Variety stores sell exactly what you think: a variety of different items. Instead of selling one category of items, they have a wide range of products, including housewares, stationery, books, jewelry, gifts, toiletries, toys, decorative items and more. Most variety stores sell merchandise at very low prices, allowing people to spend as low as $1 for each item. You risk shoplifting and theft most of all, followed by common risks of all businesses, such as natural disasters or liabilities from your customers. Getting variety store business insurance is vital for protection of your business and assets.
Types of Variety Store Insurance
Your variety store needs different types of insurance policies to cover your different business risks, such as the ones listed below:
Variety Store General Liability Insurance
General liability insurance includes premises liability, products liability and completed operations. It is an important policy for your variety store to have. Completed operations is for any services you provide to your customers that might cause damage or loss, such as custom embroidery on an item that causes them an allergic reaction. Premises liability is for any injuries occurring on your premises, like a customer slipping on a spill and hurting themselves. If the products you sell cause injury, illness, loss or damage for your customer, you may be responsible for medical and legal costs.
Variety Store Commercial Auto Insurance
If you or your employees use a vehicle for business errands, such as picking up office supplies, you undoubtedly need business auto insurance. It includes property damage and bodily injury coverage, and you can also choose to include theft or vandalism coverage. If your vehicle is vandalized while you’re at the post office, it helps to have this coverage.
Variety Store Business Property Insurance
Business property insurance is essential because it covers a variety of causes of damage, like natural disasters or fire. These cause damage to your building structure and your products. If there is an earthquake or flood caused by another event, you can replace your products and make repairs with the help of a business property insurance policy.
Variety Store Cyber Liability Insurance
If you have an online variety store, make sure you also have a cyber liability insurance policy. Cyber crimes are common, whether you have other security measures in place or not. It is vital that you obtain cyber liability insurance as part of your total variety store insurance portfolio for your protection and that of your customers. Cyber breaches are rampant today, and if a hacker gets into your website and steals financial information from customers, your business could face financial and legal ramifications. Cyber liability insurance covers these events.
Variety Store Workers’ Compensation
Workers’ compensation is another very important policy to have for your store because it pays certain medical costs if an employee is injured or becomes ill on the job. If there is a spill in the bathroom, as an example, and your employee slips and hurts themselves, this is considered work-related, and worker’s comp pays associated medical costs. If the employee cannot work for a while during recovery, the policy also helps replace missing income.
Variety Store Crime Insurance
Your variety store sells a lot of smaller items, making shoplifting a big risk. If someone is in your store and they steal items from you, you have to suffer the loss. But with crime insurance, you don’t negatively affect your finances by the loss. Other crimes this policy covers include dishonest employee acts, theft of money, and vandalism of your stored or products.
Properly insuring your variety store requires multiple variety store insurance policies, rather than just for the most common risks. Earthquakes and snow storms might not happen all the time, but one unexpected event could mean destroying all your merchandise. Don’t risk losing business assets by obtaining the right kinds of business insurance.
