Your cleaning business may have unplanned events while you’re providing your professional cleaning services, whether it’s cleaning furniture, performing a deep cleaning, or meticulously mopping floors with precision. You could accidentally spill cleaning product on a valuable client’s expensive rug or, in an unfortunate turn of events, hit another car on the way to a house-cleaning job. To safeguard your business from any unforeseen circumstances like these, it’s essential to invest in cleaning business insurance. This insurance will offer comprehensive coverage and protection, providing you with peace of mind knowing that your business is financially secure no matter what happens. Clean business insurance is a solution capable of handling a wide range of messes.
What is cleaning business insurance?
Cleaning business insurance is a type of small business insurance that covers a variety of risks that your industry faces, such as injuries at work, accidents that hurt people or damage their property, theft of equipment, and lost income.
For instance, let’s say your worker doesn’t put up a warning sign on a wet floor, and someone slips and hurts themselves. Your cleaning business’s liability insurance will pay for their medical bills in that case.
Is it necessary to obtain liability insurance for my cleaning business?
A cleaning company could have a variety of jobs and clients, ranging from cleaning a carpet in a private home to cleaning an entire multi-story commercial structure. Here are some instances of cleaning specialists who can benefit from cleaning company insurance:
- Commercial cleaners
- Dry cleaners
- Furniture cleaners
- Janitorial services
- Laundry services
- Office cleaners
- Carpet cleaners
- House cleaners
- cleaning insurance for self-employed
What type of insurance should I consider for my cleaning business?
Insurance for cleaning business combines several types of small business insurance to cover a range of problems, like damage to your business property, medical charges for accidental injuries, and plant illness and injuries.
You can start with a business possessors policy (BOP). A BOP packet has three vital content types, and it’s generally more affordable than buying each content independently.
General Liability Insurance
General liability insurance protects your company from third-party claims for physical injury or property damage. It covers medical bills, legal fees, and damages up to the policy amount. For cleaning companies, this insurance is especially crucial because it covers incidents that may occur while cleaning someone else’s property.
Product liability insurance
Protect your cleaning business with cleaning supplies insurance, also called product liability insurance, in case your cleaning supplies hurt someone or damage property. Product liability claims can cost a lot of money, and this type of insurance can help pay for court fees, medical bills, and other costs.
Commercial Property Insurance
This insurance protects your company’s real assets, such as tools, supplies, and inventory, against damage or theft. This insurance can also pay cleaning companies’ lost revenue if a fire or other protected event prevents them from operating their business.
Non-owned and hired insurance
It’s possible to add hired and non-owned insurance to general liability coverage to cover cleaners or contractors who use their own or rented cars for work. Your firm may still face liability if W-9 workers or 1099 contractors use their vehicles on company time. Please keep in mind that hired and non-owned insurance do not replace personal motor insurance. If an employee causes an accident while driving, their auto insurance will continue to provide primary coverage for the occurrence.
Business Interruption Insurance
If your cleaning business cannot open because of a protected event, such as a natural disaster, this protection will pay you back for the money you lost at work. It can also cover the costs of temporarily relocating the business.
Tools & Equipment insurance for cleaners
This insurance can be added to your general liability policy to help cover the costs of repairing or replacing your equipment, such as mops or extension poles.
Professional Liability Insurance
Professional liability insurance, It is also known as error and omission (E&O) insurance, which protects against claims of financial loss after giving or failing to provide professional services correctly.
Other Small Business Insurance Types
A BOP is a decent start, but your cleaning business will probably need more types of coverage to deal with other risks, such as car accidents and staff injuries. You might also be interested in these other types of small business insurance.
Commercial auto insurance
A commercial auto insurance policy delivers coverage for cars, vans, & trucks used for business purposes, such as transporting cleaning supplies and tools to a job site. Your car insurance won’t cover injuries sustained at work.
The following list includes some insurance types that typically form part of commercial car insurance:
- Bodily injury liability. This covers injuries to other people that happen by chance if you or an employee cause a car accident.
- Liability for property damage. This protects you in the event that you or a worker accidentally damage someone else’s property, such as when you back into a fence at a construction site.
- Insurance covers accidents. This covers the cost of getting a new work vehicle or fixing the one you have after an accident.
- Full-coverage insurance. This kind of insurance covers the cost of replacing a damaged vehicle due to theft, vandalism, floods, fires, falling objects, or bad weather.
- The letters UM or UIM stand for “uninsured motorist” or “underinsured motorist.” If someone hits you without insurance or with insufficient insurance, this will cover your and your guests’ medical expenses. In some states, you can add UM to protect your car from damage from a driver who doesn’t have insurance.
