Insurance for Start-Ups

	Claim Examples	Approximate Pricing
General Liability Insurance	Your sales rep spills coffee on a client when meeting at a coffee shop, causing severe burns. A child chokes on the connected wearable device you’ve designed and marketed. A competitor sues for defamation, libel, or even copyright infringement based on the content of your website or your advertising campaign.	$1M per occurrence and $2M aggregate is the standard starting point for any startup. Approximate pricing: $500-2,000 per year
Worker’s Compensation Insurance / Disability Insurance	Employees injuring themselves on the job, whether at the job or not. Think slips, falls, and spills. A programmer suffers from carpal tunnel from all the code he’s writing.	A good starting point is usually $1M in coverage Approximate pricing: $300-500 per salaried employee per year
Errors and Omissions Insurance	An actual bug in your SaaS marketing/sales platform that causes users to lose money—payments aren’t processed, leads aren’t recorded, etc.—that leads to a class action lawsuit. Your product/service doesn’t live up to your customer’s expectations; the customer alleges you haven’t honored company policies or contractual obligations. Your customer claims you’ve violated the terms of the user agreement and sues for misrepresentation or violation of contract. Even if the allegation is borderline frivolous, you’ll still have to pay a lawyer to deal with it. These costs are covered by E&O policies.	$1M is a good starting point Approximate pricing: $1,500-4,000 per year
Cyber Liability Insurance	Your AWS databases are hacked and your users sue you for leaking information. An employee leaves a laptop or phone in a cab that’s picked up by someone who leaks private user data. You suspect there may have been a breach and you have to notify your users to comply with individual state laws regarding breach notification procedures. You’re hit with a DDoS attack and you have to shut down your site for a few days, causing lost profits and expenses to build up.	Approximate pricing: $1,500-4,000 per year
Employment Practices Liability Insurance	Lawsuits for violating employment laws around race/gender/age discrimination and/or discriminatory hiring/firing practices. Sexual harassment or hostile work environment lawsuits. Wrongful termination lawsuits.	Approximate pricing: $3,000-8,000 per year