5 Rare Types of Business Insurance

This article is geared for small business owners as an insurance guide according to the needs of their business. In the present age of litigation, it’s in every entrepreneur’s best interest to make sure they have the right insurance policies. This isn’t too difficult, given the plethora of online resources that can point you in the right direction. In fact, you can conduct a quick search of related businesses in your industry to find out what insurance policies they’re carrying.

The basics tend to include liability insurance, property insurance, health insurance and its derivatives and more. For the latter, you can see more information here. But beyond health and worker’s compensation, there are quite a few more obscure insurance policies that just might be tailor-made for your company.

1. Storage Tank Insurance and HAZMAT

Specifically, this type of insurance refers to underground tanks – which usually contain hazardous substances. You’ll find that chemical companies and business involved with natural gas have a need for protection from liabilities incurred by tanks.

If for example, the underground storage tank has a leak that adversely affects the environment, you could face a class-action lawsuit.

The insurance policy will handle the costs associated with cleaning up the mess and personal/property damages incurred as a result.

HAZMAT insurance goes together well with storage tank insurance because it’s a requirement for any business or institution that transports hazardous materials.

The long form name is the transportation of hazardous materials liability insurance, and it applies to all manners of vehicular transport.

It takes care of the legal ramifications of site cleanup in case of an accident, damages incurred, on-road spills and the loading/unloading of materials.

2. Excess Casualty Insurance

If your business sits on the East Coast of the United States, where inclement weather is more common, this type of policy may not be quite as rare as it would be on the West Coast.

Also known as an excess liability policy, it makes up the difference in case your general property insurance policy cannot cover the costs of a catastrophic event such as a tornado causing the office building to collapse.

The casualty aspect of this insurance policy is in case employees or visitors were harmed as a result of the damages done to the premises.

Oftentimes, general property insurance cannot cover such an extensive amount of damage – but this, of course, depends on the policy limits you purchased.

3. Insurance for Directors and Officers

What if you, as the CEO of a company, make some statements in the media that causes stock prices to plummet? This happens from time-to-time and was the primary motivation for the creation of this policy.

If your actions – or the actions of any other senior officer or manager – results in the loss of revenue or another financial metric, then the benefits of a Directors and Officers insurance policy kicks in if you’re sued because of the loss.

Personal insurance policies can be considerable, but you cannot expect one to take care of lawsuits with a magnitude characteristic of those levied against companies.

4. E&O Insurance

The full name of this insurance policy is engineers and consultants. Why would there be such a policy exclusively for this group?

Engineers and consultants are typically the go-to professionals when a company needs advice on moving forward with a product or service.

If an engineer or consultant provides this advice, and damages resulting from it, they can be held liable in a court of law. Having E&O insurance protects them by paying legal fees and the judgment award if any.

5. Terrorism Insurance

This shouldn’t be a surprise since the terrorist events of September 11, 2001. Terrorism insurance wasn’t a thing before this date; it skyrocketed afterward.

It does what it says: protects your business financially from the after-effects of a terrorist attack. This protection extends beyond physical damage, to anything that results in an unavoidable loss of business.