Here’s the thing: as a vendor, you know you should be insured. You know that vendor insurance is one of the best ways to protect your business and the work you’ve put in to make it a success.
At the same time, it’s hard to justify spending money on something when you don’t know if you’ll ever get anything out of it. You’ve never had a major accident on the job before, and the chance of something going wrong at your next event is small, right? The truth is, that risks are more present than you think they are, and vendor insurance is cheaper than you thought it was.
WE’LL EXPLAIN:
VENDOR INSURANCE: THE COSTS VS. THE BENEFITS
The value of vendor insurance all comes down to the costs vs. the benefits. Let’s look at the benefits first.
Even if you’ve never had a serious accident while at an event before, the risk that something could happen is always present. What’s more, the potential costs associated with an injury or an accident on the job are expensive. Just one mishap could trigger a lawsuit that could sink your business.
Consider the following:
- Attorney fees can cost anywhere from $100-$400 per hour.
- The average settlement for an injury lawsuit is $52,900. In fact, 16% of injury lawsuits settled for over $75,000.
When considering whether or not to buy insurance, ask yourself if you’re willing to take on the risk of the above financial magnitude. Do you have 50k on hand that you were hoping to just give away in a lawsuit?
The benefit of vendor insurance is that you are protected from these exorbitant costs.
You can go to events and sell without having to worry about getting slapped with a lawsuit. Sounds nice, right?
VENDOR INSURANCE COST
What are the costs of vendor insurance, then? With ACT, not much, to be honest. You’ll get some of the most robust vendor insurance on the market at an objectively cheap price.
You can get a full year of vendor insurance coverage with ACT Pro for as low as $24.25/month. If you are only planning on selling at a few events, but still want to protect your business, you can buy a 1–3 day vendor policy with ACT Go for $49. In other words, there’s a good chance that you could recoup the costs of a vendor insurance plan with just a few sales at the event.
You can get the coverage details for both plans here. Below is a general idea of what you’ll get with an ACT Pro policy:
- General liability, which protects you from accidents and injuries that can occur while you’re selling
- Products and completed operations coverage, which protects you if the item you sell causes property damage or injury to the buyer after it’s been sold
Long story short, the benefits of vendor insurance far outweigh the costs. Even if you go through a whole year worth of events without getting sued (fingers crossed), there’s still definite value in the piece of mind you’ll have knowing that, if something does go wrong, you have coverage you can rely on.
