As we approach a new year, it's a good time to think about your insurance coverage and insurance renewal. The easiest thing to do is to to do nothing, meaning just let your coverage renew without looking around for better coverage and better rates. Maybe a New Years' Resolution should be to spend some time to protect your most valuable asset, your truck and your business...
Your first call in this process should be to your current food truck insurance broker. By accurately reviewing your insurance with your broker, you can make sure you have the right premium savings and that you are filling valuable gaps in coverage that could be undiscovered until after a loss. Here are some things that you should be discussing with your insurance agent/broker well before your renewal.
1. Has anything changed? Did you merge or acquire another business? Was there a change in ownership? Did you alter your business operations since the last renewal? If you answered yes to any of these, your insurance broker and carriers need to know about it and underwrite accordingly. For example, if you are a food truck and decide to sign a lease for a brick and mortar location, you need to cover the liability and property at that location and you need to tell your broker about it as soon as possible.
2. Have you hired or laid off employees? If you payroll has changed drastically, you'll want to tell your broker that as well. Your workers' compensation rates are based on projected payroll. If they don't know the payroll will double, you may be hit with a large audit that is hard to absorb. Conversely, if your payroll goes way down, you don't want to be paying twice as much for coverage and have to wait for an audit refund...
3. Did you reinvest in business property? Maybe you upgraded the equipment in your truck or bought a new one to build out... A big jump in business personal property without telling your broker could create gap in coverage and leave you at risk of a potentially having an uncovered or reduced paid claim.
These are just a few of the common changes that can occur between your insurance renewals that need to be addressed. If you need assistance with your renewal, please contact us for a through review of these and other changes that need to be regularly assessed with your risk management team. Insure My Food Truck proactively reaches out to our clients before renewals to ask about changes, but not all brokers do. Remember that an insurance review is never too early... However, it's always too late if done after a loss.