Nevada is a great state to start a small business. Nevada has a low tax rate and a low cost of living, plus it has over 40 million visitors every year. That’s 40 million potential customers flocking to enjoy the warm weather and friendly people in the Silver state. What doesn’t Nevada have? It doesn’t have state income tax, corporate tax, or inventory taxes, and no taxes on corporate shares or profits. If you’re thinking of starting a small business, why not gamble on Nevada?
One thing you shouldn’t gamble on is skipping small business insurance and hoping for the best. For just a few dollars a month, you could protect yourself from most lawsuits, increase your peace of mind, and in some cases, attract more clients. Make sure you have proper business insurance to protect yourself from lawsuits.
- 5 best business insurance companies in Nevada
- How much insurance do I really need in Nevada?
- Which business insurance coverage is required in Nevada?
- How much does business insurance cost in Nevada?
- Who needs business insurance in Nevada?
5 best companies for small business insurance in Nevada
Small business insurance is a very competitive market, with hundreds of providers to choose from. This can make it confusing to wade through all that information. But relax. We’ve done it for you. We have researched more than 30 providers in Nevada and here are our recommendations for the best companies to buy insurance from.
- InsurePro: Best for short-term, pay-per-day coverage of general liability, commercial auto, and workers comp insurance
- Simply Business: Best for finding cheap small business coverage (general liability, workers comp, professional liability, and commercial auto insurance)
- CoverWallet: Best for comparing several quotes online (general liability, BOP, workers comp, and professional insurance)
- NEXT: Best Overall for general liability insurance
- Progressive: Best Overall for commercial auto and commercial truck insurance
InsurePro: Best for short-term, pay-per-day small business coverage
InsurePro is a new and innovative digital broker specializing in small business coverage. They offer an innovative coverage solution for small businesses that may not need permanent insurance coverage. These small businesses can buy short-term coverage, even just a few days from InsurePro. InsurePro works with a lot of insurance companies to find the cheapest short-term coverage for their customers.
Pros:
- Flexible, short-term, and pay-per-day coverage at affordable rates
- Great digital experience and digital support with the online chat
- Rates are often much cheaper than traditional policies
Cons:
- Limited coverage. General liability, commercial auto, workers comp, and equipment protection coverage are available
- Have to file claims directly with the insurance companies
Simply Business: Best for finding cheap small business coverage
Simply Business’s mission is to make buying small business coverages simple and easy. Being a digital broker, Simply Business is also in the position to help small businesses find the most affordable rates for the coverage that they need. That’s the reason why they focus on finding insurance companies that can offer competitive rates.
Pros:
- Great digital experience
- Easy to find the most affordable coverage available
- Agents are friendly, knowledgable, and not pushy
Cons:
- May not offer all coverages that small businesses may need
- Small businesses can’t file a claim with Simply Business. Have to file a claim directly with the insurance companies
CoverWallet: Best for comparing quotes online
If you want to compare several quotes online in one place to save time and money, your best bet is with CoverWallet. CoverWallet is a digital broker specializing in small businesses. They work with several insurance companies and build a digital experience to help small businesses obtain insurance quotes and buy policies easily and fast at affordable rates.
They make it very easy for small businesses to get and compare several quotes in one place to find the cheapest one. If you are looking for general liability insurance, workers comp insurance, or professional liability insurance and prefer comparing several quotes in one place, CoverWallet is a great option to start with.
Pros:
- Offer several quotes online, making it easy to compare several quotes on one screen
- Provide several coverages to small businesses in a wide range of industries
- Good option to find the most affordable rates
Cons:
- Can’t file claims through CoverWallet
- Comparing several quotes online may not be available for less popular coverages such as cyber liability insurance or D&O insurance
NEXT: Best Overall for general liability insurance
If you are a contractor or any other local business and want to buy a cheap general liability insurance policy to protect your business, NEXT is a great option to start with. NEXT is one of the most successful insuretechs in the small business industry. They specialize in helping small businesses of all industries to buy general liability insurance online. They started by making it super easy and fast for contractors to buy general liability insurance online and have since expanded the coverage to many other industries, including restaurants, retailers, healthcare offices, etc.
Pros:
- Super simple and fast general liability insurance for all types of contractors, including handymen or roofers and other local businesses
- Affordable rates
- Best-in-class digital experience
Cons:
- Only offering general liability insurance coverage. Recently expanded to professional liability, but still quite limited
- Newer insurance company, lack of historical performance, especially in paying claims
Progressive: Best Overall for commercial auto and commercial truck insurance
Progressive, a household name for personal vehicle insurance, is also the market leader in commercial vehicle insurance. If you are looking for commercial auto or commercial truck insurance only, you definitely need to give Progressive a try. Progressive is the only insurer offering commercial auto and commercial truck insurance quotes online for all types of commercial vehicles. Their rates are competitive thanks to several discount programs as well.
