ACE Commercial Risk Launches Small Business Vacancy Protection

December 3, 2014

ACE Commercial Risk Services has launched new Vacant Building and Vacant Land insurance products for select small businesses to address the potential risks harbored within unoccupied properties. The products include an online underwriting platform for five-minute quoting and binding.

The launch is in response to U.S. Census Bureau statistics showing more than 10 million vacant commercial and residential properties nationwide, and fluctuating vacancy rates in certain regions of the country as thousands of residents have migrated from major metropolitan areas in the Northeast and Midwest over the past several years.

The insurer says that commercial vacancies pose a host of potential financial, legal, and safety risk exposures that many owners in the small business marketplace (businesses with 20 or fewer employees) are unaware of, or unable to mitigate, due to existing insurance policy limitations.

Insurance coverage for vacant property is typically excluded from traditional business owner policies, and many owners wrongly assume their existing policies will provide coverage should a property become vacant, the company stated.

The Vacant Building and Vacant Land insurance products include specific options for small business owners that ACE says were previously unavailable to this segment. Specifically, policyholders have the ability to consider Replacement Cost and Special Cause of Loss for qualified properties and obtain coverage for both vacant and certain partially vacant commercial and residential properties, condo units and rental space, with or without renovation work.

Beyond the valuable coverage options for vacant buildings and land, ACE Commercial Risk Services gives insurance brokers access to an intuitive and easy-to-use online underwriting platform to quickly quote, bind, and issue specific coverages in as little as five minutes, a feature unique in the industry.

Key features and limits available in the ACE Commercial Risk Services Vacant Building and Vacant Land products include:

Vacant Building:

  • Up to $5,000,000 in total Property values, and General Liability limits of up to $1,000,000 per occurrence, and up to $3,000,000 in the aggregate
  • Ability to consider Special Form Cause of Loss and Replacement Cost coverage
  • No length of vacancy restrictions
  • Ability to consider locations undergoing renovation
  • Shorter policy terms of three, six or nine months also available

Vacant Land:

  • General Liability limits of up to $1,000,000 per occurrence, and up to $3,000,000 in the aggregate
  • No length of vacancy restrictions
  • Shorter policy terms of three, six or nine months also available
  • Ability to consider an exposure of two lakes or ponds on premises

Topics Commercial Lines Business Insurance New Markets

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