Before you invest in an insurance policy to cover both your business and the valuable items contained inside, there are a few important factors to consider. While all building insurance policies operate in largely the same way, there are a few customizations you can make to have one better suit your needs. When considering a policy to purchase, finding out what it doesn’t cover is just as important as finding out what it does. Nobody wants to think about what it would be like to lose his or her entire business due to a disaster like a fire. Doing so is an important step in being proactive and making sure that you will be covered in the event that something unfortunate does occur.

Before selecting a policy, it is important to think about what types of optional coverage you may need. Most building insurance policies don’t include provisions for flood damage, for example. Remember that just because flooding may be unlikely in your area doesn’t guarantee it won’t occur. An event doesn’t have to be a traditional flood (which would involve the swelling of a nearby body of water and the damage that occurred as a result) to be deemed flood-related damage by an insurance provider. If your area experienced heavy rains and the sewer drains around your business backed up, for example, water could leak into an underground level of your business or come up through the pipes and damage valuable items and equipment. Though you may not consider that type of event to be a traditional flood, your insurance company would and would also use it as a basis to deny your claim in the event that you didn’t have optional coverage.

If you’re worried about how much money building insurance is going to cost, consider investing and making repairs to try to lower some of the costs. Building insurance providers charge premiums based on two different factors. The first is how likely an event is to occur and what type of damage will occur as a result. If you live in an area with a high crime rate, for example, a common type of building damage in your area would be burglary or larceny. As a result, you would pay more for those types of coverage than someone in another area would because there is a statistically higher chance of them happening where your business is located. However, you can combat some of these rising costs by taking steps to make your building safer. If you live in such a high crime area, consider installing security cameras that link to a third party location or the local authorities. You can make the same types of preventative modifications for other types of disasters, too. If you install a sprinkler system or a fire alarm system on your property, for example, your building will be deemed safer and you will pay less for fire-related coverage.

Another factor to consider are the types of optional coverage that you should invest in based on the type of building you operate. If you own an apartment complex, for example, you will need a policy that offers a certain amount of liability coverage. Find out how much liability coverage an average tenant needs in your area and multiply that dollar amount by the total amount of tenants you have. If you own a retail business, add up the value of the inventory that you keep on hand on an average day and use it to adjust your policy limits for those types of damages. Finding out which types of optional coverage you should invest in will help make sure you get not only a financially attractive policy but one that will cover you in the event that something unexpected happens, as well.