Are you running a business in Massachusetts or planning on opening your doors soon? Already feeling overwhelmed with expenses and are stressed about having to add insurance to the list? We understand the pressure! As business owners, it’s our job to ensure we protect every asset - in order for our company and clientele to be safely covered in the event of a claim. At Berry Insurance, we help to insure a number of businesses in diverse industries across Massachusetts and beyond! So whether you’re selling cupcakes in Springfield or knick knacks down the Cape, our agency can help you! Plus as a business owner ourselves, we deal with the complexities of business insurance daily. Below we’ll discuss what you can expect to pay for multiple types of business insurance (including general liability, auto, and workers’ compensation), what determines cost, and additional coverages you should know about. Table of contents: How much does business insurance cost? What factors influence the cost of business insurance? How much can I expect to pay for my Massachusetts business insurance? What insurance coverage does my business need? How much does business insurance cost? While a lot goes into determining the cost of insuring your business, it’s important to know the range you can expect to pay. Here are the cost ranges for the main types of business insurance coverage: Business owners policy (BOP): Comprising general liability and property insurance, annual premiums range from $233 for a home-based business to $80,000 for larger businesses with higher risk operations. Commercial auto: Annual premiums for commercial auto insurance can range from $1,500 for a private passenger vehicle to $40,000 for a larger company with many work vehicles. Workers compensation: Premiums for workers compensation policies can range from $282 for a basic nanny policy, for instance, to $100,000 or more for large corporations with higher-risk operations. What factors influence the cost of business insurance? Property insurance: Property insurance covers the actual structure of your business’ building and its contents, as well as the exterior features such as fencing, or signage. Premiums for property coverage are typically based on replacement value or actual cash value and take into account the location, cost to rebuild, building construction, type of materials, sprinklers, alarm systems, distance to the coast, and the limits and deductibles you select. General liability: General liability covers costs arising from claims against businesses resulting from their operations, such as property damage, physical injury, and personal injury, including libel and slander. Premiums for liability coverage are typically based on sales for the year, payroll, square foot of the premises or even average number of guests/attendees at the business, and the limits and deductibles you select. Commercial auto: Commercial or business auto insurance covers the cost of bodily damage or property damage caused by vehicles as well as physical damage of your own vehicles, just like personal car insurance does, but for commercially owned vehicles. Premiums for this type of policy are based on the number of vehicles owned by the company, the cost of the vehicles, where they are garaged, business operations, coverages inclusions, limits, and driver history. Workers compensation: Workers compensation covers wage replacement and medical payments to employees injured while performing job-related duties and protects companies from liability against employee claims. The cost of this coverage is usually based on the number of employees in the company, estimated yearly payrolls, and job duties/business operations, and the limits you select. How much can I expect to pay for my Massachusetts business insurance? While the cost of business insurance will vary greatly between companies, let’s look at a few realistic scenarios of what insurance could cost business owners. Small businesses, such as a singular residential house cleaner with no employees, no property, and no commercial vehicles, may only need to pay around $500 a year for business insurance; as they’d only require general liability coverage. If we instead take a larger business, such as an HVAC contractor. If the contractor has property limits of $60,000, general liability limits at $1M/$2M, a $625,000 payroll, and 10 vehicles they may pay around $60,000 per year for their business insurance coverage. Even larger corporations with more employees, vehicles, equipment, or higher risk (like a mechanical engineering company) could expect to pay around $250,000 each year. What insurance coverage does my business need? Above, we talked about the most common types of business insurance that nearly every business needs to buy, but there are more types. Depending on the specifics of your business, you may need one or more of the following more specialty coverages. These types of coverage typically will require you to spend additional money to get them - check out the links below for more information on the cost of coverages you’re interested in. Professional liability insurance: Also known as errors and omissions insurance, professional liability protects certain types of professionals from costs associated with accusations of negligence. Business umbrella insurance: Business umbrella insurance provides excess coverage on business liability insurance in the case of a lawsuit exceeding policy limits. Cyber and identity theft insurance: This insurance covers costs associated with a cyber attack or data breach. This includes malicious actions such as hacking, viruses, phishing, denial of service (DoS) ransomware, malware and more; but also data losses from incidents such as computer glitches, power surges, and accidental deletions. Flood insurance: For businesses at risk of floods, flood insurance provides coverage from damages caused by floods. Pollution insurance: Pollution insurance covers costs related to pollution caused by a business’ operations. Bonds: Commercial bonds are required in certain industries to protect the business and its customers from specific risks. Having one or more of these insurance policies would increase the amount you spend on insurance for your business. Protect your business with a comprehensive business insurance policy: We know your business is important to you, so it is crucial you protect it. While the combination of business insurance policies you need can sometimes be pricey, it’s worth the protection against even more costly incidents that can put you out of business. As I’m sure you can tell, the cost of business insurance can vary greatly depending on a variety of factors. The best way to know what you will need to pay is by reaching out to your agent or carrier. An agent, like our agents at Berry, can help you create a custom policy to protect your business without breaking the bank. Don’t have an agent or carrier yet? Check out this article about what to look for when selecting an agency or company.

If you’re like us, then you’re probably looking at 2025 with some slight trepidation on what exactly the new year will have to offer. And believe us, we get it. Entering the new year can feel as daunting as it is exciting when we don’t know exactly what the year has in store for us.

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Each town is a unique combination of its own citizens, history, and culture that helps to shape its community. The mission of a town’s public entities should be to serve their community and keep its members safe - something they will not be able to accomplish unless they are covered by insurance they can trust.

