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Business insurance policies for NerdWallet shoppers
Here are some recent business insurance policies secured by NerdWallet shoppers through our partner Coverdash
$20.83/mo
This Painting Contractor business in Ohio secured a General Liability policy from Chubb
$22.92/mo
This Travel Agency business in Florida secured a Professional Liability policy from The Hartford
$28.42/mo
This Event Planning Services business in Arkansas secured a Business Owner's Policy policy from The Hartford
$43.58/mo
This Graphic Design Services business in Delaware secured a Cyber policy from Coalition
$37.33/mo
This Massage Parlor business in Utah secured a Workers' Compensation policy from AmTrust
$23.14/mo
This Retail business in Oregon secured a General Liability policy from Chubb
$20.83/mo
This Painting Contractor business in Ohio secured a General Liability policy from Chubb
$22.92/mo
This Travel Agency business in Florida secured a Professional Liability policy from The Hartford
$28.42/mo
This Event Planning Services business in Arkansas secured a Business Owner's Policy policy from The Hartford
$43.58/mo
This Graphic Design Services business in Delaware secured a Cyber policy from Coalition
$37.33/mo
This Massage Parlor business in Utah secured a Workers' Compensation policy from AmTrust
$23.14/mo
This Retail business in Oregon secured a General Liability policy from Chubb
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How we choose the best insurance companies for home-based businesses
What is home-based business insurance?
Does homeowners or renters insurance cover businesses?
What kind of insurance do home-based businesses need?
How much does home-based business insurance cost?
How to get insurance for your home-based business
Home-Based Business Insurance: What You Need, How to Get It
Updated May 26, 2026
Expert verified
+ 1 more
Your homeowners or renters insurance policy may include up to $2,500 in coverage for business equipment, according to the Insurance Information Institute. But it can’t protect you against lawsuits related to your work. You’ll need dedicated business insurance policies for that.
Read on for our choices for insuring your home-based business. We always recommend getting multiple quotes to find the best coverage at the best price.
The Hartford
Best for Overall home-based business insurer
Pros
- Fewer complaints than expected filed with state regulators about both liability and property insurance.
- You can add data breach, professional liability and business income for off-premises utility service coverage to The Hartford's business owner's policy.
- You can add an additional insured and request a certificate of insurance online.
Cons
- No coverage available in Alaska or Hawaii.
- Not all businesses can get a quote online.
The Hartford is a century-old, trusted insurance company with high financial strength ratings and relatively few customer complaints. The company sells general liability insurance with the option to add professional liability and property coverage for home-based businesses. The Hartford also offers one of our picks for the best business owner’s policies. Most businesses can get a quote online, but you might have to make a phone call to complete the purchase.
- Business owner's policies.
- General liability insurance.
- Professional liability insurance.
- Workers’ compensation insurance.
- Commercial property insurance.
- Business income insurance.
- Data breach insurance.
- Commercial umbrella insurance.
- Commercial auto insurance.
- Employment practices liability insurance.
- Liquor liability insurance.
The Hartford is a century-old, trusted insurance company with high financial strength ratings and relatively few customer complaints. The company sells general liability insurance with the option to add professional liability and property coverage for home-based businesses. The Hartford also offers one of our picks for the best business owner’s policies. Most businesses can get a quote online, but you might have to make a phone call to complete the purchase.
- Business owner's policies.
- General liability insurance.
- Professional liability insurance.
- Workers’ compensation insurance.
- Commercial property insurance.
- Business income insurance.
- Data breach insurance.
- Commercial umbrella insurance.
- Commercial auto insurance.
- Employment practices liability insurance.
- Liquor liability insurance.
The Hartford is a century-old, trusted insurance company with high financial strength ratings and relatively few customer complaints. The company sells general liability insurance with the option to add professional liability and property coverage for home-based businesses. The Hartford also offers one of our picks for the best business owner’s policies. Most businesses can get a quote online, but you might have to make a phone call to complete the purchase.
