While an Umbrella insurance policy is good to have for an individual or a family, it is essential for a business.

So let us start with basics. What is Umbrella insurance? An Umbrella insurance policy covers a business, up to the coverage value of the policy over and above the maximum limits for each of the risks covered; in addition it covers for some other risks for which there is no specified coverage either through a rider in one of the insurance policies or a separate insurance policy.

Risks which are covered over and above the insurance policies or riders which most businesses have. Again these are risks which you probably have an insurance for already.

Personal injury–e.g. a visitor slips and falls in your lobby.

Personal property damage–e.g. vehicle colliding with another–where one of the vehicles is yours.

Real property coverages–damage to the building, rental unit etc.

Malpractice or Professional Negligence–businesses do not always have coverage except in cases where there is history of litigation–e.g. medical malpratice.

Additional risks covered (generally businesses do not insure against these risks): litigation resulting from slander, mental disturbance or anguish, emotional injury, libel.

You should remember that in any claim, the Umbrella insurer will first want you to get paid under your primary insurance policy; theirs will kick in when you have maxed out on your primary insurance. So in the end the Umbrella insurance is protective insurance against catastrophic risks that could shut down your business, or cost you enormous sums in litigation.

Indeed, Umbrella insurance is and should be part of your business protection suite of products, much like you have credit card insurance or fraud insurance. Unfortunately, ours is a litigious society. There are hundreds of attorneys who core competency is advising victims, real or imagined, to enter into litigation, or at least threaten to, in order to elicit the best “offer” they can get.

I do not mean to suggest that litigation over injury, emotional disturbance etc. is always, or even mostly egregious.

So how should you go about determining what you need. A few tips:

• talk to your insurance agent. He or she is a professional who is versatile not only evaluating business needs but also in sharing experience.
• depending upon your business size and the industry you are in, you want to be with the larger firm rather than smaller. Larger insurance firms have more resources in case they need to negotiate a settlement, they also have access to excellent lawyers. The extra money you pay for their “brand” is often worth it.
• Talk to your friendly competitor, or even key vendors. They can share their experience with you and give you a good market sturdy.
• Make sure your primary insurance package is good. It should not only cover you for common risks, but also the coverage should be sufficient. Do not under insure to save a few dollars.

Good luck

A strong social media presence can be challenging to accomplish for B2B (business to business) insurance agencies. Many B2B companies struggle to showcase their professionalism, and build an audience through social media marketing. Consider the following tips to help make sure your agency is maximizing your social media marketing efforts.

Create Your Online Persona

Your social media presence should have a well-defined personality. Informative, helpful, engaging, timely and relevant are all characteristics top B2B social media accounts consider when creating their online persona. Decide what your online voice will sound like. Will you be formal or informal, speaking to individuals or businesses, sounding like a reporter or an op-ed contributor? Will you be sharing company employee events, creating contests, reporting on industry changes or regulations, or all of the above? Your agency goal is to build rapport and a sense of community with both clients and prospects. But first you need to determine your social media persona.

Create a Written Strategy Including Prospect Scorecard & Buyer Persona

When creating your marketing strategy, ask yourself these questions:

• Who is your target online audience – and how diverse is this group? Start by creating a Prospect Scorecard.
• Which social platforms will best target that audience? You may have to search the different platforms to see which social media platforms are most applicable to your clients and prospects.
• What type of content will that target audience find most useful? Would it be infographics, long-form articles, tech support information, breaking news commentary, regulatory updates, or some combination of all of these?
• What are your short term and long term social media goals? Perhaps your short term goal is simply consistent content sharing. And your long term goal includes an ad budget for growth and prospect engagement.
• How are your competitors using social media? You can learn a lot about what to do and what not to do by studying your competitors.

Comment on News & Regulations Relevant To Your Target Industries

Offering commentary on breaking news and changing industry regulations is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge in your industry and to provide your clients with insights on how to understand these updates. This can lead to higher engagement levels and increased exposure to your social media pages. You can use Google Alerts and social media alerts to monitor industry keywords and stay on top of dynamically changing events.

Organic Vs. Paid Posts

Once your insurance agency is consistently posting quality content, you can consider posts boosts and ads. You may want guidance with this, as the budget can get spent quickly, and multivariate split testing with compelling images and custom graphics can dramatically improve your reach and ROI.

Achieve A Respectable Follower Base

Looking professional and demonstrating a respectable number of followers and engagement level is half the battle when starting on your insurance social media marketing initiative. The top platforms your agency should leverage are: LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, likely in that order, though your target markets could impact this. LinkedIn and YouTube can be very valuable to B2B businesses. LinkedIn is a good place to start, it’s very much a business centric platform. Then leverage YouTube using videos, recorded webinars or even simple voice over PowerPoint updates. Try to build up your follower base as quickly as possible, to a respectable number. For example, this might be 500 followers on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Though 5,000 or more would be great, initially your agency is striving to attain a baseline of professionalism and credibility.

At any time of the year, our naughty four-legged furry friends, such as our pet cats and dogs among others, are more prone to illness or injury especially if they are spending more time outdoors. Many pet owners are worried they wouldn’t be able to afford health care services for their pets. Pet insurance is a smart option to help you with the veterinary expenses. But before you finally decide, here are a few tips to assist you in your pet insurance choices.

To start with, there are several types of pet insurance to choose from. A pet health insurance plan reimburses the pet owner of covered veterinary care and itemizes covered treatments, lifetimes, or per illness maximums. As you will see below, the cost of a pet health insurance policy will vary based on the amount of coverage, the type of coverage, geographical location, the type of pet (species), its breed and age, and even whether it is sprayed or neutered. Check this Seven (7) Factors which affect pet insurance cost:

1. Type of Coverage

For the type of coverage, some factors that affect the pet insurance cost are pet’s illness, accident or routine care. When considering this, you should know what benefits are covered and what are not covered. Generally, the larger the amount of coverage, the greater the premium amount. If you take over a larger share for your pet’s veterinary care, the premium will be smaller. Choosing not to cover your pet’s routine care will help you lessen the cost of insurance.

2. Policy Limits

Some important things to consider when dealing with policy limits are deductible, co-pay, incident cap, annual cap because these factors affect the cost of insurance. You should determine how much you need to pay before the Pet Insurance Company reimburses the expenses. You should also know what maximum amount is paid per incident or illness as well as annual caps. To get a more affordable pet insurance, it’s recommended to choose a higher deductible, higher co-pay, and lower annual maximum.

3. Geographical Location

Since veterinarian costs differ significantly between areas, the location where you live affects the premium. Generally, the cost of veterinary care is much expensive in a big city than in a small town, which affects reimbursement rates.

4. Type of Pet

Certain pets tend to have more illness or accident problems than others. Like for example, dogs have more injuries and health problems than cats. Because of that, it’s much expensive to insure a dog than a cat.

5. Breed of Pet

There are certain breeds of dogs and cats that have more health problems than other breeds. The insurer considers this factor to calculate the premium you need to pay to insure your pet.

6. Age of Pet

The age of your pet also affects the cost of pet insurance. Generally, pets that have age between 8 weeks and 5 years old are given with the best rates. For those older pets, the premium will be higher because they usually have more health problems than younger ones.

7. Spayed and Neutered Pets

Usually those spayed or neutered cats and dogs will receive a lower premium because they have a lower risk of having diseases and illnesses.