The Walters Agency Podcast

Small Business, Big Risks: Why Proper Coverage Matters

• Timothy Walters • Episode 9

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Let's Talk About Small Business Insurance

The protection of your small business shouldn't be an afterthought—it's the foundation that allows your entrepreneurial dreams to flourish. Timothy Walters, licensed insurance agent and small business owner, dives deep into the essential coverages that shield businesses from increasingly complex threats.

Most small business owners focus primarily on profitability and cash flow, often viewing insurance as just another expense. However, as Timothy explains, this perspective misses the critical role insurance plays in business sustainability. "When lawyers get involved, they swing like they're in the big leagues," he cautions, highlighting how quickly even minor incidents can escalate into financially devastating legal battles in today's litigious environment.

Beyond the fundamental general liability coverage that protects against slip-and-falls and property damage, modern businesses face an evolving risk landscape. Social media liability has emerged as businesses increasingly engage with customers online. Product liability protects manufacturers and retailers from claims of defective merchandise. And perhaps most critically, cyber liability has become essential as data breaches affect businesses of all sizes. "The question isn't if your data will be exposed—it's when," Timothy warns, noting how breaches can trigger expensive notification requirements, forensic investigations, and reputation management.

Small business owners must have frank, honest conversations with their insurance agents about their actual operational risks. Cutting corners on coverage might save money in the short term, but leaves businesses vulnerable to catastrophic losses that far exceed premium savings. Ready to protect what you've built? Contact The Walters Agency for a free 20-minute consultation at 423-417-2070 and discover how proper coverage creates true peace of mind for your business journey.

To learn more about The Walters Agency visit:
https://www.brightway.com/agencies/tn/knoxville/0237/team
The Walters Agency
7009 Asheville Hwy
Knoxville, TN 37924
423-417-2070

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Walters Agency podcast, where insurance meets peace of mind. Hosted by licensed insurance agent and owner, timothy Walters, we're here to help families, homeowners and small business owners throughout East Tennessee protect what matters most Our mission creating win-win-win solutions for insurance. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

Small businesses face unique risks and the right insurance coverage can make all the difference in protecting their future. Welcome back everyone. Skip Monaco, host slash producer, back in the studio with Timothy Walters, licensed insurance agent and owner of the Walters Agency. Timothy, how's it going? I'm going well. How?

Speaker 3:

are you doing?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing just fine. Doing just fine. We made it to hump day. That's a good thing, right?

Speaker 3:

What day is it? Today's week? We're in June, now, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, can you believe that? I cannot believe it's June I don't need to know man. Halfway through the year, Yep, yep, so Dempsey. Small business owners have a lot to consider when it comes to insurance. I know because I'm a small business owner as well. Specifically, how can they protect what they've built?

Speaker 3:

Let's talk about small business insurance. Yeah yeah, small business. You know and I'm a small business owner too you know there's challenges that I'm sure are similar no matter how big your business is. But I think small business owners face some challenges and maybe larger businesses have gotten past. And of course, there's always the money issue, right, and I like, I think, a lot of small business owners that I speak to that's their primary concern. You know, I talked to people who are starting new businesses, people who've been in business for a while, and the concern is how much am I making? Am I making? Am I breaking even? Am I in the red? I got some black on the on the accounts, maybe a little bit this month. I mean, that's like the biggest concern typically that I hear from people in business and you know, I get it cause I'm the same way.

