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Crime Insurance

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We offer flexible payment plans to fit any budget needs.

We offer flexible payment plans to fit any budget needs.

We've helped over 60,000 employers buy more affordable insurance coverage.

We've helped over 60,000 employers buy more affordable insurance coverage.

We shop your coverage with up to 35 national carriers.

We shop your coverage with up to 35 national carriers.

We shop your commercial insurance to save you time and money.

What is Crime Insurance?

Commercial crime insurance, sometimes known as fidelity and crime insurance or employee dishonesty insurance, protects your business from crime-related losses not typically covered by commercial property or other lines of insurance. Mostly known to cover types of employee dishonesty, crime insurance covers forgery, money and securities theft, burglary or robbery and computer fraud. Crime insurance can reimburse you for theft of cash and checks, which is not commonly covered by business property insurance. Commercial crime coverage typically contains the following seven insuring agreements:

  1. Employee Theft
  2. Forgery or Alteration
  3. Inside the Premises—Theft of Money and Securities
  4. Inside the Premises—Robbery or Safe Burglary of Other Property
  5. Outside the Premises
  6. Computer Fraud
  7. Money Orders and Counterfeit Paper Currency

Crime insurance policies are usually very customizable, with options for every type of business and their crime risks. Three common endorsements to a commercial crime insurance policy are as follows:

  1. Theft or dishonest acts. Covers you for theft of money or property and dishonest acts committed by your employees.
  2. Premises theft and robbery outside the business premises. Covers losses resulting from incidents occurring during business hours both inside business premises and while employees are doing work-related activities outside the premises (such as making bank deposits).
  3. Theft of money and securities. Protects your business against theft, disappearance or destruction of your money both on and off business premises.

Crime insurance can cover much more than just the basic theft and robbery scenarios. Kidnap, ransom and extortion coverages can be endorsed for companies with those specific risks, for example.

Due to the exponential increase in technology used in business today, computer fraud is a growing concern for any size business. Crime insurance can cover some monetary losses from cyber-crimes, however to ensure your business is prepared to manage risks such as data breaches, cyber security insurance is recommended.

Crime insurance is typically packaged, or bundled, with general liability policies, BOPs, or CPPs. Depending on your industry you may have some typical increased risks. For example, a bar is considered to have a high risk of customer-employee and customer-customer assault claims. A bar BOP may already include this coverage as well as other crimes related to the bar and liquor sales industry. This is why it is extremely important to work with an agent who understands your industry and its risks. The Insurance Shop prides itself on its customer service. We have an expert for every industry who will guide you through identifying risks and choosing coverage that makes sense, whether it be a monoline (single line of insurance) or a multiline package to cover your whole business.

Five things you should know about crime insurance:

  1. Most corporate theft is perpetuated by employees.
  2. Commercial crime insurance is not included in most commercial property or general liability policies.
  3. Not all crimes will be covered.
  4. Some cyber-crimes are covered.
  5. Employees have to act for financial gain.
Find your lowest business insurance rates.

Find your lowest
crime rates

We take the time to make sure your business and employees are classified correctly and then we get to work finding the lowest rates available for your insurance coverage.

  • National crime specialists.
  • Licensed throughout the United States.
  • Programs for standard and tough class codes.
Compare quotes from over 35 carriers.

Compare quotes
from over 35 carriers

Once we've got your best quotes back from our carriers, we take the time to help you understand your options and take the next steps to get you covered quickly.

  • Easy billing and installment plans.
  • Pay As You Go insurance coverage options.
  • We continue to follow up after binding; our service to you never ends.

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Crime Insurance
We shop your commercial insurance to save you time and money.

Why Do I Need Crime Insurance?

According to The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Inc. (ACFE), employee fraud accounts for nearly five percent of revenue loss each year. Even the best internal controls, background checks and audit practices can’t always prevent or stop an employee from engaging in fraudulent activity. In fact, according to a 2016 ACFE report, most occupational fraudsters are first-time offenders with clean employment histories. The average loss caused by employee dishonesty is $150,000, with one in every five cases reporting a loss of at least $1 million.

Almost every business owner needs to be concerned about employee dishonesty and theft, both on company premises as well as at customer’s locations. Businesses that manage money or securities on the behalf of customers are at higher risk of employee dishonesty, however. Crime insurance can also cover non-employee theft, for instance if your business is located in a high-crime area, a premises theft and robbery outside the business premises endorsement may be added. Working with a qualified professional, such as those at The Insurance Shop, will guarantee your industry and geographic crime risks will be covered between your general liability (or BOP/CPP) and supplemental crime insurance policies.

