Once you have started your own contracting business there may be a good idea to research an independent contractor liability insurance policy. Usually these will cover you in case one of your current or past customers plans to make a claim against you for some of your work or maybe against one of your employees. When you are self employed and something goes wrong you can guess who the client will be going after. You can form a Limited Liability Corporation to try and shield you from your personal assets, but the LLC can only protect you from so much and is not an insurance policy.
Another thing that you need to be concerned about with any litigation against your business will be the court costs and fees that having a lawyer will cost you. This type of insurance will also help you in the fact that once you are covered normally anyone making a claim against you have to come up with some solid concrete evidence against you. Having council that is familiar with how these types of claim work will go a long way in shielding you from major losses.
The current laws currently make it possible for any of your past clients to make it claim against you from the past six years or even longer if they can prove serious negligence. So to protect itself make sure that you do hold onto all of your records to help your insurance company show what exactly was expected and what happened.
Pretty much anyone that has their own business and is a self proprietor should probably have a type of liability insurance. In the current economy many people have started out on their own service business such as a landscaper, painter and building contractor and are probably unaware of all the types of insurance they need, and then when you hire help that is when workers compensation and unemployment insurance come into play.
Make sure you consult with your local insurance agent to find out what is the best policy for your business, you can also do a lot of research on the Internet by going to the insurance company website and reading some of the provided articles. You should talk to some of your friends who may have their own business and asked them how they went about getting a liability insurance policy quote.
Always make sure that your business has some type of rider or add on to the coverage just in case an unforeseen accident or situation comes up. It is really hard to predict what may happen to you or to some of your employees. This is how all of the insurance companies got started and continue to prosper in any economy.