There is a general misconception that buying business / commercial insurance is the same quick process as personal insurance often is. There are definite differences between how your car insurance and your business insurance would be written through an insurance agency such as Balcos Insurance.

Personal insurance is often much more straightforward. Personal insurance agents are licensed to write the insurance policies themselves from a set of fairly standardized choices (dependent on each company). After examining the best available insurance companies' for your needs, and ensuring you have the right limits and discounts in place, your personal insurance agent would generally be able to quote you and have you sign a policy all in one sitting.

Commercial insurance differs from personal insurance in that the agents are licensed to quote insurance, but cannot write your policy without approval from the individual insurance companies' underwriters. As your insurance agent, this is where a lot of work comes into play.

Every insurance company whose policies we offer tends to be quite different from the next:

• Some companies use application forms online, some use paper applications. 

• Each insurance company has different standards for what types of businesses they like to write insurance for. For instance, some love to write insurance for bars, while others won't touch restaurant or bar insurance with a 10 foot pole.

• Even if each company offered an insurance program for Auto Repair Shops, it would be likely that every company would have different policy limits (Coverage available for the structure, liability, autos driven, personal property (anything that would shake out of the building if you turned it upside down), and other types of coverage). Depending on the company, how much they'll cover in the first place, and how much they'll pay out in claims will be very different.

• Response / processing time for each company can be vastly different, depending on the type of business insurance policy it is and the complexity of the business. Businesses with many "moving parts" or those that involve many people, such as restaurants or shopping centers, tend to take longer.

We are happy to and able to write almost any kind of business insurance to make sure you and your business have the protection you need, whether it's something simple, like a home-based gardening business, or more complex, like a multiple location restaurant with catering and delivery.

Without all the information we need, this process tends to take longer, but as a general guideline, with all the necessary information in-hand, our timeline for writing insurance policies is:

• Simple business insurance policies (like apartment buildings, typical auto service businesses, restaurants without alcohol or entertainment, or a general building owner) can often be quoted and written within a day or less.
• On average, most of our business insurance quotes are written within 2-3 days.
• For more complex businesses where the agent will have to send out multiple applications for business insurance quotes, it can take a week or so to get the quotes in and write the policy.

The process is not instant, and we will need you to help us by providing information such as your business license, number of employees, square footage, annual sales, your experience in the field, building information, etc. But with a few questions answered and little time, we can find the best insurance policy and premium available to you.

For a business insurance quote, call or visit www.balcosinsurance.com.