Customer Goods Liability Insurance for Self-Storage Businesses

When you run a self-storage center, you deal a lot with the property and belongings of your tenants. Still, the thing is, you usually don’t actually lay hands on customer property. They stock the sheds and maintain them, for the most part. You might not even know what some of your tenants have in all of those boxes. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a degree of responsibility for these items, in certain cases. That’s why you likely need a type of insurance called customer goods liability insurance. Here’s a little more information on the ins and outs of this policy.

Understanding Liability Insurance

Every business needs liability insurance in some shape or form.

Liability insurance applies to third-party harm the business’s negligence causes to others. In other words, if you make a mistake that harms someone else, then you might have to pay them for it. Liability coverage is helpful because it helps the policyholder pay for someone else’s damage using the policy’s funds, rather than paying out-of-pocket.

This is especially beneficial for business owners. The harm you cause to a customer might result in personal costs to them. And, they might blame you for these losses. They might even decide to sue you. Various liability policies can apply to help you cover the costs that might challenge at this time.

The Specifics of Customer Goods Liability Insurance

In self-storage businesses, when your liability insurance will and will not help you might seem a bit confusing. That’s particularly true if a customer accuses you of damaging their property stored in your storage units. Sometimes, you have no responsibility for the damage. In other cases, however, you will.

If you do have to compensate someone else for the damage you cause them, that’s when customer goods liability insurance might be able to help you out. So, let’s say that one day, a fire breaks out, damaging your storage units and the contents inside. The investigation subsequently reveals that the fire started in frayed electrical wiring that you failed to repair.

In this case, you failed to fix the source of the fire. Had you done so, the fire might never have occurred. Therefore, you actually might be responsible for damage to the clients’ belongings. This is when you might need to turn to your customer goods liability insurance for assistance.

All the same, not all fires will mean you are liable for someone’s losses. If lightning strikes the business, igniting the structure, then you might have no responsibility for customer losses. Therefore, you might have to pay nothing on their behalf.

Still, you need to maintain strong liability insurance. Even if you have no fault in the mistake, a lawsuit might arise. Liability coverage might help you cover the resulting legal costs.