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What Is The Difference Between General Liability And Surety Bonds?

Contractors have heard of surety bonds, but many of them confuse them with general liability insurance. What is the difference, and why does it matter? If you have one of the two, isn’t that good enough? If you have struggled with the definitions of these two very important tools for contractors, or if the haze has always confused you, I hope these words that follow will help you out. Please, read on.

Surety bonds are designed to protect the client if you don’t live up to the contractual agreement. General liability only comes into play if you break something. This is the principle difference between the two. To elaborate a little, you can look at the contractual situation itself between the client and the contractor. If you are the contractor, and you don’t live up to the contract, the client loses. If you are only covered by general liability, there is not a lot of recourse that the client has. However, surety bonds are set up to cover the client in just such a situation. If you bail without finishing the job, if you finish it but omit some piece of the contract or if you just royally mess the job up, the surety bond company is called in. They will then decide whether to hire another contractor to finish the job or just cut a check to the client. This is heavy duty protection, and only surety bonds have it.

Do You Need A Surety Bond If You Have General Liability?

Many contractors confuse general liability insurance and surety bonds. Surety bonds protect the client, where general liability is more about protecting you. If you do not have a good representation of surety bonds in your portfolio, you are guaranteeing one thing; you are going to miss a significant amount of business. Why? Why would you lose business just because you did not have a surety bond? Curious? Read on.

Surety bonds are actually required by many larger companies when they solicit bids. Think about that. If a large company requires a surety bond when they are asking for bids, shouldn’t you make sure you have one so that you are ready when the time comes? Lots of contractors lose a job just because they are not ready when they are asked for a surety bond. What happens if you are asked for one and you don’t have it? While you are scrambling around trying to get your surety bond, your competition (with surety bond fresh in hand) gets the bid. This is not where you want to be. You want to make sure all your bases are covered.

Finding the right surety bond agent or broker is where it all starts. Once you have the right broker, everything else falls into place. You have the right insurance because you took the right steps to get it in place. Now make sure your surety bond is the right one.

Two Tips On Finding The Right Mix in Surety Bonds And Insurance

Surety bonds are old hat with contractors, but many do not know the difference between them and general liability insurance. The truth of the matter is that you need the right mix of both to have good coverage as a contractor. What kind of surety bond do you need? Janitorial? Contractor? High Risk? Finding the right surety bond broker is the first step, but you need to know the difference between what you are buying and insurance. What is the principle difference between general liability insurance and a surety bond? If you have always wondered, I have good news for you. I will explain.

Surety bonds, at their basic function, protect the client if you do not live up to the contractual agreement. At first blush these may seem to be the same, but there are critical differences. First, general liability insurance covers your liability if something goes wrong; a fire, breakage, wreck, etc… Surety bonds are aimed at the contract you signed and what you promised to do. If you do not do it, or if you do it badly, a surety bond company comes in and makes it right. This is the principle difference.

You should have a healthy mix of both on your portfolio. Having the right surety bond broker is going to know that mix, and be able to advise you as to what direction you should take.

Concerned That Your Bad Credit Will Keep You From A Surety Bond?

Surety bonds are something that every contractor needs. Bad credit can keep you from getting one, though. If you are one of the millions of contractors around the country who are struggling with bad credit for the first time, you know what we are talking about. The stress of needing a surety bond to be able to bid on a job and not having it has to cause loss of sleep and angst. What are you doing about it? IF you have not checked into high risk surety bonds for your business, you are losing money while you are reading this.

There are some great surety bond companies who are seeing the need for high risk surety bonds, and have made a nice, easy-to-use platform for getting yours. If you find the right company, you will be able to apply for your bond online, and not only that, you will be able to get your surety bond sent to you in your email. Never thought you would see that, huh? When you look out across the landscape of contractors and contractors bonds, this high risk surety bond angle could be a game changer. With this economy, all many contractors need is a second chance. High risk surety bonds and contractor bonds gives that to them. If that sounds like you and you are tired of fighting an uphill battle without a surety bond, this could be for you.