- The policy provides coverage for medical bills & personal injury protection (PIP). No matter who caused the crash, this will cover your & your passengers’ medical bills.
Commercial Umbrella Insurance
Consider adding commercial umbrella insurance to your general liability policy for additional coverage. Your business liability insurance depletes before it takes effect.
For instance, the umbrella policy will cover the $300,000 difference if a client sues your business for $800,000 in damages, but your liability coverage is only $500,000.
Hired and Non-Owned Auto Insurance
This coverage pays for injuries and property damage to other people that occur when you or your employees use a personal or rented car for business.
For instance, if you take a truck to bring cleaning supplies to a job site and cause an accident that hurts another driver, this coverage would pay for their medical bills.
Janitorial Bond
A janitorial bond is a surety bond that covers clients against employee theft. Your clients may demand that your cleaning firm obtain this coverage.
Workers’ Compensation Insurance
Workers’ compensation insurance pays for an employee’s medical costs, lost income, and other expenses if they suffer injuries or become ill while they’re on the job. If you hire at least one person, most states require you to have workers’ comp.
What does bonding for a cleaning business mean?
Bonding is another important aspect of securing your cleaning business. A bond is a type of insurance that guarantees payment if a specified obligation is not satisfied. In the context of a cleaning service, a bond is a promise that your organization will fulfill its duties, such as finishing a job or correctly handling customer property.
Obtaining a bond for your cleaning business is an important step toward safeguarding it from potential financial losses. For instance, if a client alleges that your company did not fulfill a task as promised, or if the customer’s property suffers damage or theft, you can use a bond to cover the costs or provide restitution.
The most typical bond protects against work that is not completed. Another form of bond that residential cleaning services should consider is a theft bond. This sort of bond is intended to protect against the possibility of employee theft. Cleaners may come into contact with precious personal belongings while working. If an employee steals anything and is convicted of a crime, a theft bond will cover the value of the stolen item. Theft bonds are only occasionally included in standard bond packages. Check with your insurance provider to determine if this sort of coverage is available and how it can be added to an existing policy.
What type of insurance can safeguard your cleaning business?
When you’re first establishing a cleaning service, the expenses seem infinite! After the expenditure of cleaning supplies, marketing, staff, software, and, of course, paying yourself, one more cost may be painful. But believe us, it’s worth it.
If your business doesn’t have insurance, you could be in deep financial trouble if something unexpected happens or you are sued. “Yeah, but that won’t happen to me,” you might say.
But think about these situations:
Legal Liabilities: If a customer or worker gets hurt on the job, the owner of a cleaning business could be sued.
In the absence of company insurance, you may be held personally accountable for the cost of medical bills and other damages. These legal liabilities may be mitigated through business insurance.
Damages to Customer’s Property: Cleaning business operators may be held accountable for any damages to customers’ property, such as carpet destruction and broken furnishings. If these things happen to your business, you won’t have to pay for them out of your own pocket because you have business insurance.
Loss of Income: If a cleaning business owner doesn’t have business cleaners insurance, they could lose money because of crime, natural disasters, or other unplanned events. Getting business insurance can help you cover the cost of lost income and get your cleaning business up and running faster.
Employee Injuries: Cleaning business owners could be held responsible if their employees get hurt on the job. This could include paying for their medical bills and lost wages. You might not have to pay for these costs out of your own pocket if you use business insurance to cover them.
Lawsuits: Cleaning business owners could be sued if customers or workers say they were careless or dishonest. You don’t have to pay for lawyer’s fees and payments out of pocket because business insurance can cover them.
Is it essential by law to obtain cleaning company insurance?
Different states have different rules about whether or not a business needs to have insurance. However, in most states, businesses are not required to have insurance. But there are times when you may be legally forced to have insurance. People who work for a cleaning business, for example, may need to have workers’ compensation insurance in most states.
A cleaning company may also have to have certain types of insurance, like liability insurance, if it wants to bid on government jobs. In some states, companies that do certain types of work, like construction or home services, are also required to have certain types of bonds.
Do you want to start your own cleaning business and need a guide that is specific to your state? Please use this link to look for your state in our online magazine.
When are you not required to have cleaning business insurance?
While we recommend that all cleaning businesses obtain business insurance, not all states mandate it. In some cases, it may be optional. Here are several situations where you may not require business insurance:
Sole proprietorship: If you run a sole proprietorship and do not have any workers, you may not require business insurance. However, we recommend obtaining liability insurance to safeguard yourself against a covered event.
