So you’ve decided to purchase liability insurance for your tech business. Congrats! Having business insurance coverage will benefit you in three major ways:
- It will protect your assets in case anything goes wrong. The many kinds of liability insurance protect businesses from a variety of perils: lawsuits, property damage, data breaches, and more.
- It will allow you to land contracts with clients who require you to carry insurance. Some clients absolutely refuse to work with firms that aren’t insured. Having a policy in place will open you up to new partnerships.
- It will provide you with valuable peace of mind. Even if your existing clients don’t demand that you carry insurance, your coverage will provide you with peace of mind that lets you devote more energy to doing your work and less energy to worrying what will happen if something goes awry.
As you secured your policy or policies, you probably signed a lot of paperwork, and you may have received a form called a Certificate of Liability Insurance. Here’s a look at the role this document plays in your coverage and when you’ll need to present your Certificate of Liability Insurance.
What Is Certificate of Liability Insurance?
The Certificate of Liability Insurance is a document that summarizes the terms and conditions of your insurance policy: coverage limits, activation and expiration date, people and events covered, and more.
It essentially condenses all the key information contained in an insurance policy (which is typically several pages long) into a single sheet of paper.
How Do I Use a Certificate of Liability Insurance?
Because these documents present a lot of information in a limited space, they’re often used to demonstrate proof of coverage. For example, if a client agreed to hire you if and only if you had adequate insurance in place, you could present a Certificate of Liability Insurance to prove your coverage.
When you secure a new insurance policy, you can often obtain the certificate via email, before your physical policy is mailed to you. For this reason, these documents often allow for businesses on a tight timeline to demonstrate their coverage and land new contracts.
What a Certificate of Liability Insurance Can’t Do
While the Certificate of Insurance is generally accepted as proof of coverage among businesses, it does not function the same way as official policy documents. Translation: you cannot present this certificate to an insurance provider and expect to receive coverage benefits.
Need a Certificate of Liability Insurance for a client you’re courting? Talk to a TechInsurance agent about getting coverage in place within 24 hours.
Writtten by Brenna Lemieux - check her out at Google+ or Twitter