What is The Difference Between Home-Based Business Insurance and Homeowner’s Insurance?

sharp home insurance

Will your home insurance cover you if something happens while carrying out operations for your home-based business? When do you need to purchase a home-based business insurance endorsement? Or do you need a full, separate insurance policy for your business? Where do the two policies overlap?

Before we dive in, the good news is that Sharp Insurance in Edmonton offers both policies at the best rates!

To put it simply, these two policies – that is, home insurance and home-based business insurance – are both designed to protect your assets (one business and one personal) and there may be some overlap, but traditionally, home insurance companies will not insure business property.

The same is true for the opposite: a business insurance provider will not provide coverage for personal items. If you live at home but run a business out of your personal property, you’ll need to have homeowner’s insurance for your property and liability in addition to a home-based business insurance endorsement or separate policy.

Let’s explore the differences between homeowners’ and home-based business insurance in Ontario.

What is home insurance?

Home insurance is a personal lines insurance policy designed to protect you, your family, and your home against the unexpected. Home insurance is something of an umbrella term that is used to describe any residential property insurance, whether you live in a stick-built home, an apartment, or a condo. Your coverage may include the physical property (or just your belongings, if you have tenant insurance) as well as if a third-party, such as a guest or a stranger, made a claim against you alleging bodily injury or property damage while on your premises or due to your actions anywhere in the world.

You’ll have to acquire home insurance if you have a mortgage. Even if you don’t, it’s still highly recommended, as it protects your liability against third-party claims, and it can help you cover the cost of repairs or rebuilding if something were to happen, such as a fire, a break-in attempt, etc.

Home insurance can extend to some business property. Say you regularly worked at an office, but today you were working from home to look after your child while they were sick. If you spilled coffee on your work laptop as you got up to head to the kitchen, your home insurance might cover that. On the other hand, if you ran a daycare out of home and one of the children you looked after left a sizeable dent in your bathroom wall, any claim you’d make to your home insurance provider would likely be denied.

What is home-based business insurance in Ontario?

Home-based business insurance is separate coverage entirely. It offers wider coverage that can extend to start-up businesses or businesses that require a lot of furniture, equipment, a sizeable portion of your house, stock, merchandise, and even operating losses, if the loss that occurs causes an interruption in your business activities. An all-encompassing policy for home-based business insurance in Ontario can also cover your third-party liability, and even privacy breaches for your sensitive data. If you offer a professional advice or services as part of your business operations, you may also add errors and omissions (or professional liability insurance) to the list.

The following coverages are needed by most business, even those that operate out of your home, and will not otherwise be covered by your home insurance:

  • General Liability: If someone was injured at your business/property or as a result of a service or product you sell, or their property was damaged, the liability portion of your home-based business insurance in Ontario would cover the resulting costs, including legal fees.
  • Tools: If your home-based business utilizes tools to do work, you can get coverage for those under a home-based business insurance policy. This is especially helpful if you store tools at home between jobs. You may even be able to purchase a transit floater to cover any items you have that are being transported.
  • Cyber: Cyber insurance is gaining importance, due to the fact that we spend so much of our time and our efforts into the digital portions of our business. Home-based businesses will especially benefit from this coverage, as home networks may not be as secure as networks in public offices. This insurance protects your business against the resulting costs of data breaches or ransomware attacks.
  • Inventory: Any business property stored at your home can be covered by a home-based business insurance policy. If your business was devastated by attempted or actual theft, fire, or even flooding, the property portion of your insurance would help to cover the cost of replacing or repairing your workspace and inventory.

What is a home-based business insurance endorsement?

There’s a difference between a home-based business insurance endorsement and separate home-based business insurance. In Ontario, the scale of your business may dictate which option you need. You can also work with an insurance broker, like one of Bullfrog’s representatives, to help you decide.

