Texas Business Insurance

What Texas business insurance covers

Texas business insurance is a set of separate policies, not one product. Each policy answers a different question about what a business owns, who it employs, and who it can injure.

Four contracts sit at the base of a small Texas business program:

• General liability pays when the business injures someone outside it or damages property belonging to someone else
• Commercial property pays for the building, stock, equipment, and fit-out the business owns or leases
• Workers compensation pays medical bills and part of lost wages for an employee hurt on the job
• Commercial auto covers a vehicle titled to the business, or any vehicle carrying goods or people for pay

A business owners policy, shortened to BOP, packages general liability and commercial property into one contract. Professional liability and umbrella coverage sit on top of that when a Texas client or a lease demands them.

Workers compensation, and what makes Texas different

Texas is the only state where workers compensation is elective for most private employers. Texas Labor Code §406.002 lets an employer elect coverage, apart from public employers and where other law requires it.

An employer who declines is a non-subscriber and picks up two duties:

• Texas Labor Code §406.004 requires written notice to the Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation
• Texas Labor Code §406.005 requires notice to each employee, at hire and on a workplace posting

Texas Labor Code §406.033(a) removes three defenses a non-subscriber could raise when an injured employee sues: contributory negligence, assumption of risk, and the negligence of a fellow employee. Liability is still not automatic, because §406.033(d) makes the employee prove the employer was negligent.

Aulona Insurance Group places the coverage for employers who elect it. The election belongs to the business and its own counsel.

What Aulona Insurance Group places for Texas businesses

Aulona Insurance Group places seven commercial lines for Texas businesses, statewide, through insurers the agency holds appointments with.

Lines available:

• Business owners policy
• General liability
• Commercial property
• Workers compensation
• Professional liability
• Umbrella and excess liability
• Commercial auto

Commercial auto is the one worth naming twice, because a vehicle titled to the business sits outside a personal auto policy. Aulona Insurance Group writes it on the same submission as the package.

Luka Cenaj, the agency’s licensed principal, goes through the operation on a recorded call before anything is quoted or bound.

The size band the small-business program accepts

Aulona Insurance Group’s small-business program has hard eligibility limits, and a business that clears them is a straightforward account to place.

Inside the band:

• Annual gross revenue under $5 million, and total W-2 payroll under $5 million
• Workers compensation runs through its own market and is not limited by the revenue and payroll figures above
• Loss history under $20,000, with no more than two incidents in the past three years
• No prior carrier cancellation and no bankruptcy filing

New businesses are accepted, with no minimum time in business. Multiple locations are fine, though each location needs a BOP of its own, and a business owners policy caps at $5 million of total insured value per location.

The Texas business classes that place most readily

Food and beverage is one of the classes Aulona Insurance Group writes, restaurants included.

Classes the agency writes:

• Food and beverage: restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, caterers
• Professional services: legal, accounting and finance, consulting, marketing and advertising, insurance agents, administrative support, architects and engineers
• Fitness and wellness: studios, sports instructors, health coaching
• Retail, pet services, education, personal care, technology services, real estate

Professional services accounts commonly add professional liability alongside the package.

Construction trades, auto service shops, bars, food trucks, day care, cleaning and janitorial, hospitality, durable-goods wholesalers and light manufacturing are all workable. Expect more underwriting questions on those, and expect liability and umbrella to be the better lines rather than the package.

Where Aulona Insurance Group is not the right fit

Aulona Insurance Group cannot place every Texas business, and an owner is better off hearing that before the call than after a week of paperwork. The size band two sections up rules out the rest; these classes are out whatever the numbers look like.

On the business owners policy, general liability, commercial property and professional liability lines, these classes have no market at the agency:

• Roofing and siding, which is a no-market problem rather than a pricing one
• Night clubs, gas stations, towing operators, and auto dealerships
• Hospitals and physician practices
• Marijuana and cannabis businesses
• Used-goods dealers and non-durable goods wholesalers
• Livestock operations and pet breeders

Life, health, Medicare, and disability coverage are not written at all.

What moves the price of a Texas business policy

The premium on a Texas commercial policy is set by the insurer, not by Aulona Insurance Group.

What the rating turns on:

• The class code, which is why a bakery and a welding shop price nothing alike
• Annual revenue on liability lines, and W-2 payroll on workers compensation
• Claim history, including the size of past losses and the number of them
• The limits and deductibles chosen, and any additional insured or waiver endorsements a contract forces
• The property values and the building itself: age, construction, sprinklers, roof, location

Aulona Insurance Group publishes no premium on this site and does not rank insurers by price. The number comes from the insurer that agrees to write the risk.

How a Texas business policy gets placed through Aulona Insurance Group

Aulona Insurance Group starts every commercial account with a conversation rather than a form, because a small-business risk rarely fits eight boxes.

Three steps:

1. Request a callback on this site, or call the agency directly, and leave a name, a number, and the type of business.
2. Take the call from Luka Cenaj and have the payroll, the vehicles, the leases, and any contract that names a limit to hand.
3. Let Aulona Insurance Group take the submission to the markets it holds appointments with.

No commercial policy is quoted or bound without that call. Owners who prefer Albanian can have the whole conversation in Albanian.

Texas business insurance by coverage and by class

Texas business insurance splits two ways on this site: by the coverage a business needs, and by the work the business does.

Where an owner goes next:

• Coverage pages set out general liability, workers compensation, and commercial auto in detail, including what each one refuses to pay for
• Class pages set out the operations that place most readily, from restaurants and contractors to salons and consultancies, and each one names the exposure that class carries

An owner who already knows the limit a contract requires should skip straight to the callback and bring the insurance clause to the call. The limit a contract names is the limit the placement has to meet, whatever the owner would otherwise have bought.