The mission of any public entity is the same - being committed to serving its community and keeping its members safe. Public entities cannot fulfill these duties unless they are covered by insurance they can trust.

If there is one thing every business owner is used to encountering, it's uncertainty and hardships. Whether it be due to limited operations, slow business, or current issues with the economy - business owners have likely encountered it all. The past few years have been especially hard on many businesses, as we have had to continue adapting to new regulations or long periods of forced shut downs. We're going through it too. At Berry Insurance, we have been doing our best to adjust the way we do things to reduce costs while still operating effectively, much like you are right now. You may even be thinking about how to save on your insurance by reducing coverages. If so, we’ve got some recommendations on ways you can do so safely and effectively. You might be wondering why an insurance agency is offering advice about reducing insurance. Of course we don’t WANT all of our clients to reduce their coverages — your insurance policies are what keep your business safe and protected (and if we’re being honest, they also help keep our business afloat). However, we know these are hard times. We understand the need to cut costs, so we want to tell you the right places (and wrong places) to cut so your reductions don’t result in an expensive liability or a complicated claims situation. We’ll also tell you some areas you may need to add coverages to protect new exposures in this climate. Where to adjust coverages and cut expenses: Removing or lowering certain coverages during this time could help save some money. Here are some ways: Lower sales revenue on liability insurance: If you have a drop in income (let’s be real, many of us do right now) you can lower your sales revenue on your liability insurance to reflect it. Lower payroll on workers’ compensation: If you have a reduction in workforce, you can also lower your payroll on your workers’ compensation policy. Like lowering sales revenue, this can also save you some money on your premium. Keep in my mind that your policy may be audited at the end of the policy term, so as things progress, be sure to keep your policy accurate so as to not result in a large audit premium due. Remove collision coverage: If you are parking business vehicles (not using them) you can consider removing collision coverage (as long as you don’t have a loan, otherwise, you’re required to have collision). Collision insurance covers damages to your vehicle from a collision (whether you are at fault or not). These collisions can be with any object like a tree, pole, guard rail, pothole, or with another vehicle. Although it will leave you uncovered in an accident, removing this optional coverage can save you thousands on your commercial auto premium each year. Adjust your billing plan/method: Many insurance companies are considering payment plans and/or extensions on a case-by-case basis. They will need to speak to you directly before considering any changes, so call your insurance company billing department to find out what options may be available to you if you need relief considerations. Another way to save on billing fees is to enroll in EFT or ACH, if you are able to. Reminder: if you have loans/leases you may be contractually obligated to maintain certain coverages. Check with your lender before adjusting. Areas not to adjust/cut costs: Although it may be tempting to reduce certain coverages to save more money, there are some insurance policies you don’t want to touch, because doing so could leave potentially costly gaps in your coverage. Don’t reduce property exposures: You always want to make sure all of your property is covered. Especially during this time, crime is actually on the rise, so you do not want to risk having property, inventory, or goods left unprotected. Don’t cancel your umbrella policy: Umbrella policies offer additional liability coverages (beyond your standard liability coverage) for injuries, property damages, and lawsuits. This policy gives you critical liability protection you may need if faced with a lawsuit, so it’s best to keep this coverage. Umbrellas are also generally very affordable. The small cost savings is not worth the risk. In fact, if you don’t have an umbrella policy, now is a really good time to get one! Don’t reduce cyber coverage: Your cyber insurance has the important job of covering costs associated with a cyber attack or data breach. This is especially important during this COVID-19 crisis when cyber attacks are on the rise and employees are working from home, adding additional risks. In fact, if you don’t have cyber insurance, you might want to consider it, especially during these times. Don’t cancel your EPLI coverage: Your Employee Practices Liability Insurance covers you from employees making claims against you, such as discrimination, wrongful termination, harassments, etc. You never know when you may be sued for an HR issue that was not in your control, especially during this stressful and unusual time. Don’t cancel all of your insurance: We hope nobody has to think about this, but even if your business does completely shut down, you may need to obtain “discontinued operations” coverage to protect you from any claims that come up after you’ve closed. Areas to add coverage: Depending on your circumstances, you may also need to add some coverages if you’ve increased your exposures while altering the way your business operates. We’ll talk about some of those scenarios below. ADD hired and non-owned auto liability: If you are now taking on a new delivery or auto exposure, you may need to ADD coverage for hired and non-owned auto liability to ensure all drivers and vehicles are fully covered under your commercial auto policy. INCREASE property coverage: If you have had to purchase new equipment to enable remote working (laptops, webcams, remote servers, etc.), you may need to INCREASE your property coverage to protect that new equipment. Take this downtime to do an up-to-date exposure review or list of all your equipment. You may have bought (or eliminated) items and forgot to tell your insurance carrier. Now’s a good time to catch up and make sure everything you have is covered and you aren’t paying for anything extra. Don’t forget to readjust once things are back to normal: When this crisis is over (It will happen eventually!) and your business resumes normal operations, don’t forget to change all your coverages back so you’re properly covered. For example, if you took one of your commercial vehicles off the road and during the crisis and removed them from your policy, you need to put it back on immediately once things are back to normal! If it were to be in some sort of accident and it weren’t on the policy, you wouldn’t be covered. Your business is unique, so are your insurance needs: We know every business is different and has varying needs when going through hard times. It might make sense to add/remove/increase/decrease different coverages than the business next door is. That’s what we’re here for! Feel free to reach out so we can evaluate your policies and help you decide where it makes most sense to make some changes! We promise we won’t be biased — we’re all going through this together. In the meantime, there are other things you can do to help your business during this crisis. Check out these steps on when to update or get new business insurance.