3 Tips On Selling Organic Skin Care Products In Your Spa

If you have a spa, you have heard about organic skin care products. Your desire to have the best skin care products on hand has led you to consider them, but you don’t know for sure if you should. Is it worth the trouble? How do you marketing them? Do they really work? Are people going to pony up for the extra cash? These are all great questions. Let’s go through them, and along the way look at three ways you can market these to your clients.

First, they work and are worth the money. Organic skin care products give you the ability to have smooth, soft skin, while not ingesting harmful, side-effect inducing artificial ingredients. What choice is there to make? Next let’s look at marketing.

The first tip for marketing organic skin care products is positioning. You position your spa as something different, as a cut above the rest. Clients of your spa are participating and a part of something special. Not everyone can buy here. This is the kind of positioning that organic skin care gives.

Second, bring familiarity with organic skin care by using them in your spa. If you use organic lotions in your spa, women will get used to them and buy them.

Third, sell the health. Women simply do not have the long term health problems with organic skin care products. Market them right, and organic skin care will set you apart.

Is Small Business Insurance a Fit For Your Business?

Many small business owners approach small business insurance the same way they might any other kind of expense. Is small business insurance the right kind of fit for my small business? The problem with this is that small business insurance is not like any other expense that a small business owner is going to face. Other expenses are usually fixed and offer a limited benefit. Small business insurance, however, offers a benefit that can be viewed as unlimited in a lot of ways.

No other kind of expense has the ability to keep you in business in tough times. Small business insurance can – if you get sued, you have few options. You need small business insurance when you get sued, because only small business insurance steps in and protects you from these kinds of threats. If you are sued, small business insurance is what protects you. If you don’t have it, you will sink your business. There is no way around it. You simply have no choice but to get small business insurance. It is paramount, even if you are an apartment building owner you still need apartment insurance. There are so many stories of small businesses going under because they did not have small business insurance, that is seems a little redundant to state it, but there are still companies out there trying to keep it going without small business insurance, so we still have to bang the drum.  If you are a small business without small business insurance, fix it today.

Two Critical Steps to Validating Your Marketing List

Marketing Lists are great, they create customers where there were none, and can improve an already great customer list. It can also waste your time and money, and maybe even sink your business. How much of a threat is a bad marketing list to your business? Just ask the hundreds of businesses a year that run afoul of the federal government, some of whom end up closing their doors. You simply must be able to trust your marketing list broker. There are many steps that you can take to better ensure that the marketing list you buy from your broker is valid, but here are two thoughts I want to leave you with today. First, research the track record. If there are complaints, they will be loud ones. Bad marketing lists are notorious for causing some really big problems. Companies who have been duped are not going to go quietly into that good night. You should have no trouble at all in finding out online if a marketing list broker is not ethical. Second, check the list itself. A good broker is not going to mind at all if you “test” his list, making a few calls to see what reaction you get. If you sample it right, you will get a good representation of the people on that list. If you call 50 people on a 5000 person list, and 25 of those say that they are on a no call list, run.

You Don’t Want To Wait To Think About Apartment Owners Insurance

When you first set up your apartment owners insurance, you hope that nothing ever happens. Not just because it will affect your premiums, but because anything that causes you to have a claim on your insurance when you own rental property is going to be something that affects people. No mentally healthy person wants anything bad to happen to another person, but bad things to happen. When bad times come, and when tragedy strikes, you don’t want that to be the time you are worried about your apartment owners insurance. You want to have the kind of insurance company and agent that you can depend on to take care of all the details. If someone gets hurt, or worse, the last thing you want to have to deal with is premiums, claims and paperwork. You can make sure that you never have to deal with the business part of apartment owners insurance, but you have to take the right steps. The first thing that you have to do is to find a good insurance agency. This is not always as easy as it sounds. Remember, you need both a good insurance agency and a good agent, because that is the only way you are going to be free of the business details when tough times come. The agent is your touch point in disaster, and having a good one is worth a lot of money.

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