#SmallBiz Insurance Roundup: November 4, 2022

How Financial Literacy Can Help Protect Your Small Business

How well your small business performs and its prospects for growth go hand-in-hand with making smart financial decisions. After all, the decisions you make can impact your bottom line.

Among the top concerns small business owners have are inflation and rising interest rates, according to Ipsos. That’s consistent with what the Zensurance 2022 Small Business Confidence Index results found, with 51% of respondents to our survey highlighting inflation as their greatest worry.

November is Financial Literacy Month in Canada. It’s vital for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and self-employed professionals to be well-informed about finance to effectively manage cash flow, be ready to file taxes, and plan ahead by accurately predicting profits and expenses.

Here are five tips for small business owners and self-employed professionals to consider to help improve their financial literacy.

What Is Social Engineering?

Exploiting human weakness by tricking you or your employees into divulging confidential information is an increasingly popular form of cyber-attack.?

Rather than hacking into a computer system, social engineering is akin to hacking a human. It involves deceiving you or your employees to take a specific action that permits a cybercriminal to gain access to a system or network or commit fraud or identity theft using information you voluntarily provide.?

The term ‘social engineering’ in information security encompasses a wide range of malicious online attacks. Here are eight of the most common ones to be on the lookout for and how to prevent them.

What Is Care, Custody, and Control in Insurance?

If you’ve read the fine print of your small business insurance policy – and you should always read the fine print – you’ve probably come across the terms “care,” “custody,” and “control.” But do you understand their significance and how they affect what your policy covers?

As a business owner, you should have insurance that protects you against many scenarios so the loss of property or legal liability doesn’t put you out of business. That includes commercial liability insurance and specific products such as error and omission insurance and cyber liability protection. Whether you lose equipment, information, or facilities necessary for your operations or face a lawsuit due to an incident at your business, you have many coverage options.

A care, custody, and control insurance exclusion is found in many policies – it removes compensation for the insured when a property placed in their care is damaged.

Insured Perils? What Is That?

Insurance policy terminology can, at times, be perplexing. Case in point: what is a business insurance peril?

By definition, a peril is a serious and immediate danger. In an insurance contract, it’s a chance event that is unexpected and accidental. Think about the risks that cause loss and destruction, such as malicious acts and vandalism, lightning and wind damage, fire and explosions, or theft and robbery. These are all perils.

Here’s what you should know about open and named perils insurance coverages.

A Guide to Selling on Depop

If you have an eye for fashion, a flair for recycling and upcycling, or the creativity to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary, a popular marketplace for selling goods online is Depop.

Depop is an app where you can sell (or buy) virtually anything to do with fashion and its offshoots. The focus is mainly on vintage, recycled, and upcycled garments, shoes, and accessories. There are new creations as well. Depop is a marketplace where sellers can set up shop online to display their goods to consumers who want to feel good about what they wear.

Running a Depop-supported business or side hustle isn’t without risks, and many business insurance types could benefit you.

Read our guide to getting started on Depop including recommended insurance coverages.