Startups

The Business Insurance Renewal Checklist (for Startups)

Business insurance renewals are usually uncharted territory for a young startup.  Typically, venture-backed startups experience significantly more change/growth year over year compared to your standard new business venture.  It’s important to understand how this affects your startup’s insurance coverage and how to ensure you’re properly protected.  Here’s the “checklist” of items to be aware of as your policies renew.

The 2013 Target Data Breach: Insurance Coverage Recap

Retail Giant Target was hit with a massive data breach incident during the holiday season of 2013.  We posted a few articles outlining the severity of the breach and speculating on how cyber insurance may be their lifeline.  Here’s a quick follow up on the claims the company has seen since the incident. VentureBeat recently reported

Startup Risk Tips: Don’t Let Your Business Insurance Lapse

Sometimes things don’t go quite as planned and your company ends up a bit more cash strapped than anticipated at year end.  The typical gut reaction is to pull the rip chord and cut any and all “extraneous” expenses.  Insurance is considered by some to be one of those expenses.  Here’s why you shouldn’t be quick to

Year in Review: 2014 Cyber Attacks (What Startups Should Know)

2014 Cyber Attacks Reviewed For the last four years, cyber risk management firm Net Diligence has done a report on cyber insurance claims for the year…and 2014 has been a hell of a year for cyber attacks.  This year’s report has been published and has some very interesting findings pertaining to the startup community.  

Meet Priori Legal: Connecting Startups to Trusted Lawyers

  We’re all about teaming up with great startups on a mission to help the startup community excel.  Priori Legal is one of those awesome companies.  This guest post will introduce the company and shed a little light on the kind of advice they’ll be sharing on our blog.  

Intellectual Property Insurance — What Startups Need to Know

2 Sneaky Ways Business Insurance Adds Value for Startups

Office-Sharing Can Save Startups. Here’s How.

  By now we are all acclimated to the sharing economy model. We share our cars, our homes and our dog sitters. Sharing your office may not be the first thing that comes to mind as the next sharing economy service, but it should be, especially if you’re a startup. It might even save your

The “Dos” &”Don’ts” of Buying Startup Company Insurance

Buying startup company insurance can be a daunting task.  The insurance market is fragmented and there is no shortage of products out there.  The industry is not exactly tech savvy either, and many brokers still employ tools as archaic as fax machines in their practices.  Just finding where to start can be a hassle! When

Startup CEOs & Cyber Security: Track your Tech!

Why startup CEOs should care about cyber security The data breach that Target suffered around Thanksgiving last year has finally worked its way up to the top of the organizational totem pole.  A couple of weeks ago, Target’s CEO Gregg Steinhafel lost his job a result of the cyber security shortcomings or liabilities that cost the company

Startup Internships: What Founders Need to Know

**This is a guest post by Scott Smedresman of Sorin Rand.**

How a Startup Insurance Policy is Born

At Founder Shield, we pride ourselves on getting our clients in front of underwriters immediately.  But as we present our clients to underwriters for quoting, we get a lot of questions about what’s going on under the hood.  To clear the air, here’s a quick and basic overview of the process and to tools that

EPLI Risk Exposure Checklist for Startups

  Last week we posted about the importance of Employment Practices Liability Insurance (“EPLI”) for rapidly growing startup companies.  If you read that post, it should be pretty clear why there’s so much risk exposure related to employment practices.  I wanted to follow up that post with a quick EPLI risk exposure checklist for startups.  Here’s

Does EPLI Insurance Matter for Startups?

  We place a lot of D&O coverage for our clients because it can be vital to startups for several reasons.  D&O Insurance is only one piece of the overall Management Liability puzzle.  The other big piece is Employment Practices Liability Insurance (“EPLI”).  This post will answer two important questions: what is EPLI insurance, and

Why Startups Should Care About the New US Cybersecurity Framework

  With potentially 70 million effected by the recent Target data breach, the US government thinks it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room for the tech world: Cybersecurity protocol.

What Startups Need to Know About Business Interruption Insurance

What is it? At a very high level, business interruption insurance (“BII”) protects the insured when business operations are interrupted (no, really?!).  Typically this coverage is paired with others, including General Liability and Cyber Liability.

One Trade Agreement Startups Should Know About

  Venturebeat originally posted about this earlier this week and we thought it was an important one to be aware of. Unbeknownst to most, a new trade agreement between the Trans Pacific Parternship (the “TPP”) has been in development for almost a year now.  The TPP consists of the United States, Mexico and a handful

Startups: Don’t Overlook Key Man Insurance

  We usually talk about key man insurance with our clients in the wake of a freshly closed round of institutional funding.  Investors typically make their portfolio companies get key man insurance to protect their own cash.  They realize that at most startups, the team is the company.  It takes a truly phenomenal team to guide

Snapchat: Proof that Startups Need D&O Insurance

  One of the major products we provide for our clients is Directors and Officers Insurance.  Admittedly 90% of our D&O clients sought us out because their investors required them to get coverage.  Don’t be mistaken, though…startups need D&O insurance regardless of the investor situation.

Startup Cyber Risk Checklist

Cyber liability is a huge area of exposure for most startups.  Even if you’re not a “tech” startup per se, most tech companies today tend to leverage 3rd party tech products in ways that can leave them exposed.

Insurance for Startups: Cost or Investment?

The Affordable Care Act and Startups

With the recent launch of fresh government programs under the Affordable Care Act, the landscape is changing massively in the health insurance space.  We can’t help but think about what effects the new healthcare laws will have on startups.