Ergo Next
Best for Getting coverage online
Ergo Next makes it fast to get general and professional liability insurance. You can get a price estimate and buy your policy online in just a few minutes. Once you’re covered, you can create and share unlimited copies of your certificate of insurance from the Ergo Next website.
- General liability insurance.
- BOP.
- Commercial property insurance.
- Professional liability insurance.
- Commercial auto insurance.
- Tools and equipment insurance.
- Commercial property insurance.
- Umbrella insurance.
- Workers’ comp.
- Cyber insurance.
- Liquor liability insurance.
- Product liability insurance.
- Contractor license bonds.
Ergo Next makes it fast to get general and professional liability insurance. You can get a price estimate and buy your policy online in just a few minutes. Once you’re covered, you can create and share unlimited copies of your certificate of insurance from the Ergo Next website.
- General liability insurance.
- BOP.
- Commercial property insurance.
- Professional liability insurance.
- Commercial auto insurance.
- Tools and equipment insurance.
- Commercial property insurance.
- Umbrella insurance.
- Workers’ comp.
- Cyber insurance.
- Liquor liability insurance.
- Product liability insurance.
- Contractor license bonds.
Ergo Next makes it fast to get general and professional liability insurance. You can get a price estimate and buy your policy online in just a few minutes. Once you’re covered, you can create and share unlimited copies of your certificate of insurance from the Ergo Next website.
Hiscox
Best for Professional liability insurance
Pros
- Can get a quote and purchase some policies online.
- Discounts of up to 5% available when you buy two or more Hiscox products, plus a 14-day money-back refund policy.
- Professional liability policies cover work done anywhere in the world.
Cons
- Far more complaints than expected filed with state regulators about both liability and property coverage.
- No coverage available in Alaska; business owner's policies are unavailable in several states.
Hiscox offers professional liability insurance that covers your work anywhere in the world, as long as the lawsuit or claim is filed in the U.S. or Canada. This longstanding company also sells general liability insurance. Most business owners can get a quote and buy a policy directly on the Hiscox website.
- General liability.
- Professional liability.
- Business owner's policy.
- Cyber insurance.
Hiscox offers professional liability insurance that covers your work anywhere in the world, as long as the lawsuit or claim is filed in the U.S. or Canada. This longstanding company also sells general liability insurance. Most business owners can get a quote and buy a policy directly on the Hiscox website.
- General liability.
- Professional liability.
- Business owner's policy.
- Cyber insurance.
Hiscox offers professional liability insurance that covers your work anywhere in the world, as long as the lawsuit or claim is filed in the U.S. or Canada. This longstanding company also sells general liability insurance. Most business owners can get a quote and buy a policy directly on the Hiscox website.
Thimble
Best for Short-term coverage
Pros
- Can get a quote and buy coverage online in minutes.
- Coverage available by the job or the month.
- Contractors and the people managing them can use the Certificate Manager to verify that insurance is contractually compliant, or to purchase coverage that is contractually compliant.
Cons
- Customer support is only available online.
- May charge extra fees when you buy coverage.
- Thimble does not sell commercial auto insurance.
Thimble is unique for allowing users to buy coverage for just a few hours at a time. This is helpful if you mainly work at events, like weddings or farmers markets. If you need proof of insurance to participate, Thimble has built-in tools for managing and sharing your certificate of insurance.
Thimble is an insurance broker, not an insurer. Since it doesn’t underwrite its own policies, we don’t give Thimble a star rating.
- Business owner’s policy.
- General liability insurance.
- Business property insurance.
- Workers’ compensation.
- Professional liability insurance.
- Inland marine insurance.
- Cyber insurance (not available in California, Florida or New York).
- Event insurance (not available in New York, North Carolina or Texas). This includes event liability or liquor liability coverage.
Thimble is unique for allowing users to buy coverage for just a few hours at a time. This is helpful if you mainly work at events, like weddings or farmers markets. If you need proof of insurance to participate, Thimble has built-in tools for managing and sharing your certificate of insurance.
