General Liability Insurance Coverage for Real Estate Contractors
As a real estate professional, you spend your time and energy helping people appraise, rent, buy, sell, and secure properties with a bond for a title. You probably encounter certain situations regularly, whether it’s showing clients a home that’s new to the business or organizing the paperwork to get back to work for the last time. It’s a lot of detailed work and it’s not always possible to avoid every outcome. How can you protect yourself from an unfortunate situation that could endanger your personal and professional assets? Its good thing there is general liability insurance for real estate businesses that can cover you with the following:
Physical Injury
A general rule in real estate is to expect the unexpected. There’s always a chance that someone could be injured at your office or property. What if a client sustained a serious injury while in your office? Imagine if an employee in your office found themselves with significant medical bills due to an equipment failure on the job? General liability insurance can help you cover medical bills, attorney’s fees, court-ordered judgments, settlements, and funeral expenses in fatal incidents, though this policy does not cover employee injuries; for them, you’ll be needing workers’ compensation insurance. Throughout doing real estate business, any number of unexpected incidents can occur due to human error or pure chance. Without a liability policy that’s scaled to fit your needs, you could be on the hook for paying off the resulting damages.
Property Damage
Just as a surprise event can lead to personal injury and subsequent litigation, property damage can seriously hamper your business if you don’t have the perfect protection in place. General liability insurance can cover damage to the client or customer property, including the cost of repairing or replacing an item. Think of general liability insurance like business home insurance. Your office and possessions are filled with valuable equipment that is essential to maintaining your business, so perfect business property insurance goes a long way in protecting against damage to your property. This coverage applies to incidents both at your office and off-site.
Litigation Fees
There’s no doubt that you strive to keep your clients informed at all times. But the information that slips through the cracks even once can lead to a long and expensive lawsuit against you. Just consider the story of two real estate agents who faced a seven-year legal battle after listing a rural Pennsylvania home.
They won the lawsuit, and their professional liability insurance paid to prove that the vast majority of the attorneys were legitimate. Professional liability insurance is often called errors and omissions (E&O) coverage because it protects against just that. According to the Insurance Information Institute, claims that fall under professional liability insurance includes negligence, misrepresentation, violation of good faith and fair dealing, and inaccurate advice. Considering that the real estate broker profession involves a lot of client consultations and trust work, it is essential to protect yourself from lawsuits that could easily put you out of business.
Other Policies for Real Estate Professionals
While general accountability insurance covers regular property risks, it does not provide complete coverage. Whether you’re a property agent or a house manager, accidents occur. Other policies include commercial auto insurance coverage, which ensures vehicles are owned by your business, and cyber liability insurance that assists real estate businesses to survive data breaches like cyberattacks. It could help cover client telling expenses and other associated expenses. There is also the errors and omissions insurance (or professional liability insurance coverage) that authorized penalties of suits related to a real estate professional’s business options.