Working With a Reliable Partner: If you work with a dependable partner who carries extensive business insurance, you may not need to acquire your own. However, it is still critical to ensure that your partner’s insurance covers all potential hazards involved with your cleaning operation.
No high-risk activities: If your cleaning firm does not entail any high-risk activities, such as employing chemicals, you may not require business insurance. Nonetheless, we strongly advise you to obtain liability insurance to safeguard yourself against any covered incident.
How much does cleaning business insurance cost?
According to data from different insurance companies, such as Insureon, the average cost of a company owner’s policy for a cleaning business is $520 per year. That’s about $43 every month. Just under a quarter of Insureon’s users (16%) pay less than $500 a year for insurance for their cleaning business. Another 69% pay between $500 and $1,000 a year.
The factors that determine your fee include:
- How big is your business, and where is it located? How much your insurance costs depends on how big your business is and where it is located. For instance, businesses in cities usually have to deal with different risks and higher costs than those in rural areas.
- Policy types and coverage boundaries: Your insurance costs will depend on the types of policies you pick and the limits you set. Higher premiums can happen if you buy a coverage deal that covers more or has higher coverage limits.
- History of claims: If you have a history of filing numerous or high-value claims, your insurance costs may increase due to the increased risk to your business.
- Number of deductions: When you file a claim, the insurance company deducts the deductible from your check. Your insurance for cleaning company rates will go down if you choose a bigger deductible, but if you file a claim, you’ll get less from your insurance company.
- Company assets include: Your insurance prices are based on the value of your business’s property, inventory, equipment, &other assets. Premiums usually rise when the value of an asset increases because the insurance is taking on more risk.
This is how much your cleaning business insurance may cost, depending on the type of coverage you choose.
Finding Cheaper Ways to Cover insurance for a cleaning business
I’m sure you already know that insurance payments add to the costs of running your cleaning business and lower your profits. But there are only so many ways to save money. How to do it:
- Look at your choices: Prices can be very different from one insurance company to the next. Getting quotes from more than one business insurance company is the best way to find a competitive price.
- Think about bundling. Three types of benefits make up a BOP, also called a business owner policy: commercial property insurance, business interruption insurance, & business liability insurance. Most of the time, a BOP is cheaper than buying each type of coverage individually.
- Raise the cost of your business car. Most of the time, a higher deductible will lower your premium because if you file a commercial car insurance claim, your insurance company will pay out less.
- Find out about discounts: If you take precautions, such as setting up a job safety program, your insurance company might lower your rates.
- Select a payment plan for a year. You might get a refund if you pay your yearly premium in full.
How can I obtain insurance for cleaning companies?
Getting your cleaning business bonded and insured can also help you find people, keep them, and earn their trust. Customers like doing business with companies that have insurance because it shows that you take your business seriously and want to protect their personal belongings, which makes the experience better for them.
There are different insurance companies that make it simple to get insurance for your cleaning business. To get free quotes, you’ll need to know some basic facts about your business, like how much money it makes annually and how many workers it has.
The process to buy insurance online and get proof of insurance is simple:
- Fill out a free application online.
- Get several insurance quotes and pick one.
- You can download proof of insurance after you pay for it.
There are different licensed agents who work with the best U.S. insurance companies to find the best coverage for your cleaning business, whether you work alone or have several workers.
What does cleaning company insurance not cover?
Your cleaning insurance company does not cover certain items, including:
- Acts of fraud and misconduct
- Takeovers by the government
- Fault lines
- Floods
- Diseases that spread
- The termination was wrongful (unless you have insurance for work practices).
Where can I get the best insurance for my cleaning business?
Most small business insurance companies offer standard types of insurance, which means you can make your cleaning business insurance coverage fit your needs. You can start with a BOP and then add the types of coverage you need, like workers’ compensation and business car insurance.
Here is a list of the top several companies that sell small business insurance:
Acuity
Allianz
Allstate
American Family Insurance
AmTrust Financial
Auto-Owners Insurance
Chubb
Cincinnati Insurance
Clear Blue Insurance
CNA
Erie Insurance
Farmers Insurance
Frankenmuth Insurance
The Hanover
The Hartford
Liberty Mutual
Nationwide
State Farm
Travelers
Utica First Insurance
Westfield Insurance
Next
Huckleberry
Hiscox
conclusion
There are many risks that a cleaning business faces, so it needs insurance for cleaning service just like any other company. Some of these employees steal from customers, harm themselves with harsh chemicals, or damage their customers’ property. Insurance for cleaning service does a lot more than just protect your money. In addition, it makes your business more stable.