Speaker 3:

Even all that aside, I always tell people you still got to look out for your insurance because, as a small business owner I don't care if you just started up or if you've been doing it for a few years people think you got all the money in the world. So if something happens, when lawyers get involved, they swing like they're in the big leagues. So if you don't have your insurance squared away in the right manner, you could be in real trouble and people sue for reasons that are legitimate. People sue for reasons that are just stupid. We all know this. We live in America. That's the society we built, for whatever reason, and, like I said, you still need insurance I always tell people, if you don't have insurance at all, you definitely need to get something put together, at least for general liability purposes. General liability is being basically like hey, somebody falls and smashes their head through your store window by accident and they sue you. Okay, well, that's general liability. Maybe you're running some kind of specialty service that requires some professional liability, like lawyers, doctors, medical professionals. Maybe you need something where you're manufacturing or you're making a product that you sell to people. Maybe you need something that's going to cover for products that were defective or cause damage or something like that. So there's a lot of things in insurance the risks that we can help cover that hopefully you never have to use. It's like medical insurance Hopefully people have medical insurance. Hopefully they never have to use it.

Speaker 3:

But we all know the longer you live, the more likely something's going to happen to you. Same thing the longer you're in business, the more likely that you're going to have to use your insurance somehow shape or form. And if you don't have it or you don't have it written correctly to reflect your actual risk, you know you could be in trouble. Having a frank, honest discussion about what you do, you know what your risk exposures are, and making sure that your insurance is written correctly is very, very important. And I know people don't want to pay extra money People I talk to people. They're very cagey sometimes when I ask them questions they're like well, this is going to cost me more. I'm like, maybe, but we still need to know the truth. And if we write you a policy not having all the correct information and then something happens and your policy doesn't cover something correctly because we didn't have the information, you know that's not good for you, that's not good for us. Like I said, you know the whole the whole thing about cost benefit analysis.

Speaker 3:

I always tell people it's better to pay a little bit, then go cheap, not be honest about what's going on. And then you have to use your insurance and find out that it's not going to do what you thought it was going to do and that's it. Well, you, small business challenges, a small business ownership.

Speaker 2:

There's lots of them too, buddy. Well, you mentioned liability coverage. What about what are some essential types of insurance that every small business should have?

Speaker 3:

Well, I would say the most basic type would be general liability, and again, that's just general liability. That's like you know, if something pretty standard happens again somebody slips and falls on your property, you need something to cover, you know, for maybe they got to go to the hospital and get their bones reset, or something like that. Cover, for maybe they got to go to the hospital and get their bones reset or something like that. One thing a lot of people don't think about these days, but most businesses, even out of the house businesses, they have social media presence, they have Facebook page, they have Instagram or whatever, maybe even a MySpace. I don't know, Is that still a thing? I don't know. So you might want to have something to cover, like if somebody says oh well, you defamed me on social media because we got into an argument on this post and you said something that I didn't really like, so I'm going to sue you. There's coverage that will help provide legal representation and provide coverage for potential damages for those types of things.

Speaker 3:

People don't think about it because, again, the social media has become so ingrained. People just like having a conversation with somebody, but it's not. It's on a public platform or it's on a private public platform. I mean, you've got your business tied up in it. So, yeah, if somebody really doesn't like something you said, unfortunately, a lot of times people will recourse to oh, I'm going to sue this person because they have an opinion I don't like, or I didn't like their price, or they quoted me. I've had this happen to me People didn't like the quote that I gave them and they've actually tried to report me to the state of Tennessee to try to get my insurance license hit because I gave them a quote they thought was too expensive.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

There's all kinds of crazy out there.

Speaker 3:

Fortunately the state of Tennessee gets a lot of those. All they did was call me and ask a couple of questions. I provided some emails to them and the thing went away. It wasn't a big deal.

Speaker 3:

But again, the crazy is out there and sometimes business owners make mistakes. Maybe they say something incorrect or, you know, make an accidental misrepresentation, and again that can get you in some trouble. So, yeah, there's coverage for those kinds of types of things. Again, going back to if you're manufacturing products, you know, and your product, you know, injures somebody, makes somebody sick, wasn't made correctly, and they're like well, we're going to sue you and so just, you know, returning the product and asking for a refund. Yeah, there's coverages for that kind of thing.