A home-based business insurance endorsement is a low-cost alternative to an all-encompassing policy and it’s an ideal choice for a self-employed worker operating from home or a small business (like an e-commerce website) that functions out of a private residence. This coverage will usually be limited to between $10,000 to $50,000 in coverage for business property but will have higher limits for liability arising from business use of the premises. Work with a broker to determine adequate limits.

Which do you need?

You’ll always need home insurance, even if it isn’t mandatory in your situation. Some mortgage lenders will require you to carry home insurance, and some landlords will ask that tenants provide proof of tenant insurance when signing their lease.

If you work from home occasionally, you probably won’t need to make any serious revisions to your coverage or be required to purchase a separate standalone policy. That being said, if you make a habit of storing business equipment at home, working from home or having clients visit your home, or you’ve begun the work of initiating a startup from home, it might be time to discuss with your broker about the possibility of acquiring a home-based business insurance endorsement or policy. Business insurance in Ontario helps to protect your livelihood – you wouldn’t want your hard work going to waste.

Start the conversation with a Bullfrog representative today, or fill out a form for a free quote.

The Secret of Turning Your Home Always Looking Like New

Homes these days have a particular trend look and often homeowners who have had their home for many years feel the urge to match up with the many modern houses built these days. There are even some who go to the extent of spending thousands to rebuild their homes to look good as new.

Fortunately, even if you live on a tight budget, being able to turn your home looking good as new is not an impossible task. All you need is a lot of patience, imagination and enough effort to turn your home looking good as new.

Start from the Inside

Though the exteriors of your home have remained as is over the years, a good approach to bringing in freshness and that look that is brand new is through changing up your home interiors once in a while. Tap in your own designer ideas and rearrange some of the best pieces from your home areas, as this established a lot more variety and a different focus to your home interior design.

Bring in Some Do-It-Yourself Projects

These days more and more people have become budget conscious, making the immergence of a variety of do-it-yourself projects for the home quite popular among many homeowners. If you have a lot of creative juices and do not mind getting your hands dirty, then getting into a home project is a great idea because it can let you manage your own ideas and turning these into reality, plus it also helps you control the materials that you want to use that are inexpensive yet still very stylish and matches your home design.

Hire Some Professional Help

If you are not that comfortable going through a major home change on your own, it is best to consult with some local home professionals like landscapers, gardeners, Epic Roofing & Exteriors Ltd., carpenters and other home improvement teams. Though you may need to pay up a considerable amount of money for a particular home change, doing so will give you the edge of convenience and lesser effort, plus often the work rendered is well worth your expense as they will be able to bring your home ideas to life and really turn your home looking as if it were new.

Why Hire custom home builders

Custom homes are both beautiful and unique and this is what exactly makes them more desirable than standard suburban cookie cutter-type homes.  Although cookie cutter-type homes are considered to be more affordable than custom-made homes, it is their similarities in looks, design, and overall essence that what drives most people away into buying them.  While the price of such homes can be very tempting, especially when you consider that the savings you get from buying one can be used into renovating and customizing some of the interiors of the cookie cutter home.  Still, the very aspect of having no control in the design, amenities, floor plan layout, and other additional functions can be disappointing.

For people who want to be able to customize the design of their home based on their needs and necessities, the only type of home that is more suited for them is a fully custom type home.  If you fall under this type of people, it is likely that you are the type of person who knows exactly what you want and need and that there can be no makeshift or make-do in response to what you want and require.

The benefit of having a custom home is that your home will be constructed by custom home builders on a property that you own.  This capacity in choosing the property where you will have your home built is not exactly an element of choice given to those who are buying prebuilt homes in the suburb.  Aside from having control on where your home is going to be built, your suggestions, ideas, inputs, and requirements will highly be taken into consideration by your custom home builder, especially if you already have the finished plans, drafts, and sketches done by your architect or draftsman.

