One of the biggest exposures facing South Carolina small businesses is the risk of liability. For example, if someone slips and falls on your business premises, you could be found liable. If you sell tainted food that causes an E. coli outbreak, the damages could be catastrophic. If you manufacture a product that causes a consumer’s injury or death, you could be found negligent. If your employee gets in a car accident while driving in the scope of business, you could be held responsible. These are just a few of the many types of liability claims that can impact even the most safety-conscious businesses. Unfortunately, legal expenses and damages can add up fast, deteriorating your loss ratio and making you an undesirable risk for commercial insurance company underwriters.

Do You Need Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI)?

In recent years, an increasing number of employees have filed lawsuits against their employers for unlawful employment practices. Any company with employees can potentially be sued for:

For this reason, it’s a good idea to secure employment practices liability insurance. Ask your business insurance advisor if your business owners policy includes EPLI protection. If not, ask us for a free insurance quote.

Professional Liability Insurance

Businesses that provide advice face the risk of professional liability. For example, accountants, lawyers, real estate agents, and financial advisors all provide their clients with professional advice. If that advice results in financial loss and the client sues for damages, the business could be found liable. If the business is not properly insured, the owner’s personal assets are at risk. For that reason, it’s important to have professional liability insurance to protect against the unique exposures of your business.

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Our goal has always been simple: We are committed to providing top-quality service and finding tailor-made solutions for your insurance needs. We strive to provide the ideal protection and security for South Carolina firefighter and emergency service clients. Claim service is the true test of an insurance carrier. Over the years, our firefighter and first responder customers have found that VFIS always comes through with excellent customer service, insider knowledge, and quick turnaround. This all adds up to one fact: When you insure with Lowcountry Insurance and VFIS, your trust is well placed. In 1969, VFIS became the first agency to develop specialized insurance coverages to meet the needs of America’s emergency service organizations. Today, VFIS is the largest provider of specialized insurance products and services to emergency service organizations.

Insuring North America’s Heroes

Lowcountry Insurance provides insurance services for fire departments, ambulance and rescue squads, and 9-1-1 centers. We have a long history of helping the emergency service organizations protect their assets and manage their exposure to loss. We strive to provide the most financially secure insurance products, as well as the risk management services necessary to protect your property, manage your responsibility to others, and protect the life and wellbeing of those you serve. We also have very competitive auto insurance quotes.

Insurance Solutions for Emergency First Responders

At Lowcountry Insurance, we understand the unique needs of South Carolina’s emergency service organizations. We also know that it’s important to protect your assets and your members/employees. You’ll appreciate our package policy for firefighters, which addresses the real issues you confront as emergency responders. Our specialized insurance products, developed with you in mind, meet the needs of your emergency response organization.

Firefighter and emergency responder coverage solutions:

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South Carolina is home to a vast number of social service organizations, ranging from children’s homes and rehabilitative groups to affordable housing and career counseling. Such organizations do great deeds every day. It is only right that those organizations have great coverage to protect them. Our team at Lowcountry Insurance has 400 years of combined experience tailoring insurance policies to meet the individual needs of each of our clients. This experience is especially useful for nonprofit organizations, as we understand how risks can vary widely by the type of service provided. When you want assurance that your nonprofit insurance portfolio matches the unique needs of your organization, turn to Lowcountry Insurance.

General Insurance Coverage for Most Nonprofit Organizations

Most nonprofit organizations have strict budgets that require careful decision making with regard to the type and amount of insurance coverage to carry. The policies listed here offer a good idea of the types of nonprofit insurance your social service organization should consider carrying to best protect you, your employees, your volunteers and the people you serve:

Insuring Children’s Homes

Creating a comprehensive insurance program for a group homes for children requires as much special attention and care as running the home does. At Lowcountry Insurance, our agents work hard to identify which policies will best benefit your children’s home program, including considering specialty coverage for:

• Children’s clothing and personal belongings
• Food and refrigerated items
• Child abduction liability
• Key employee replacement

Rehabilitation Services Insurance Program

We offer specialty insurance services to rehabilitative programs located throughout South Carolina. Programs we insure include:

• Job rehabilitation services
• Physical rehabilitation services
• Vision and speech therapy rehabilitation services
• Drug and alcohol rehabilitation services

Regardless of the type of rehab program you offer, turn to our dedicated team to make sure you are covered no matter what happens.

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In our ever growing digital age, large and small businesses throughout the Lowcountry are equally at risk for data breaches, both internally and externally. What most business owners do not know, however, is that a general liability policy or other general policy does not cover losses associated with technology and Internet exposures. At Lowcountry Insurance, we offer the breadth of experience and knowledge that your business needs to determine if you need cyber liability protection. We understand risk management and know how to create a comprehensive business coverage portfolio that fits within your budget.

Cyber Breach Examples

Whether you are in the health care industry, the financial industry or other niche area, you are at risk for data breaches. Some of the more common issues that cyber liability insurance covers include:

• Intellectual property (IP) theft by an employee.
• Cyber attack by a hacker.
• Download or transmission of a virus, Trojan or other program
• Allegation of defamation or other personal injury as a result of a statement on your company’s website, internal email communication or other statement Breach of confidentiality through an unencrypted system

These examples are only the beginning of a long list of events this coverage protects your business against. From here, it is important to understand what costs this insurance covers.

Coverage Provided by Cyber Liability Insurance

In general, cyber liability insurance covers two general categories of protection:

• “First party” coverage: First party coverage, sometimes referred to as cybercrime coverage, covers out-of-pocket costs to keep your business running, including business interruption insurance, breach notification costs and reputation management costs, regulatory fines and penalties.
• “Third party” coverage: Third party coverage, most often referred to generally as cyber liability insurance, provides protection for costs related to legal liability stemming from a breach.

As mentioned before, the costs stated here will fall on your business if you do not have cyber insurance in place.

Ways to Keep Cyber Liability Premiums to a Minimum

We know business owners, especially small and medium sized businesses, worry about adding a new insurance cost on top of existing business expenses. However, it is important to remember that one cyber breach can lead your company straight into bankruptcy.

While cyber liability coverage is generally affordable already, there are some simple steps you can take to decrease your risk, including:

• Encrypting information on your laptops. Did you know the average value of a lost laptop is nearly $50,000? You can cut that loss by at least $20,000 through encryption.
• Create Internet usage and social media policies. These policies allow you to identify what is important to you and what steps you and your employees must take to protect your company’s information.
• Set up a firewall to protect your network. Ensure your firewall equally protects internal and external networks, as well as computers, laptops and mobile devices.
• Learn how to create strong passwords. A weak password can welcome in a hacker faster than you realize. Create strong passwords (longer passwords, using upper and lowercase letters, numerals and symbols). Change your passwords on a regular basis.

Learn More About Cyber Liability Insurance for Your Business

Lowcountry Insurance offers tailored business insurance programs that include cyber liability and cybercrime coverage. Learn more about how your business can benefit from this type of protection by reaching out to one of our offices, or you can pick up the phone today to request a free cyber liability quote.