Business Personal Property (BPP) Insurance

Your business and property are valuable assets, but have you considered all the items owned by the business to operate your business? If you lost all the content of your office building tomorrow, furniture, computers, machinery and equipment, and inventory, it would be devastating to your business. Business Personal Property Insurance can often capture items as valuable as the building itself, but it can be a confusing term.

When disaster strikes, you must ensure you fully understand all business personal property coverage. It can encompass many types of property coverage: personal property of others, business interruption coverage, business personal property, inventory, spoilage coverage, off-premises coverage, and property in transit.

Business Personal Liability

What items can BPP cover?

  • Office Furniture
  • Computers
  • Machinery & Equipment
  • Improvements and Betterments
  • Inventory
  • Leased Property

Business Personal Property (BPP) Insurance – Deep Dive

Like building coverage, the business personal property (BPP) coverage form contains an insuring agreement distinguishing building coverage from business personal property coverage. It also differentiates between owned property and property of others. This can be important for service-based businesses that hold their customer’s property for a period of time. Drycleaners, repair shops, or any storage facility all come to mind.

Here are some essential items that need to be considered for business personal property as mentioned above:

Business Interruption Coverage

Also known as business income insurance. This indirect loss to the business can cost more than the physical damage to the covered building or personal property. Business Interruption coverage is put in place to operate the business as usual even though it can’t operate or make any income because of direct loss.

Example – A restaurant has a fire and must remain closed for 12 months as they rebuild. All income streams are lost due to the fire. Business income coverage is in place to pay company profits, extra expenses, and profit losses.

Property of Others

Bailees coverage is common on a business personal property policy. If you service a client’s item and hold it in your possession, it is important to insure those goods in case a disaster strikes and forces you to replace all those items you don’t own.

Inventory Coverage

This coverage comes into play for many businesses for items held for sale on location. It is important to note that there are endorsements to cover against the item’s actual sale price versus the wholesale or manufactured cost.

Spoilage

Coverage against just that, spoilage. We see this coverage utilized in the food service industry. Anything from meat processing facilities to restaurants should consider this. It is also used by medical offices that store injectables or medicine that needs to remain refrigerated.

Speak with your Hitchings Insurance specialist about your business use scenario. Each situation is unique, and our team is dedicated to assembling your specific protection package.

Hitchings Insurance agents are highly knowledgeable about industry-specific liability issues. We enjoy sharing our knowledge and helping our business partners make informed decisions.

To learn more about our ‘people before policies’ commercial insurance mindset – complete and submit a free quote request – or call us at 419-423-9145.