When it comes to constructing custom homes, it is ideal to hire custom home builders for this type of home building project.  The reason why you should hire custom home builders is that they are most likely accustomed to building customized homes and that this experience of there is invaluable when it comes to constructing your home.  Their knowledge over materials and custom construction methods enables them to proceed with construction work almost instinctively.  In addition to this, their inherent nature in following proper constructions steps and processes means that they do not cut out on important details, particularly on design protocols unique to their current construction project.

Always Hire Good Home Builders

The amount of investment you make in a home is a fairly large one.  Unless you are a person whose business involves large amounts of inflow and outflow of money and that the cost of a home is humble one when compared to your financial investments and acquisitions, the investment you will make on a home may actually be the biggest one you will ever make.  Since you will be spending a great deal of your hard-earned money on a home, it only makes sense that you plan your steps very carefully so as to have absolutely no regrets in the end.

For some, instead of buying pre-built or pre-used homes, they prefer to have their homes built from scratch.  Doing this gives them a sort of control on the different aspects of the home.  This includes certain design elements, floor planning, and even number of room requirements.  This type of customization is only possible if you are going to have the home constructed from the ground up.

Oftentimes, it is not the home’s design that makes homeowners regret into having their house built, but the regret is more of on the home builder’s side of the process.  It can be said that there are plenty of good home builders.  Sadly, within those good home builders are the bad home builders which you should avoid hiring at all cost so you do not end up regretting hiring them and losing money in the process.  The risk in hiring the feared bad home builders is that, aside from potentially getting swindled by them or slow construction progress with no end in sight, tha possibility of having a home that is not built to par with strict standards or what you have been led to believe is within the boundaries of possibility.

If you want to have no regrets when it comes to the home builder that you hire, then you should hire home builders that are highly reputable and that of which whose services are highly sought after.  If you hire home builders with very good and solid reputation, not only are you assured of satisfactory results with their build, but you will also have a sort of tranquil feeling of peace of mind with no absolutely no regrets at all, specially knowing that your money and home investment is in relatively good hands.

Do It Yourself Home Improvement

e are times when you become idle at home that you are able to see or visualize all the things necessary that could help improve the aesthetics of your home.  Maybe perhaps you can think of the hacks and customizations that will help simply and improve certain areas of your home.  The thing is that there are lots and lots of home improvement ideas out there and many of which are easy to do that you can do these projects yourself easily on your weekend off from work.

When it comes to home improvement, it is usually the aesthetics department that is the target of most homeowners.  The thing is that there are actually other departments you may want to improve on, such as storage, ease of use, or security.  Many of these are actually very easy to do.  While the result may not exactly be aesthetically pleasing, it will nevertheless provide you a sense of fulfillment once you have accomplished them.  Just in case you are looking for something to do with your time, here are a few home improvement projects you can do yourself.

  1. Mason Jar Storage – if you are tinker and have many small bits of items, tools, materials, or parts that you have trouble finding extra space to store, try doing a hanging mason jar storage in your garage area. You can do this by collecting at least five mason jars.  Then, in your garage area, drill holes in a line according to the number of mason jars you have on a garage shelf or bottom part of a suspended cabinet.  Drill a center hole on the Mason jar cover.  Attach the cover to the shelf using a nut and bolt.  Place the parts and other small items inside the jar and then screw the jar onto its cover.  What you have now is a suspended storage space for your small items.
  2. Lubricate Movable Hinges – to make doors glide with ease, door knobs twist with ease, metal gates open with ease, or window hinges swing with ease, try lubricating them with WD40, an eco-friendly and very effective lubricating fluid to allow ease of use of all elements in your home that have swinging hinges.
  3. Install Security Cameras – these days, security is an essential part of any home. Fortunately, security cameras are an effective deterrent to criminals which is why installing some security cameras in your home will make a worthwhile weekend home improvement project.  Fortunately, technology has made it very easy to setup and install surveillance systems which is why you will not have much of a problem doing the installation and setting up yourself.