Speaker 3:

So it's all bound up in the specifics of what you do and what you offer. But so, yeah, there's really not many risks that aren't insurable. It just depends on what you're doing and how much it's going to cost. I suppose, and some people, there's no law that says for a lot of businesses anyway, there's no law that says you have to carry insurance, like with auto insurance, to drive on public roads, you have to have personal insurance for your vehicle and everything. But you know businesses. A lot of times it's something that's not legally required, but as a responsible business owner to take care of yourself and your clients, it's definitely something that should be looked into at the very least.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Now you mentioned social media. What about cyber threats?

Speaker 3:

Yes, yeah, information informational God. Yeah, I'm an insurance guy, so, yeah, information Cyber okay. So the losses for data breaches and the cyber attacks have gone through the roof. Because everything's online now. Everybody's information is online, every company that we work with and I say we, as in 99.9% of the public in the whole world, the information is online.

Speaker 3:

Very few people actually keep paper records anymore, so the risk of data breaches is very real. I think Amazon just had one recently, if I'm not mistaken. So the risk is there and if your company is hit with a cyber attack, your client's personal data or financial data is stolen. That's a big deal because you've got to do the mitigation for it. You've got to make sure that the information is re-secured.

Speaker 3:

You might have to pay for the expense of clients. You know running down, you know, hey, you know, have there been any fraudulent charges? I mean, that's a spider web that can go a long ways and we don't have time to go like, follow that particular trail, but there's a lot of potential expense involved in a data breach or successful cyber attack, so even small businesses these days. I would recommend having some coverage for that type of risk data breach, cyber attacks, that kind of thing, because I don't really know any businesses that I've talked to that actually are completely offline. I don't think I've ever talked to one. Since I've been in this business, I know we have a pretty robust policy in our commercial insurance for Because all we do is data. We just deal with people's data all day, every day, so it's important.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. What an important discussion. I mean from a small business owner's perspective. We need solid protection and your insights have definitely made that decision easier. And so, for those listeners out there, if you don't have insurance for your small business, talk to your insurance. Or if you do, talk to your insurance agent to make sure, talk to your agent If you don't Talk to your agent.

Speaker 3:

If they don't do commercial insurance, ask them if they can refer you to somebody who does.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 3:

You need to have that discussion.

Speaker 2:

Does the Walters Agency handle commercial?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, we do. Like I said, that's one of the things we do, no-transcript and, but it's still. I mean I honestly don't care how much the price for cyber insurance goes up. Risk to your business and your clients for a data breach is only going to increase over time as the as the the risk and rewards for the people who are doing the cyber attacks. Their risk is very low because they're almost impossible to catch the rewards and for one successful data, successful data breach for them you know it is is enormous because they go out and they sell that data.

Speaker 3:

You know, and everybody's getting these, uh, scam phone calls. You know we is enormous because they go out and they sell that data. You know, and everybody's getting these scam phone calls. You know we all get the text messages and the scams. Well, that's probably because our data has been sold to these data brokers out there. Say, all of us have probably had our data exposed at some point in time or another. It's out there on the markets and it's just getting traded around. So it just really comes down to when, not if, it comes to bite us in a real financial way and you want to have the right insurance as a business person to cover that risk for sure.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, I'm really glad you asked that question, Skip. It's an important one.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely Well, you heard it here. If you don't have commercial insurance, if you don't have cyber threat insurance or data breach insurance, give Tim a call. He'll tell you all about it with a 30-minute free consultation right.

Speaker 3:

That's right, I'll talk about it all day long, if you let me. There you go, there you go.

Speaker 2:

Well, tim, like you said. Very important question, very important discussion. Appreciate it. And Well, tim, like you said. Very important question, very important discussion.

Speaker 3:

Appreciate it and we'll catch you in the next episode, all right.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, skip. All right, man, you have a great rest of the day.

Speaker 3:

You too.

Speaker 1:

That's a wrap on this episode of the Walters Agency Podcast. Ready to find the right coverage for your home, business or family? Call or text 423-417-2070 for a free 20-minute consultation. Until next time, stay covered, stay protected and keep winning with the Walters Agency.