Having the proper insurance might be the single most important thing for central station monitoring companies to be protected from potential damages and lawsuits. Coverage for commercial monitoring is a little different from residential monitoring, so this article is going to focus specifically on commercial insurance requirements for a third-party alarm monitoring.
Insurance For a Monitoring Center
The two types of insurance that a monitoring center needs to carry are general liability and professional liability. These two insurance policies will keep a company covered from bodily injury, property damage, financial loss, and protection from errors and omissions.
General Liability
A general liability policy will protect an alarm monitoring company from bodily injury and property damage that arise from the premises, operations, products, and completed operations. It can also protect your company from advertising damage claims that are made against your alarm monitoring company.
Third-party bodily injury protection can protect your company if someone comes into your office and gets hurt. For example, let’s say a dealer comes into your company building, and trips down some stairs and gets hurt. The general liability coverage will protect your business from the accident, and help cover the cost for any injuries that were sustained from the fall.
In a scenario where an employee damages a third-party’s property, general liability provides coverage for that as well. For example, a technician was sent out to a dealers property, the equipment they are using accidentally damages the neighboring building. General liability can help cover the cost of the property damage.
Finally, general liability covers advertising damages. For example, let's say your company runs an ad and another company feels as though the advertising is too similar to theirs. General liability can help cover the costs of the claim and any potential damages that occur after.
Professional Liability
Professional liability is different from general liability in that it covers financial losses from things that you or your employees say. For example, one of your sales people tells a customer that by having their alarm monitored, it’ll prevent burglaries from happening. A week later, the house is burglarized, valuables are taken from the home, and the customer sues the monitoring company because they were told purchasing this service would prevent the event from happening. Having this insurance protects your company from such instances. Professional liability is extremely important, yet many third-party alarm monitoring companies don’t hold this insurance.
Insurance Limits
When it comes to commercial monitoring, the main differentiating factor is the umbrella coverage, or high limits of insurance. Since commercial monitoring usually requires monitoring of assets that are of much higher value compared to residential monitoring, the insurance limits need to be much higher to maintain proper coverage for the greater risk your company takes on in the event that you need to use your policies. The amount of your limits depends on the size of your alarm monitoring company, and the amount of commercial properties that your company monitors.
For any alarm dealer who is looking for a third-party alarm monitoring company, AvantGuard is a smart choice. AvantGuard holds all the proper insurance, and exceeds monitoring standards to provide the most excellent services and dealer care available. Reach out to AvantGuard for more information.
