Crime Insurance

Employee theft is one of the largest vulnerabilities of commercial crime, but it’s not the only crime-related exposure that a business faces. Forgery, alteration, non-employee robbery or theft of money or securities, money order fraud, counterfeit paper currency fraud, and computer fraud are all other crime-connected risks that puts your business at an increased exposure for loss.

Businesses can protect themselves against such exposures by obtaining crime insurance. Crime insurance can be purchased in many different ways. It can be purchased as a stand-alone policy, as part of your commercial package policy, or as part of your management liability package policy. Either way, it protects an organization against a potentially devastating crime-related loss that could have a detrimental impact to their bottom line. Generally, when crime is purchased as part of your commercial package policy, most insurance carriers will frequently cap their limits at $500,000. If purchased as stand alone or with a Management Liability package the insured has the opportunity to purchase much higher limits and negotiate broader coverage.

The very nature of the types of acts covered by crime insurance often means that the deception is hidden for quite some time. For instance, the dishonest employee who is stealing company products or funds may be taking steps to hide the dishonesty. The result is that losses can remain hidden for months, or even years, which could amount to significant losses as they accumulate.

Crime coverage is available in two basic forms; loss discovery and loss sustained. If purchasing a Discovery form, losses discovered or identified during the policy period are covered, even if they occurred before the policy period. The Loss Sustained form provides coverage for a loss that occurred during the time frame that the policy was in force when the loss occurred. Typically, the coverage extends up to twelve months after the policy’s expiration date. Keep in mind, that the Loss Sustained form can put you at risk if a financial loss isn’t discovered until years later.

Courtesy of RT Specialty