Thimble is an insurance broker, not an insurer. Since it doesn’t underwrite its own policies, we don’t give Thimble a star rating.
- Business owner’s policy.
- General liability insurance.
- Business property insurance.
- Workers’ compensation.
- Professional liability insurance.
- Inland marine insurance.
- Cyber insurance (not available in California, Florida or New York).
- Event insurance (not available in New York, North Carolina or Texas). This includes event liability or liquor liability coverage.
Thimble is unique for allowing users to buy coverage for just a few hours at a time. This is helpful if you mainly work at events, like weddings or farmers markets. If you need proof of insurance to participate, Thimble has built-in tools for managing and sharing your certificate of insurance.
Thimble is an insurance broker, not an insurer. Since it doesn’t underwrite its own policies, we don’t give Thimble a star rating.
How we choose the best insurance companies for home-based businesses
NerdWallet’s editorial team chooses the best business insurance companies based on many factors. For home-based businesses, we focused on insurers that:
- Receive relatively few general liability complaints and commercial property complaints to state insurance regulators based on their size.
- Are financially strong according to credit rating agencies, meaning they have the ability to pay claims.
- Make it easy to get a quote and buy a policy.
- Focus on smaller businesses or offer helpful add-ons, like home-based property insurance.
What is home-based business insurance?
Home-based business insurance protects you financially from risks related to your work. It can pay for costs from incidents like:
- A student visits your home for music lessons. They trip on your front steps and break their wrist, then sue you for damages.
- A fire burns down your shed, which doubles as your workshop. It destroys your woodworking equipment and you need to purchase brand-new tools.
- You made a mistake preparing a client’s taxes, costing them thousands of dollars. They sue you to recoup their losses.
- On your way to photograph a wedding, your camera and video equipment get stolen out of your car. The soon-to-be married couple sues you since you can’t shoot the event. Plus, you still need to replace these expensive items.
Depending on what you do, home-based business insurance may include:
- General liability insurance. This protects you if you’re sued by a third party for something like causing an injury, stealing a trademark or writing something slanderous. We recommend it for every business.
- Professional liability insurance. This coverage protects you if a client sues you for doing a bad job. If you provide services to clients for a fee, like as a consultant, beautician or financial advisor, get professional liability insurance.
- A business owner’s policy. If you have equipment worth more than what your homeowners or renters policy covers, consider a BOP. This provides business property insurance coverage along with general liability insurance.
Does homeowners or renters insurance cover businesses?
For certain small claims, yes.
Homeowners or renters insurance can pay out to cover repairing or replacing your stuff when you’re a victim of theft, fire or a natural disaster. These policies may include coverage for business property worth up to $2,500. That may or may not be enough to cover your losses.
It has other other gaps as well. For instance, homeowners and renters insurance includes some liability coverage. That protects you if someone gets hurt while in your home and sues you. But this doesn’t extend to people visiting your house for business reasons — only personal guests.
What kind of insurance do home-based businesses need?
We recommend that all businesses have general liability insurance for some protection against lawsuits. Beyond that, what you need depends on what your business does. Here are your coverage options.
A home-based business endorsement to your homeowners policy
If you need more coverage for your business equipment than your homeowners or renters policy includes, you can talk to your insurance company about adding a home-based business endorsement.
To be eligible, your business typically needs three or fewer employees and annual receipts of less than $250,000. You can’t manufacture or sell food or personal care products either.
There are several types of these endorsements. Most can up your business property insurance limit. Some also provide business income protection and extra expense coverage. Some even include some of the protections you’d get in a general liability insurance policy, like medical payments coverage and protection against personal and advertising injury claims (like copyright infringement).
If you opt for an in-home business endorsement, talk to your insurance agent or read it closely to make sure you understand what it covers. Then consider:
- Does the endorsement cover liability risks? If yours only mentions business property, then you should buy a separate general liability policy.
- Do you need more property coverage than what’s offered? In that case, consider a business owner’s policy instead. That package provides business liability and property protection. Plus, if you decide to move your office or shut down the business, you won’t have to go back and modify your homeowner's policy later.
