you need to have some basic insurance coverage. One of them is Business Owner's Policy (BOP), which protects you from the risks you might face during your daily activities. A BOP provides three types of policies. They include:
General Liability Insurance
General liability insurance covers injuries or property damage you caused to third parties. Here are some examples:
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Suppose you asked someone to deliver a pizza to your clinic and you forgot to close the cage of a dog who was grumpy as it was sick. When the delivery man entered your business, the dog charged at him. The delivery man then filed a claim so that he could get paid for his injuries
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There's animal urine on the floor. You were about to clean it when a client came in. The client then stepped on the urine and slipped. She fell on the floor and sustained minor injuries on her hips. The phone she was holding got damaged. You were then demanded to pay for her injuries as well as the damaged phone
How much money can you get from general liability insurance? General liability insurance gives you $1 million - $2 million. You can use the insurance money to pay for lawyer fees, other legal costs, and settlements.
Commercial Property Insurance
Your veterinary clinic can get burned because of a fire. Riot, vandalism, theft, and extreme weather might damage it too. Imagine how much you’ll lose if any of the two situations happen. And so, consider getting commercial property insurance.
Commercial property insurance helps you reconstruct the veterinary clinic if it turns into ashes. This coverage will also pay for repair costs if your clinic only got damaged because of riot, vandalism, theft, and extreme weather. Speaking of extreme weather, know that commercial property doesn’t cover floods.
Basic commercial property insurance doesn’t cover equipment and materials inside your veterinary clinic. And so, consider adding business equipment coverage, and stocks and contents coverage. Business equipment coverage will pay if work tools in your clinic got damaged or lost because of fire, theft, vandalism, extreme weather, and other named perils. On the other hand, stocks and contents coverage reimburses the value of damaged and unusable veterinary goods and materials.
Business Income Insurance
You might need to stop business operations for a while to move to a new location. It’s also possible for you to stop doing business because you got sick or the clinic needs to be renovated.
Temporary business closure isn’t an excuse for you to stop paying bills. And so, consider getting business interruption insurance.
Business interruption insurance will provide money while your veterinary clinic isn’t generating income. The amount you’ll receive will be equal to a portion of or the total value of your business’s projected revenue. You can use the insurance money from business interruption insurance to pay employee wages, electricity and water bills, taxes, loans, rent, and other operational costs.
Veterinary Disability Insurance
Disability insurance replaces a portion of your income when an injury or illness causes you to become disabled and incapacitated to continue providing veterinarian services. The insurance covers up to 60% of your monthly income. Depending on your insurance carrier, the amount might be taxable.
Three Must-haves in Long-Term Disability Coverage
When shopping for long-term disability insurance, check your carrier's reputation and policy features. Typically, disability insurance premiums range from 1.5% - to 3% of your gross income. The following three aspects are critical in long-term disability insurance for veterinarians:
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Own occupation - You worked hard to obtain your medical credentials. An own occupation pays the benefits though you might be able to earn income working in a different job or sector
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Non-cancellable or guaranteed renewable - A non-cancellable policy means your insurer can't cancel your coverage so long as you pay your monthly premiums. Without this feature, your provider can cancel the coverage if something changes. For instance, the company might stop covering certain classes of chronic illnesses, forcing your agent to cancel the policy. A non-cancellable policy ensures you're always protected
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Income adjustment/future purchase option - Sometimes, you need to increase your coverage limit to receive proceeds that match salary increases. In that case, a policy with income adjustment guarantees that, but it's worth noting that your monthly premiums will increase as well. This feature is especially critical for young veterinarians who've just completed their internship programs
Other Useful Veterinary Insurance Policies
What we discussed previously are must-have veterinary insurance policies. However, there are other insurance products that, although not very essential, can still help a lot. With that said, if you’re willing to invest more for insurance, consider getting:
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Commercial auto insurance
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Employment practices liability insurance
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Employer’s liability insurance
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Workers compensation insurance
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Cyber liability insurance
Commercial Auto Insurance
Does your veterinary clinic have its own pet ambulance? If so, consider getting commercial auto insurance. You can’t cover that vehicle using personal car insurance. And even if y ou manage to do so, know that premiums will be very expensive.
Insuring a vehicle used for business purposes is better with commercial auto insurance because it’s cheaper and more comprehensive. The following are the coverages included in commercial auto insurance for vet:
It’s common for a pet ambulance to rush. And while driving fast, the driver might get involved in an accident and cause injuries to third parties as well as property damage. Auto liability insurance covers costs if a claim is filed. Particularly, it will cover defense costs and settlements to injured parties
Of course, if a vehicular accident happens, the passengers inside the ambulance might get hurt. Note that auto liability insurance doesn’t cover them. And so, consider getting personal accident insurance. With personal accident insurance, you can pay for the emergency treatment and compensation of injured passengers.
Physical damage coverage comes in two types - collision and comprehensive. Collision physical damage coverage can be claimed if your vet clinic’s pet ambulance got damaged after colliding with another vehicle or object on the road. However, there’s an exception. Physical damage coverage won’t cover damages the pet ambulance incurred after ramming a deer, cow, or any other animal.
The second type - physical damage coverage can be claimed if your clinic’s pet ambulance got damaged because of extreme weather, fire, theft, vandalism, and other named perils. Physical damage coverage pays for the damage caused by colliding with an animal on the road too.
The pet ambulance might experience issues on the road. And so, don’t think twice about getting emergency roadside assistance. By having emergency roadside assistance, there’s an insurance policy that will shoulder the cost of battery jump start, towing, and other types of services needed to get the pet ambulance running once again.
Employment Practices Liability Insurance
Employment practices liability is a vet business insurance that’s surely helpful if you have assistants or any other employees. Sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and workplace discrimination are problems you’ll face regarding employees. And these are what employment practices liability insurance covers. With this policy, you can pay for attorney fees, other legal costs, and compensation to aggrieved parties.
Workers Compensation Insurance
While helping you treat animals, assistants might be bitten, kicked, and scratched. They might experience musculoskeletal injuries due to repetitive movements. But that’s not all. Animals might also cause zoonotic diseases that, once contracted by humans, will take long to heal.
And so, decide to get workers compensation insurance for your employees. Workers compensation insurance helps you treat injured or sick employees. The policy also shoulders the cost of unemployment allowance, which is equal to two thirds of the employees’ average weekly wage.
Are you required to get workers compensation insurance? If you’re a vet doing business in Texas, then there’s no need to. However, if you’re in another state, workers compensation is required. This insurance is a state-mandated policy. Meaning that failure to get covered by workers compensation will result in fines and penalties.
Employer’s Liability Insurance
Injured employees might file a lawsuit accusing you of committing negligence. Lawsuits resulting from the occurrence of workplace accidents fall out of the scope of employment practices liability insurance. Instead, this is the job of employer’s liability insurance. Employer’s liability insurance’s function is the same. It provides money so that you can pay for lawyer fees, other legal costs, and settlements.
Cyber Liability Insurance
Consider getting cyber liability insurance if your veterinary clinic is running a system that collects payments from clients via credit card, bank transfer, or e-wallets. Hackers can breach your system and cyber liability insurance will protect you from the costs.
A data breach will steal sensitive client data such as credit card numbers, phone numbers, addresses, etc. As a result, concerned parties might file a lawsuit. One job of cyber liability insurance is to pay for defense costs and settlements if such a thing happens.
Of course, you’ll have to notify customers about the breach. And so, the second job of cyber liability insurance is to pay for public relations expenses.
Note that cyber liability insurance is just an optional policy. You don’t really need this except your vet clinic has a website or any other similar platform to collect payments and market services.
