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It has been helping to protect small businesses for more than 200 years, and now has one million business clients across the country – so clearly it knows what it’s all about.
Insurance Business spoke with The Hartford’s Lynn LaGram, assistant vice president of small commercial, about insuring American small businesses.
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“Serving small business has always been a critical part of our fabric here,” she said.
Its business owner’s policy combines two main insurance coverages: property and general liability.
“The fact that they’re packaged together, for a small business owner, is a nice feature,” LaGram explained. “The majority of the insurance protections they would need are in the one policy.”
The policy is a kind of general catch-all that should form the base of any business’s protection. Particularly for small businesses, this is crucial – smaller enterprises and newer businesses are less likely to be able to take a big hit without the fallback of insurance.
“Why should this be top of mind? What we’ve learnt from talking with small business owners, and their experience, is that when they’re hit with something unexpected, it can be really detrimental. They don’t often have the same resources … to handle, respond, or prepare for an unexpected event,” LaGram said.
“We would strongly advise a small business owner to work with an independent agent to make sure they understand the risks their business may have, and to ensure they will be fully covered.”
While many small businesses recognize the risks they face, one area for potential growth for policy sales is folks running businesses from home, LaGram said.
“Maybe an area where we see uptake may not be as strong would be in the home-based business space – where [potential] customers may not appreciate that their homeowner’s policy may not respond to those commercial insurance examples.
“If you think about that loss of income [through business interruption], a commercial insurance solution would likely not be afforded on a personal lines policy. That’s another example of a small business owner really [needing to] take the time to work with an independent agent to make sure they’re properly covered.”
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