Commercial Crime Insurance

Commercial crime insurance safeguards businesses from the various criminal risks they may face – such as theft, robbery, burglary, forgery, or fraud committed by employees or by those outside your business.  It offers peace of mind that any financial losses resulting from these activities can be mitigated.

Every business is at risk of crime but some businesses face additional risks. Crime insurance is especially important for companies who have part time employees, handle cash transactions, have sensitive customer data, manage inventory, have expensive equipment or assets on site, handle confidential financial records, etc. 

Commercial crime insurance is important so that you don’t face the financial burdens if you fall victim to a crime.

Commercial crime insurance coverage typically includes:

• Theft of money or property
• Damage or destruction to property
• Burglary/Robbery
• Forgery
• Fraud
• Some cybercrimes
• Counterfeiting
• Impersonation

Every type of insurance, including commercial crime insurance, has exclusions. Some of the things that are not typically included in a commercial crime policy are:

• Lost income such as salaries, bonuses, commissions, etc.
• Legal fees/ Other fines & fees
• Indirect losses
• Cybercrime that involves data theft
• Property damaged by fire
• Crimes committed by executives or partners
• Exposures covered by other insurance policies

Every insurance policy is priced based on risk. Commercial crime insurance is no different. Some of the factors that affect the cost of crime insurance policies are:

• Size of the company/number of employees
• Revenue
• Security Measures & Controls
• Valuable Assets 

While commercial crime insurance is sometimes referred to as fidelity insurance or fidelity bond insurance they are not exactly the same. Fidelity bonds are a sub-type of crime insurance that protect you against dishonest acts committed by employees such as employee theft. Crime insurance policies typically have higher limits than fidelity bonds.

Commercial crime insurance has two types of triggers: discovery trigger and loss sustained trigger. You must decide which scenario you want to trigger your policy.

A discovery coverage policy covers the loss regardless of when the crime happened. It’s “discovered” during the time policy period but the crime could have happened prior to the policy.

A loss sustained coverage policy only covers losses when they happen while the policy is active. 

Businesses typically carry more than one type of insurance policy. Other types of insurance you may need include:

• Commercial Property
• Commercial Auto
• Cyber Liability
• Commercial Umbrella
• Business Liability