Cheap Business Insurance: Calculator, How to Manage Costs
Estimate your business insurance premiums, then shop around for the best coverage.
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Updated · 4 min read
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Every business will pay a different amount for insurance. Your costs depend on how risky your industry is, how many employees you have, where you operate and more.
To find the cheapest insurance, get business insurance quotes from several companies. You can also use an online agency or brokerage to get several quotes at once.
Read on to learn more about how much you can expect to pay for insurance and how to control your costs.
Save up to 30% on business insurance
NerdWallet Small Business helps you get real-time quotes from 30+ insurers, and instant access to your Certificate of Insurance (COI) through our partner, Coverdash.
Which companies have the cheapest business insurance?
To find the cheapest business insurance, I analyzed a proprietary dataset from online insurance agency Coverdash. The dataset included around 480 policies sold in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026.
Eight insurance companies underwrote the general liability insurance policies in this dataset. From cheapest to most expensive, here are those companies and their median annual general liability insurance premiums. These are for businesses with less than $1 million in annual revenue:
| Insurance company | Median general liability insurance premium |
|---|---|
| Coalition* | $333 |
| Travelers* | $333 |
| Hiscox | $376 |
| The Hartford | $382 |
| Coterie | $422 |
| Employers | $1,034 |
| Markel | $1,102 |
| Progressive Commercial | $1,198 |
| *Small sample size. We only have three policies each for Coalition and Travelers for businesses with under $1 million in annual revenue. | |
Eight insurance companies underwrote the workers’ compensation policies in this dataset. From cheapest to most expensive, here are those companies and their median annual general liability insurance premiums. These are for businesses with less than $1 million in revenue:
| Insurance company | Median workers' comp insurance premium |
|---|---|
| Coterie* | $365 |
| Coalition | $540 |
| Hiscox | $1,150 |
| Employers | $1,350 |
| The Hartford | $2,350 |
| Progressive Commercial* | $3,100 |
| Markel | $3,400 |
| Travelers | $3,720 |
| *Small sample size. We only have two policies from Coterie and three from Progressive Commercial for businesses with under $1 million in annual revenue. | |
Important caveat: This dataset doesn’t necessarily compare apples to apples. For example, Employers tends to underwrite policies for larger companies in higher-risk industries, like manufacturing and construction. Those businesses usually have higher premiums.
Choose your industry to see NerdWallet's recommendations for your business
Estimate your business insurance costs
Use this tool to get a sense of how much you might pay for business insurance, based on data from other businesses.
Can you skip business insurance?
We never recommend going totally uninsured. Every business should have general liability insurance or a BOP if you have an office or storefront, plus workers’ comp if it’s required. Laws or contracts may require you to have coverage.
But you can carefully evaluate your business’s risks as you think about what other policies to buy or skip.
Say you operate a landscaping business and transport your equipment in the back of a van. Your commercial auto insurance doesn’t cover the tools in your van — you’d need inland marine insurance for that. But you figure it’s unlikely the tools will be stolen or damaged when you’re working in someone’s front yard and the van is parked in the driveway.
This is a calculated risk. The insurance industry actually has a name for it — “self-insurance.” It means you’re acting as your own insurance company. You’ll have to use your cash instead of filing a claim in case of a disaster or lawsuit. Self-insuring may reduce your monthly bills, but it could mean covering bills out of your own pocket later.
How to buy cheaper business insurance
Follow these steps to save a little more while you’re buying business insurance.
1. Bundle your policies
Most businesses need several types of business insurance. You may be able to get cheaper business insurance by purchasing multiple policies at once.
One way to do this is to buy a business owner’s policy, or BOP. This package usually includes general liability, business property and business interruption insurance, plus endorsements for things like data breach insurance. This bundle will probably be cheaper than buying each type of insurance on its own.
Beyond that, some insurance companies offer discounts when you buy multiple policies. For example, as of this writing, Next Insurance gives customers 10% off, and Hiscox offers up to 5% off for buying multiple policies.
🤓 Nerdy Tip
Insurance is a tax-deductible business expense. Write your premiums off so you can reduce how much you owe each quarter or year. 2. Shop around
Most business insurance policies for most small companies are written on the same forms. That means three different insurers might offer exactly the same coverage for a basic general liability policy.
At the same time, every insurance company uses a different formula to calculate premiums. So every quote you get will probably be a little bit different.
For that reason, we always recommend getting multiple quotes from different companies. This lets you choose a cheaper version of the same coverage.
Online insurance marketplaces, like Simply Business or Coverdash, can generate business insurance quotes from multiple providers at the same time. This lets you easily compare costs.
Once you have quotes in hand, compare what they cover and how much they cost. Make sure to note any exclusions — what the policy doesn’t cover. If a less expensive policy excludes something important to your business, talk to the insurance company about adding it in or focus on other options.
3. Edit your policies
The less coverage your business insurance policies offer, the less expensive they’re likely to be. You can adjust how much protection your policies offer in a few ways, including:
- Setting a higher deductible. This means you’ll have to spend more of your business’s money to cover expenses before insurance kicks in.
- Lowering your policy’s limit. This means your insurance policy may not cover large claims in full.
- Changing how your property is valued. Business property insurance allows you to choose “actual cash value” or “replacement cost coverage.” In general, actual cash value is cheaper than replacement cost coverage, since property is worth less when you account for depreciation.
One of the simplest ways to reduce your insurance bill is to pay premiums upfront each year rather than making monthly payments. Not all insurance companies offer discounts for this, but some knock down the price by a couple percentage points.Others do the reverse — charge a small transaction fee if you choose to pay monthly instead of once or twice a year. Thimble, for instance, charges an “installment fee” in some states. Be on the lookout for those fees and avoid them if you can.
In the news: Business insurance cost increases are slowing down (with one exception)
Business insurance costs are rising more slowly than they have since 2017, according to the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers.
Premiums increased by just 0.2% in Q4 2025. Some types of insurance even showed premiums decreasing — including commercial property insurance, workers’ comp and cyber insurance.
Commercial auto insurance is still getting more expensive, though. Costs have risen every quarter for more than 14 years.
How to manage your business insurance costs
Lots of the factors that determine the cost of business insurance, like the size of your team and value of your property, are fixed. But one important factor is at least partly within your control: your claims history.
By limiting risks in your workplace, you can help reduce the frequency and severity of accidents and mistakes. Things you can do include:
- Making sure employees are well trained on working with dangerous equipment or materials, or performing complex tasks.
- Investing in software or tools that help protect sensitive customer data against hacks.
- Creating procedures for dealing with issues that could lead to accidents or errors.
- Keeping your property well maintained to reduce the risk of accidents like leaks and electrical fires.
Some insurance companies provide customers with risk management materials to help with this. Travelers, for instance, offers training in ergonomics, industrial hygiene, property protection and more, plus a library of several hundred safety videos.
Beyond that, we recommend shopping around periodically to see if you can get a better deal on insurance. That’s because every insurance company reevaluates its risks on an ongoing basis. Sometimes, they decide to lower prices for a certain industry or raise them for a certain state. Getting fresh quotes every year can help you find cheaper options.
Save up to 30% on business insurance
NerdWallet Small Business helps you get real-time quotes from 30+ insurers, and instant access to your Certificate of Insurance (COI) through our partner, Coverdash.
Article sources
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- 1. The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers . News Release: Q4 2025 Showed Very Soft Market Conditions, According to The Council’s P&C Market Survey. Accessed May 8, 2026.
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