There are more than 457,000 small businesses in the state of Louisiana. They employ more than 905,000 workers in the state, which accounts for 53.8% of the state’s workforce. If you run a small business in Louisiana, you know that commercial auto insurance and workers compensation insurance are required. Even general liability insurance isn’t required in Louisiana, it is an essential business insurance that small businesses should have. It protects businesses against one of the most common types of lawsuit, a slip and fall suit brought by injured customers. We recommend the 6 best general liability insurance companies in Louisiana to guide your selection.
- The 4 best general liability insurance companies in Louisiana
- Is general liability insurance required in Louisiana?
- What does general liability insurance cover?
- What doesn’t general liability insurance cover?
- Why small businesses in Louisiana should get general liability insurance
- What affects how much I’ll pay for general liability insurance in Louisiana?
- How much does general liability insurance cost in Louisiana?
- How to find cheap general liability insurance in Louisiana?
The 6 best general liability insurance companies in Louisiana
We research more than 20 companies offering general liability insurance in Louisiana and here are our recommendation of the 6 best providers.
- Simply Business: Best for finding the cheapest coverage from solid carriers
- NEXT: Best for great digital experience and affordable rates
- CoverWallet: Best for comparing online quotes
- Hiscox: Best for small and medium-sized contractors in Louisiana
- InsurePro: Best for temporary coverage
- Progressive Commercial: Best if you also need commercial auto insurance
Simply Business: Best for finding the cheapest coverage from solid carriers
Simply Business is a digital brokerage firm specializing in serving small businesses. What sets them apart is that they partner with several reputable carriers that have solid financial strength ratings and tend to offer low-cost coverage. That makes it easy for you to find the cheapest general liability insurance quotes with them.
After submitting your information, Simply Business will provide several quotes from partners that they work with. Many of their carrier partners may not be well-known but offer great affordable quotes that you wouldn’t be able to access otherwise.
Getting and comparing several quotes online are fast and simple. Within 10 minutes you will find the cheapest one for you.
Simply Business also has a great customer satisfaction rating on trustpilot.
NEXT: Best for great digital experience and affordable rates
NEXT offers fast quotes after providing a bit of information about your business. Once you have a quote, you can purchase the insurance and then manage your policies online. If you decide to buy two or more policies, you also get a 10% discount. In addition, the quote tool will recommend other policies you might need.
NEXT has very few complaints on the Better Business Bureau, which is uncommon as much as it is used. It also lets you make payments annually or monthly without extra charges.
It takes us less than 10 minutes to get this quote for a cleaning business in New Orleans, LA with 3 full-time employees, $200K in payroll and $350K in annual revenue.
CoverWallet: Best for comparing online quotes
If you want to compare several quotes to select the best and the cheapest one, CoverWallet is a great option. CoverWallet is a digital broker. They work with several leading business insurance companies. After providing your personal information, you will get several quotes from their partner companies in one place to compare. This can save you a lot of time from getting quotes from these companies separately.
Their quote process is very simple and fast. It will take less than 10 minutes to get several quotes.
After buying a policy through CoverWallet, you are able to use their digital dashboard to manage all of your business insurance policies in one place. The dashboard also offers several great features such as downloading the certificate of insurance, renew a policy, or filing a claim.
Hiscox: Best for small and medium-sized contractors in Louisiana
With headquarter being in London, Hiscox is one of the oldest companies offering business insurance in the world. They are also the pioneer of offering business insurance online and target to small and medium-sized businesses.
While catering to a wide range of industries, they also has a specialization in general and independent contractors.
They offer a very simple and fast online quote. Within minutes, you will be able to get a quote estimate for your business. Their quotes appear to be lower than the average. However, you need to pay attention to the coverage maximum. Their policy’s maximum coverage seems to be lower than the industry standard, $300K vs. $1,000,000 per incident.
If you are a small or medium contractor in Louisiana, you should definitely consider getting a quote from Hiscox. Other than general liability insurance, Hiscox also offers other business insurance policies that might be suitable for contractors such as professional liability, workers compensation, commercial auto insurance, commercial property insurance, even cyber security insurance, and many more.
They have excellent financial strength rating, A from AM Best and good consumer review from BBB.
InsurePro: Best for temporary coverage
InsurePro is one of the popular insuretech startups. They aim to make buying business insurance super fast and simple. Their digital experience is amazing: super fast and easy. Within minutes, you will be able to pull a quote, buy a policy, and print out the certificate of insurance if you want to.
The unique advantage of InsurePro is that they are the only insurance company offering temporary coverage. If you need insurance coverage for just a few hours, a few days, or a few weeks, you can get a policy from Thimble for this period. So it is perfect for part-time businesses in Louisiana.
However, it doesn’t mean that their quotes are necessarily the cheapest. Sometimes, their regular quotes are still more expensive than other companies. So make sure to shop around for the cheapest price.
A disadvantage of working with InsurePro is that they only offer general liability insurance, professional liability insurance, and business equipment protection. If you need other types of business insurance, you have to go elsewhere.
Progressive Commercial: Best if you also need commercial auto insurance
Progressive Commercial is a subsidiary of Progressive, one of the top 4 auto insurance companies in the US. Progressive Commercial offers a comprehensive list of business insurance products to small and medium-sized businesses in Louisiana. Their most popular product is commercial auto insurance.
