What if you could lose your entire business over a single careless moment?
If a customer injures themselves at your business, they may end up suing you. And a personal injury lawsuit could be costly enough to close you down for good.
Want to know how you can get business protection from personal injury lawsuits? Keep reading to discover our five hottest tips.
1. Hire a Lawyer Ahead of Time
Our first tip to protect your business is to be pro-active. Don’t wait to be sued to hire a legal team.
A good legal team can help you make your entire business safer for customers and employees. And if you do get sued, they can help you from the very beginning.
Be sure to do your homework to find the best possible attorneys such as Sweet Lawyers.
2. Identify Dangerous Areas
Another way to be pro-active is to warn customers about dangerous areas. Such areas need to be identified and clearly labeled.
This may include labeling temporary risk areas such as wet floors after you mop and more permanent risks such as areas that get wet whenever it rains.
In this case, information really is power. If you warn people about the danger, it becomes that much more difficult to sue you. Otherwise, you may be liable for quite a bit of money.
As a bonus, clearly labeling risky areas helps keep you from losing customers.
3. Get Liability Insurance
If your business doesn’t already have liability insurance, you need it. Seriously: stop reading this right now and go get some insurance!
In the event that you are sued, general liability insurance will be your first line of defense. Some good news is that if you already have property insurance, you may have liability insurance built in.
Some businesses do not like to pay the extra cost for such insurance. Keep in mind that lawsuits, successful or not, may end up being much more expensive.
4. Incorporate
Is your business a sole proprietorship? If so, then you may be putting yourself at extreme legal risk.
If such a business were successfully sued, then the owner could lose their car and their house. Really, any individual property would be fair game.
When you incorporate your business, though, you separate your personal money from your business money. This means that a successful lawsuit could hurt your business but not threaten your property.
5. Do Maintenance After Hours
Many personal injury lawsuits come from customers slipping inside of a store. This leads to a question: just when should you do things like mop if it endangers your customers?
Generally speaking, we recommend doing your maintenance at night. This reduces the risk to other people and significantly reduces your litigation risk.
This can ultimately be a time-saver as well. If you mop in the middle of the day, everything will simply get dirty again later on.
Business Protection: The Bottom Line
Now you know the secrets to business protection. But do you know who else makes business life a bit easier?
At Your Business is a site that offers all of the tools you and your business need to be successful. To see how we can make your workdays easier, come check out our business templates today.
