Insurance Insights

Rental property landlords are in prime positions to reap big rewards. However, these big rewards come fully equipped with equally large risks. The good news, in the case of property owners, is that you can take steps to mitigate many of these potential risks. Overcoming these pitfalls is your first step on a long path to financial freedom as a rental property owner and landlord.

Though there has been a lot of uncertainty about the economy over the last several years, the continual improvements observed more recently have led to many small businesses nationwide finally feeling better about their prospects for not only their own futures, but that of the entire country as well.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases.”The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) believes these numbers are, for the most part, preventable. That is the primary reason for changing laws; the first changes this sweeping in decades, concerning food safety. The FDA believes it canprevent two million illnesses per year but how do these changes impact small businesses today?

Bakery stores sell an assortment of freshly baked goods to either consumers or businesses. Some bakery stores are local and will not only sell baked bagels, cakes, cookies, donuts, chocolates, bread and pastries, but bake them fresh on a daily basis. Others don’t have local stores but sell and ship to businesses that carry these types of products. Some bakery stores have local stores as well as shipping opportunities for restaurants, cafes, and other businesses.

Security is becoming increasingly important to today’s business – especially cyber security and point-of-sale (POS) security. Of course, most small business owners have no idea where to begin when attempting to establish greater POS security. The good news is that you don’t have to have a degree in “geek speak” to implement these security building tactics so you can strengthen your point-of-sale security.

Cheese shops specialize in a wide variety of gourmet cheeses including kosher cheese, blue cheese, soft and hard cheeses, goat cheese, firm cheese, organic cheese, gorgonzola, brie, gouda, parmesan, and more. Many cheese shops also provide other snacks and treats such as sandwiches, crackers, fruit, nuts, bread, soup, salad, oils, wine, and gift baskets. Cutting boards, cheese slicers or graters, or wine bottle openers are among the many accessories a cheese shop often sells. After building a successful business, you should protect it from the risks you are exposed to. As a cheese shop owner, you may have to deal with employee risks such as cutting their hand on a cheese slicer or liabilities related to customers getting ill or injured while visiting your shop. Cheese shop insurance will ensure the protection of these and other business risks.

In an effort to reduce their liability going forward, many companies these days are doing more to make sure that people they are considering for new positions are everything they appear to be. This is done largely by running extensive background checks in an effort to disqualify those who they consider ill-suited for positions they might otherwise have received.

The recent economic downturn and slow recovery from it has generally changed the retirement plans of potentially millions of Americans, and one trend that became far more common during this time is that additional people in their 50s and 60s have decided to go into business for themselves when they would have traditionally been making the final preparations for their golden years.

While many small business owners relish the idea of opening their own storefronts or offices and having the kind of real-world presence these locations can afford, it’s important for these people to also not ignore the large and growing importance of having a significant digital presence as well.

The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is cracking down when it comes to employee misclassification. In fact, they’ve teamed up with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with the signing of aMemorandum of Understanding (MOU) that allows the agencies to share information in an effort to reduce the misclassification of employees and to ensure that businesses are complying with existing labor laws.