If you use a vehicle for your business, you need to get commercial auto insurance. It is required in Louisiana. You can get both commercial auto insurance and general liability insurance from Progressive Commercial to enjoy a bundled discount.
Even with a discount, it is not guaranteed to be the cheapest. To get the cheapest quote, you need to shop around with a few companies or a digital broker like CoverWallet to compare several quotes and select the cheapest one.
Is general liability insurance required in Louisiana?
No, general liability insurance isn’t required in Louisiana. Only workers compensation insurance and commercial auto insurance are required in Louisiana.
However, general liability insurance is an essential business insurance policy that any business should consider having. It protects businesses against one of the most common types of lawsuit, a slip and fall suit brought by injured customers.
What does general liability insurance cover?
If you can only get one business insurance policy that is not legally required, you may consider general liability insurance. It covers:
- Third party injury
- Third party property damage
- Advertising injury
Whatever business you’re in, if you deal with customers at a physical location, whether it is your business’s premise or your client’s, it’s a good idea to have general liability insurance. Customers may slip and fall at your business’s premise. They may sue you for medical expenses. General liability insurance will pay for that and your legal costs as well.
Or if you visit your clients’ houses to conduct some business and accidentally break a valuable decorative vase. If they sue you, general liability insurance will cover that too. It also covers you if you are sued for slander or libel
In some cases, general liability insurance can also cover product liability. If your company manufactures and sells physical products to the public, having product liability coverage is necessary.
What doesn’t general liability insurance cover?
Although general liability insurance is an essential policy, it doesn’t cover everything that can go wrong. It doesn’t cover:
- Injuries to your employees (that’s workers compensation)
- Damage to your own property (you’ll need commercial property insurance)
- Data breaches and cyber crime (you’ll need cyber security insurance)
- Damages caused to your customers when they use or consume your product (you’ll need product liability insurance)
- Your clients sue you because they are not happy with your service (you’ll need professional liability insurance for that)
- Bodily and property damages caused by auto accidents while you are driving for work (you’ll need commercial auto insurance for that)
- Illegal acts
- Damage that you do on purpose
The first six are covered by different types of policies. Anything illegal and destructive is not covered at all.
Why small businesses in Louisiana should get general liability insurance
According to businessnewsdaily, slip-and-fall accidents and premises liability are the two in the the top 3 most common lawsuits against small businesses (after breach of contract). And according to a survey conducted by smallbizdaily, 36%-53% small businesses had to deal with a lawsuit every year. So, getting sued due to your customers slipping and falling in your business location is a lot more common than you would think. These statistics are national, but Louisiana businesses should expect to have similar frequencies of slip-and-fall accidents.
Getting sued is expensive. From a study by National Center of State Courts, the median combined costs of lawsuits for both parties in a premise liability lawsuit such as slip and falls is $54,000. This can easily bankrupt a small business if they have to pay everything out of the pocket.
Then, too, you’ll have to deal with the emotional toll if someone sues you.
Lastly, for businesses in some industries like general contracting or construction, clients prefer you having proper insurance coverage. More often than not, clients would request you to show insurance proof before signing the contracts for the project.
What affects how much I’ll pay for general liability insurance in Louisiana?
Many factors affect how much you’ll pay for insurance, such as:
- Where you work
- What industry you’re in
- How long you’ve been in business
- Revenue
- Number of employees (the more employees you have, the more likely it is that one of them will damage something)
- Claims history
- The policy’s coverage. The coverage is usually at $1M. The higher the coverage, the higher the premium of the policy.
How much does general liability insurance cost in Louisiana?
The majority of small business owners in Louisiana can expect to pay between $200 and $5,000 a year for a general liability insurance policy. On average, a small business in Louisiana pays $1,250 for a general liability insurance policy.
The cost of general liability insurance for a small business in Louisiana varies by providers. You should expect to have different quotes by different insurance companies. Make sure to shop around with at least 3 companies or with a digital broker like CoverWallet to compare several quotes to find the cheapest one for you.
>>MORE: How Much does General Liability Insurance Cost?
How to find cheap general liability insurance in Louisiana?
General liability insurance is essential for small businesses. Even it is not required in Louisiana, you should consider having it to protect your business. Depending on your industry, it might not be very expensive.
In addition, you can find cheap general liability insurance for your business in Louisiana. Below are some tips that you can consider:
- Always make sure to shop around for the cheapest price. Getting quotes from several companies or comparing several quotes with a digital broker like CoverWallet.
- Before renewing your policy, make sure to shop around again to ensure that your current policy has the cheapest price already.
- Sometimes insurance companies will let you take a risk assessment to earn a discount
- Bundling several policies together will also earn a discount
- Just like auto insurance, maintaining a good and continuous record of general liability insurance policy for your business can also help keep the price low.
Last Thoughts
General liability insurance is a necessity if you own a small business in the state of Louisiana. It may not be too expensive. It will give you peace of mind and allows you to focus on growing your business. After determining how much coverage you need, you should get quotes from at least 3 companies or a digital broker to compare and choose the cheapest one for you.
You should also consider the company’s financial strength and customer satisfaction rating in choosing the final company to buy the policy from as well. You want a company with low prices that you can rely on.