What Does Crime Insurance Cost?

Costs for crime insurance depend on how the policies are written (bundled or stand-alone), how many endorsements, or options, are included, as well as industry and business size. To evaluate risks and provide rates for crime insurance, underwriters will take many factors into consideration, including:

  • Current assets of business.
  • Gross sales/income.
  • Type of business and its primary activity.
  • Total number of locations/premises for the business.
  • Total number of employees.
  • Percentage of employees with access to records of money, securities or other property.
  • Procedures and policies the business has in place to prevent employee-related crime.
  • Procedures and policies regarding vendor and inventory controls.

What are Common Crime Claims?

According to the FBI crime report there were almost eight million property crime offenses in 2016 in the United States. Larceny-theft accounted for over 70 percent of property crimes, burglary accounted for nearly 20 percent and motor vehicle theft for almost 10 percent. Losses were estimated at over $15.5 billion in 2016. Over 700,000 businesses reported burglaries in 2016.

In the most recent market report written by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., the most frequent business crime claims involve some type of employee scheme. These schemes usually involve bogus vendors and/or invoices. The employee will invent, or collude with, a vendor, then invent invoices for this vendor from which he/she then pockets the payments. This scenario is also used commonly to take advantage of foreign operations.

When it comes to fraud, The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Inc. (ACFE), reports an average loss of $2.7 million per case in 2016. Asset misappropriation is by far the most common form of occupational fraud, or fraud committed in the workplace, occurring in more than 83 percent of cases. Other common claims with high loss statistics stem from financial statement fraud and corruption.

How Can I Reduce my Risk?

Reducing risk of employee theft and other crimes covered by crime insurance is a matter of identifying exposures and creating procedures and policies to prevent and stop employee crime. Working with knowledgeable and expert specialists in crime insurance will help you identify all areas of crime risk in your organization. After which, there are a number of steps you can take to help prevent and stop both employee-related and third-party crimes.

According to The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Inc. (ACFE), tips were the number one fraud detection method in 2016. Depending on your amount of risk, setting up procedures and safe ways employees can submit tips will increase reporting and help stop crimes in progress. To even further this rate of reporting, some companies set up tip hotlines for the express purpose of providing a safe and anonymous place for employee reporting (email and website reporting methods are also great methods). This is a type of active detention, which, when used, has proven to shorten the length of fraud schemes by up to half. ACFE reports that the average fraud scheme lasted about 18 months in 2016.

Crimes against businesses are usually crimes of opportunity. Reducing those opportunities and establishing some checks and balances between departments will be critical to risk management in this area.

Some ways you can actively prevent fraud against your business include:

  • Establishing procedures and policies that outline guidelines for employee theft, employee substance abuse, crime reporting, opening and closing the business and other security procedures.
  • Establishing rigorous hiring and vendor relationship practices, including background checks and Better Business Bureau (BBB) checks.
  • Establishing policies for all other exposures for employee theft, such as for inventory, office supplies and computers.
  • Establishing security, both physically such as in using alarms and safes, and through policy such as in limiting access to vulnerable information.

To get more security and prevention tips for non-employee-related crimes, contact your local law enforcement agency. The police are often more than willing to help assess crime vulnerability as this helps them do their job and prevents unnecessary allocation of their resources for preventable crimes.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is excluded in crime insurance?
  2. Typically excluded in all crime insurance policies are dishonest acts committed by business owners, directors and officers of a board or business partners. Many policies also exclude accounting errors and certain types of legal fraud. It is important to understand what your policy includes and excludes. The Insurance Shop will always make sure you understand your coverage.

  3. Are small businesses (500 employees or less) victimized as much as larger companies?
  4. Small businesses are, in fact, more often victimized than larger businesses. Smaller businesses tend to have less security and/or policies and procedures in place to help detect and prevent employee-related crimes. All business that deal with cash, checks, online payment systems and credit cards are vulnerable to crime and must insure themselves.

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Whether you are looking for the best coverage or to save more money over your current policy, our fast and friendly service staff is always here to help. As we work with numerous carriers across the United States we can offer more products at the best competitive rates. We at The Insurance Shop don't stop there, we also have a highly trained and experienced customer service team who guide and support you both before and after you've obtained your coverage.

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