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Business Insurance for Land Surveyors and Surveying Services

Insurance for Land Surveyors

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In your work as a land surveyor, you use your knowledge of geometry, trigonometry, engineering, geology, and the law to discover and formally mark legal boundaries. The judgments you render about where one property line ends and another begins will live on well after you or your colleagues have stopped working in the field. A mistake or omission in a legal boundary may end in financial consequences for your client. Buildings and construction projects that are already underway may need to be modified or even torn down. Ultimately, you may be held legally liable for errors in your work, leading to lawsuits that can financially cripple your company.

Protecting yourself against professional risk is critical in land surveying work. There are also a number of other liabilities and risks that you should prepare your company for. From workplace accidents to natural disasters to theft, unexpected and unfortunate events can happen at any time. To better safeguard your company in the event of a disaster or accident, consider a comprehensive business insurance policy. With the right coverages in place, you can provide financial protection for your business and your employees in critical times.

You should consider purchasing business insurance for your business if:

What insurance coverage do I need as a land surveyor?

For land surveyors, professional liability insurance is one of the most important coverages to obtain. Other insurance types, including general liability and commercial auto insurance, are also critical to running your business. Below we explain some of the more common business insurance coverages that land surveyors should consider.

Professional Liability Insurance

Errors or omissions in your work can create problems for your clients and lead to lawsuits and claims against your firm. Professional liability insurance, also known as errors & omissions insurance, can protect you from potential client lawsuits stemming from the performance of your professional duties. And, unlike other professional liability policies, professional liability insurance for land surveyors generally covers third-party bodily injury and property damage.

Examples:

General Liability Insurance

General liability insurance is a common coverage for businesses, and this type of insurance protects your company from lawsuits claiming property damage or bodily injury caused by your business or your employees. If you accidentally damage a client’s property on a site visit, or if a client visiting your office injures himself—general liability can protect you from any related claims. As “third-party” insurance, general liability can cover you against claims from third parties, including vendors, customers, or landlords.

Examples:

Commercial Property Insurance

If you’re looking to protect your business property from any unfortunate events, a commercial property policy will help you do just that. Commercial property insurance helps protect the value of the physical assets your firm owns or leases if that property is damaged or lost due to accidents or disasters. This type of insurance covers property such as buildings, equipment, inventory, furniture, artwork, and computers. Commonly covered causes of loss include fire, lightening, wind, hail, explosion, and vandalism.

Examples:

Commercial Auto Insurance

Just as you would need to purchase auto insurance for your own personal cars, commercial auto insurance is a must-have for your company-owned or leased vehicles. As a land surveyor, you may often travel to job sites via company car, or your employees may sometimes use their personal vehicles for business purposes. In the event of an accident involving your vehicles, commercial auto insurance can provide financial protection. This type of insurance has both liability and property components. The liability component protects your business if one of your workers is at fault for causing a crash and causes bodily injury or damages someone else’s vehicle or property. The property component of commercial auto insurance protects the value of your vehicle against crashes, theft, and other perils.

Example:

Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Workers’ compensation insurance provides financial benefits to employees who suffer work-related illnesses or injuries while employed by your business. In most states, businesses that have employees are required to carry workers’ compensation insurance. In exchange for accepting workers’ comp benefits, an injured employee agrees to not sue your business for the injury. Workers’ compensation insurance is no-fault, which means that it pays benefits regardless of whether the employer or employee is at fault for the injury.

Workers’ compensation can cover the costs of:

Example:

Business Owner’s Policy

A business owner’s policy, also known as a “BOP,” is a special bundling of policies that can provide coverage for risks that are common to small business owners. BOPs combine property, general liability, and business income and extra expense insurance coverages for qualified small businesses. Importantly, a business owner’s policy can help you save money, with lower premiums than buying the individual coverages separately.

Final Word

No matter how careful you are in your everyday business, unexpected and unfortunate events can and do happen. From workplace accidents to natural disasters, there are some things that you just don’t have any control over as a business owner. Even with things you do believe you can control, like the quality and consistency of your professional work, mistakes do happen. As a land surveyor, your work can have long-standing legal ramifications for the landowners who use your services, as well as any bordering property owners, and you may be held financially liable.

One thing that you can control, however, is your preparedness as a company. Finding the right insurance coverages for your land surveying business can mean the difference between success and failure. Take the time to research exactly what protections you need, and take action in setting up the appropriate financial safeguards for both our company and your employees.

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