Pros:
- The biggest carrier for commercial auto and commercial truck insurance
- Offer several discounts
- Great digital experience. The only carrier offers 100% quotes online for all types of commercial vehicles
- The most comprehensive coverage for commercial auto and commercial truck
Cons:
- Customer satisfaction rating leaves room for improvements
- Rates may be a bit more expensive than others (maybe worth it for its reputation and comprehensive coverage)
How much insurance do I really need in Nevada?
Small business owners need to get business insurance to protect their assets. The question is, what kind of insurance do you really need, and how much?
Below is the comprehensive list of small business insurance coverages that you may need. Depending on things like what sort of work you do, where you’re located and how long you’ve been in business, you may need more or less coverage. If you are not sure which business insurance coverage your small business may need, consult with a small business insurance agent or broker.
General liability insurance in Nevada
General liability insurance covers you for:
- Third-party bodily injury
- Third-party property damage
- Advertising injury
General liability insurance covers you in case a third party (read: a customer or a vendor) manages to injure themselves on your property. It covers their medical bills and your legal costs if they should sue you.
General liability insurance also covers you if you or an employee damages a customer’s property. Anyone who goes to clients’ homes, such as plumbers, contractors, real estate agents needs to protect themselves. One slip and you could accidentally damage that expensive coffee table your customer recently had shipped over from Greece.
Advertising injury means injuries committed by a business when it advertises its products or services. It includes slander, libel, and copyright infringement. These injuries could be committed by you or your employees, or they could be committed by someone else. You could be the victim. For example, say you have a bakery. A rival bakery claims that your gluten-free cakes actually do contain gluten, but this is not true. You could sue them for reputational harm.
Another example, if you own a clothing store and you use one of your customers in an ad, but you did not obtain his/her permission first, they could sue you for violating his/her privacy. This is considered an advertising injury.
Learn more at general liability insurance cost and the best general liability insurance companies in Nevada
Commercial property insurance in Nevada
Commercial property insurance protects your property and your equipment from losses. It covers losses due to:
- Theft
- Vandalism
- Weather
- Lightning strikes
- Fire
- Smoke
- Water damage
If a fire levels the building your business is based in, commercial property insurance should cover you for losses of business income. Oftentimes, landlords will require you to have commercial property insurance before they will rent or lease a space.
If floods, hurricanes, or earthquakes are common in your area, you need to add them in your commercial property insurance policy as additional coverages or endorsements. The last thing you want is to wake up one day and discover that your business has been destroyed by a major flood and it’s not covered. Be sure to ask your agent to include these coverages in the policy.
Learn more at commercial property insurance cost and the best commercial property insurance companies
Business Owners Policy (BOP) in Nevada
A Business Owners Policy can save you money by combining several of the most common types of business coverage under one policy. It almost always combines general liability insurance and commercial property insurance. Usually, they also include at least one other type of coverage, depending on the policy. Some policies include:
- Business interruption insurance
- Cyber liability
- Crime
- Rented vehicles
- Equipment breakdown
- Employment practices liability insurance
Shop around for the policy that provides the types of coverage you need.
Learn more at BOP insurance cost and the best BOP insurance companies
Professional liability insurance in Nevada
If you provide services or advice in exchange for money, you probably need professional liability insurance (PLI). Sometimes this type of coverage is called malpractice insurance, especially when it refers to medical or legal professionals, and sometimes it’s called errors and omissions insurance, but it’s all the same thing.
PLI covers you if you make a mistake or neglect to do something that causes your customer financial harm. For example, you are a real estate agent and you show houses to a nice young couple. They find one they love and are very excited. They make an offer. Sadly, you missed the deadline to put in their offer and another family bought the house. They could sue you for this mistake.
Learn more at professional liability insurance cost and the best professional liability insurance companies
Workers comp insurance in Nevada
In Nevada, workers compensation coverage is required if you have even one employee, even if they are part-time, even if they are members of your own family. Only sole proprietors and LLCs do not have to cover themselves. Other exceptions are:
- Individuals having work done to their home
- Nonprofits with no paid employees
- Corporate officers who own more than 25% of the business and have no other employees
Workers comp protects you, the employer, from having to pay medical costs and lost wages for injured employers who cannot work. It also protects the employees from having to pay for their own medical costs, and it helps by paying them for lost wages while they recover. Should the worst happen, workers comp will also pay death benefits to the family of the accident victim.
