We also offer the following business insurance coverage for investment companies:
GENERAL LIABILITY
Liability insurance covers injuries that you cause to third parties. If someone sues you for personal injuries or property damage, the cost of defending and resolving the suit would be covered by your liability insurance policy. A general liability policy will cover you for common risks, including customer injuries on your premises.
PROPERTY INSURANCE
Property insurance pays for losses and damages to real or personal property. For example, a property insurance policy would cover fire damage to your office space. The policy may also cover loss of income or increase in expenses that results from the property damage.
CRIME INSURANCE
Crime insurance covers property crimes such as theft, burglary, and robbery of money, securities, stock, and fixtures from employees and outsiders.
AUTO INSURANCE
Commercial automobile policies cover the cars, vans, trucks and trailers used in your business. The coverage will reimburse you if your vehicles are damaged or stolen or if the driver injures a person or property.
WORKERS COMPENSATION
Workers’ compensation insurance covers you for an employee’s on-the-job injuries. Businesses with employees are required by various state laws to carry some type of workers’ compensation insurance. In most cases, workers’ compensation laws prohibit the employee from bringing a negligence lawsuit against an employer for work-related injuries.
CYBER SECURITY INSURANCE
Cyber insurance covers both first-party costs and third-party liabilities are covered: First-party coverage applies to direct costs for responding to a privacy breach or security failure, and third-party coverage applies when people sue or make claims against you, or regulators demand information from you. More Information
DIRECTORS & OFFICERS LIABILITY
The decisions made by the boards of privately owned companies are not immune from public scrutiny. As leaders of the company, your directors and officers can be held personally liable for their management decisions. Shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, and even the government can sue a privately owned company and its board. Privately held companies are susceptible to the same types of liability as their public company counterparts. Potential exposures exist relating to strategic planning, decision making and managing day-to-day operations. Potential liability scenarios may involve the sale of the company or a subsidiary, reorganization, signs of financial weakness, or conflict of interest.
EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES LIABILITY
Managing employment relationships is more challenging than ever. The number of employment discrimination complaints dramatically increased in the 1990s. Even though that number has since stabilized, the national jury-award median for EPL cases has steadily risen. The EEOC resolved 347 lawsuits in 2004 fiscal year ending September 30 resulting in total monetary relief of $168,000,000, or approximately $484,000 per lawsuit. This figure exceeded any previous single year recovery.
FIDUCIARY LIABILITY
In today’s ever-shifting legal environment, employers are increasingly being held accountable for the benefits options they offer employees. Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), fiduciaries can be held personally liable for losses to a benefit plan incurred as a result of their alleged errors or omissions or breach of their fiduciary duties. By sponsoring a retirement plan, such as a defined contribution plan or 401(k), profit-sharing plan or employee stock option plan (ESOP), defined benefit plan, or welfare plans such as health or accident plans, a private company may need protection against errors in plan administration and breaches of duty under ERISA.
LICENSE BONDS
State registered investment advisor firms will likely be subject to a net worth/net capital and/or bonding requirement. Normally, the level of net worth, net capital or amount of bond is based on the practice of the investment advisor firm.
A common approach many states have adopted is to require registered investment advisor firms with custody of client funds and/or securities to maintain a net worth in the amount of $35,000. Investment advisor firms maintaining discretionary authority, but not custody, over client funds and/or securities must maintain a net worth in the amount of $10,000.
ERISA/FIDELITY BONDS
ERISA Bond
An ERISA bond for an investment advisor is a specially underwritten bond that is required of all ERISA fiduciaries. Section 412 under ERISA states every fiduciary of an employee benefit plan and every person who handles funds or other property of such a plan shall be ?bonded? against fraud or dishonesty. Investment advisors who control plan assets and make investment decisions for ERISA Plans are required to maintain an investment advisors ERISA bond.
Investment Advisors are required to have this bond with limits of a percentage of assets under management, up to a maximum of $500,000 for each qualifying plan. Under the The Pension Protection Act of 2006 bonding limits were increased to $1,000,000.
Bonds can be written on an individual basis, where each plan is identified, or written as a blanket bond covering all plans.
Fidelity Bond
A fidelity bond indemnifies the employer for loss of money or other property sustained through dishonest acts of bonded personnel. The scope of acts insured against includes larceny, theft, embezzlement, forgery, misappropriation, wrongful abstraction, willful misapplication or other fraudulent or dishonest acts committed by the employee, whether acting alone or in collusion with others.
An investment advisor fidelity bond (aka Form 14 Fidelity Bond) offers a variety of different bond coverage depending upon the insuring agreements that you choose.
