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As a new business owner, one of the first decisions you need to make will be deciding on a business structure. There are several different company structures available depending on your needs and goals. There are many things you should consider when choosing your business structure such as taxes, financing, profits, and of course insurance. While every business has similar needs when it comes to insurance there can be some subtle, but critical differences you should be aware of.
If you have big goals and dreams for your business and plan to grow exponentially and have a lot of investors, then a corporation is for you. It is great in that it allows an unlimited amount of people to be part of the structure and offers the most liability protection for individuals. There are also many tax benefits to this type of company structure. An attractive factor currently to choose a corporation is the recent tax reduction that happened in 2018 at 21% from 35%. This means more money in the shareholders' pockets.
One of the biggest downsides to structuring your business as a corporation is the time and energy it takes to do so. You must have a board of directors who have monthly meetings and those meetings must have recorded minutes. And a corporation is held to a higher standard by governments and have more laws and regulations that they must follow. You must weigh the advantages and disadvantages of forming a corporation when making this important decision. Another essential factor to consider is insurance needs. Usually, a corporation will need the most insurance depending on the size of the company. Here are some critical insurance policies a corporation should have.
When choosing your business structure, you might want something that involves a little bit less work than a corporation, but still gives great tax benefits. This is where a Limited Liability Partnership, or LLP, comes in. An LLP is a great entity to choose if you are looking for partners but do not necessarily want them to be active in the business, or if they do not want to be active as well. The downside is if you are a general partner, usually the one running the show, you have full liability exposure, while the limited partner has only the exposure of what they invested.
When it comes to insurance, a Limited Liability Partnership is going to need pretty much the same policies as a corporation outlined above. Depending on your operations you may not need the same coverage amounts but the policies will be similar. If you don’t have employees then you can remove Workers Compensation and Employment Practices from your list since you will not have the exposure. Additionally, there usually is not a board of directors with an LLP so you would not need Directors and Officers insurance. Cyber Liability may also not be needed if you are using an LLP as an investment entity to purchase things like real estate.
A public benefit corporation is usually formed when a business is going to do something that benefits the public interest and also has shareholders, where an LLC does not. An LLC simply has members. Think of companies like Kickstarter. They were formed to help the public raise funds to start business ventures. They are not a non-profit and they have shareholders so a public benefit corporation was a better company structure for them. When it comes to insurance needs, they are very similar, however, if there is no board of directors or employees you can see how the exposure would be different.
While a sole proprietor may have less exposure due to not having employees and dealing with a smaller number of customers over the course of a year, they must have Commercial insurance. Customers can still slip and fall, you can still damage property, and mistakes can still be made. In addition to General Liability, Property, and Auto insurance please consider the following as a sole proprietor.
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