Nevada is a no-fault state when it comes to workers compensation insurance. This means it doesn’t matter who caused the accident suffered by the employee: your workers comp insurance will pay the claim.
Workers comp is based on payroll. One way to save some money on workers compensation insurance is to by pay-as-you-go insurance, which is based on the exact amount of your payroll as opposed to sick employees, fired employees, or employees you haven’t gotten around to hiring yet (regular workers compensation insurance is an estimate based on budgeted payroll for the year).
Learn more at workers comp insurance cost and the best workers comp insurance companies in Nevada
Commercial auto insurance in Nevada
Commercial auto insurance covers you if you are in an accident while using your vehicle for work. Personal auto coverage will not cover you if you use your vehicle for work-related purposes (other than commuting back and forth to your job).
Nevada law requires you to have at least 25/50/20, or $25,000 bodily injury liability, $50,000 per accident, and $20,000 in property liability coverage. You are also required to have uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.
These are the bare minimums. You would probably want more coverage, otherwise just one accident can easily bankrupt you. If you hit someone with more than one passenger in their car, it’s easy to see how medical expenses can easily exceed the policy limits.
If you want to cover damages to your own property and your own vehicle, you’ll need collision and comprehensive insurance.
Trucking companies need more insurance to comply with state and federal regulations.
Learn more at commercial auto insurance cost and the best commercial auto insurance companies
Cyber liability insurance in Nevada
Most businesses these days store at least some customer information online. Cyber liability insurance will protect you in the event of a data breach, malware attack, or ransomware attack. If you store things like credit card information, financial information, or medical records, you need cyber liability insurance. The cost of cybercrime is predicted to be $10.5 trillion dollars by 2025. In case you’ve forgotten, that’s only three years away.
Learn more at cyber liability insurance cost and the best cyber liability insurance companies
Business interruption insurance in Nevada
If your business had to close due to an emergency, how would you pay your bills? Business interruption insurance provides protection against financial losses if your business needs to close temporarily due to a reason listed on the policy.
That last part is important. If your business interruption insurance does not cover pandemics, as many small business owners found out in 2020, then you will not be covered by business interruption insurance. Covered perils are usually things like:
- Fire
- Theft
- Wind
- Lightning
- Falling objects
If floods or hurricanes or earthquakes are common in your area, you’ll need to add those as an additional expense. However, the more coverage you add to your policy, the more expensive your policy will be, so be mindful to balance between coverage and the cost of your policy.
Learn more at business interruption insurance cost and the best business interruption insurance companies
Directors & Officers insurance (D&O) in Nevada
Directors & Officers insurance is like E&O (errors & omissions, also known as professional liability insurance) but for officers and directors of a company. It protects them from personal losses in the event the company is sued for some decision they made. A D&O policy will pay for legal fees to defend the company against lawsuits, either civil lawsuits or criminal lawsuits (often these are filed simultaneously).
Learn more at D&O insurance cost and the best D&O insurance companies
Which business insurance coverage is required in Nevada?
There are a lot of different types of business insurance available but not all of them are necessary.
- Most small businesses should get general liability insurance. It protects you from the most common lawsuits filed against small businesses.
- If you use vehicles for business purposes, you’ll need commercial vehicle insurance. It is required by state law.
- If you have employees, you need workers compensation insurance. It is also required by state law.
- If you are in the business of providing services or advice to your customers, it is very likely that you will need professional liability, or E&O insurance, also called malpractice insurance in medical and legal fields.
How much does business insurance cost in Nevada?
The average business in Nevada pays about $53 a month, or $636 per year, for a $1MM general liability insurance policy. Obviously, If you buy more than one policy, you’ll pay more. The best thing to do is get quotes from at least three different companies, so you won’t pay more than you have to.
Below are the average costs in Nevada for different small business insurance coverages:
| Nevada business insurance coverage | Average costs |
| General liability | $53 per month |
| Business Owners Policy (BOP) | $147 per month |
| Workers comp insurance | $0.93 per $100 payroll |
| Commercial auto insurance | $121 per month |
| Professional liability insurance | $62 per month |
| Cyber liability insurance | $113 per month |
| Commercial property insurance | $118 per month |
Please keep in mind that these are just the average rates that hundreds of thousands of small businesses pay in Nevada. Your rates will be different. Be sure to shop around with a few companies and compare several quotes to find the cheapest one for your business.
Who needs business insurance in Nevada?
Most small businesses should get at least a general liability policy, workers comp (if you have employees), and commercial auto insurance (if you drive a vehicle for business purposes).
Below are some popular small businesses that buy insurance in Nevada:
