Safety In Holiday Shopping

Nov 23, 2021, 1:43 PM

This weekend is the series of shopping-related “special days” that some shoppers and retailers hold to, while others ignore entirely. There’s Black Friday for huge deals on big-ticket items (and huge crowds early in the morning) and Cyber Monday for online shopping. In between is Small Business Saturday, the one I’m looking at here.

The idea is to encourage shoppers to head to local businesses, not nationally known chain stores, to do their holiday and other shopping. Retail stores are an enormous part of the American economy, of course, and small stores are a big portion of that; about 98% of all retailers are considered “small,” with 50 employees or fewer.

Small stores are a big part of business here at Hastings Mutual, too: We offer coverage for many types of small business, including florists and barbers and beauticians. Our Businessowners coverage can be used with many kinds of commercial enterprises, like gift stores.

What does our Businessowners coverage offer to our small retailer customers? Quite a bit, starting with your actual building and the materials in it.

We have equipment breakdown coverage for the machinery in the building. If something happens that requires serious repairs, your Hastings Mutual Businessowners policy also features business income and extra expense actual loss sustained coverage. That helps keep you afloat if your business has to be shut down for a brief time because of those repairs or something similar.

Liability is found in several other key coverages.

Basic liability, an additional coverage on our Businessowners policy, starts at $300,000, with higher limits available. That’s if someone is hurt in your shop, like in a slip-and-fall incident.

Cyber liability protects your business if it’s hit by hackers or internet thieves. One report finds that 43% of businesses  reported internet attacks in 2021, most often in the technology, financial services, and energy industries. It’s assumed hackers are after personal data like credit card and Social Security numbers, so they more often attack large businesses with many customers. But small businesses aren’t invulnerable; the same report shows about 23% of small companies were attacked online.

Like anything else, the best way to avoid online danger is to prevent it in the first place. Be aware of email red flags and be cautious of anything you do on the internet, whether it’s for your business operations or when you’re working with your customers’ data.

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