General liability insurance for home-based businesses
General liability insurance covers you against certain types of legal claims. These include:
- Bodily injury, like the music student who falls on your front steps.
- Property damage. For example, you’re repairing a customer’s computer when you spill your tea and damage it further.
- Slander, libel or trademark infringement. For example, a company you used to work for accuses you of ripping off their signature style.
Every business is at risk of these types of lawsuits, no matter where their office is. For that reason, every business should carry general liability insurance.
Professional liability insurance for home-based business
Professional liability insurance protects you if a client claims you did a bad job or made a mistake, costing them money. It’s also called errors and omissions insurance.
General liability and home-based business policies don’t include professional liability insurance. You have to buy it separately.
You should get professional liability insurance if you provide advice or services to clients for a fee. Consultants, accountants, insurance and real estate agents all need professional liability insurance. It’s also a good investment if your services are expensive or especially emotional, like wedding photography.
Business owner’s policies
A BOP combines general liability insurance and business property insurance into one policy. If your business has property or equipment that needs coverage, we recommend choosing a BOP instead of buying general liability insurance on its own.
Hired and non-owned auto insurance
This kind of commercial auto insurance protects you when you drive your personal vehicle for business purposes. For example, say you work as an interior designer. You offer to give a client a ride from your office to their home, but you get into a crash on the way.
Since you were driving for business purposes, your personal auto policy might deny the claim. You’d need commercial auto insurance instead.
Hired and non-owned auto insurance is a smart choice if you often drive your day-to-day car to appointments, make deliveries or vend at farmers markets or fairs. You need a standalone commercial auto policy if you have a dedicated business vehicle, like a box truck you use to transport the baked goods you sell at events.
How much does home-based business insurance cost?
One-person businesses pay a median premium of $333 per year for general liability insurance, according to data from online business insurance company Coverdash shared with NerdWallet in 2026. We don’t know for sure that all of those businesses operate out of their homes, but it’s a ballpark figure.
Beyond that, the cost of business insurance is different for everyone. It depends on:
- What you do and how risky it is. Handymen typically have higher general liability premiums than consultants, since they face more risk of injury. And medical professionals usually pay more for professional liability insurance than travel agents, since the stakes are higher.
- Where you operate. Some states see more lawsuits and are more friendly to plaintiffs than others, which can drive insurance premiums up.
- Policy limits. The higher your limits, the more your insurance will cover. That usually means higher premiums.
- Previous claims. If you’ve filed a claim before, you’ll generally have to pay more for insurance in the future.
Every insurance company weighs risks a little differently. Each will charge you a slightly different premium based on how risky they think your business is. We always recommend getting quotes from a few different insurance companies to find the best price.
How to get insurance for your home-based business
Follow these steps to get the coverage you need.
- Check to see what coverage you already have. Find your homeowners or renters insurance policy and read it to see if it includes any coverage for business equipment. If you can’t tell, call or email your insurance company and ask.
- Figure out what other coverage you need. If you have expensive equipment to insure, go with a business owner’s policy. If not, stick with general liability insurance. And if you provide service or advice to clients, add professional liability insurance too.
- Decide how you want to shop. If you already have an insurance agent for your personal needs, they can probably help you with business insurance. If not, use an online insurance agency like Simply Business to get multiple quotes at once. You can also reach out to insurers directly to get quotes.
- Get several quotes. Compare price estimates from at least two different insurers. This helps make sure you’re getting a competitive price. You can also look at policy limits and deductibles and make adjustments to potentially get cheaper business insurance.
- Buy your policies. Choose an insurance company. Then, pay either your full premium for the year or your first installment. If you choose to pay over time, set off automatic payments. You don’t want your coverage to lapse because you missed a payment.
- Download your certificate of insurance. A certificate of insurance proves that you have coverage. You can show it to clients or vendors if they ask for a copy. Some insurers, like Ergo Next, let you access your COI in real time online. With others, it’s less convenient. We recommend downloading a copy so you always have access when you need it.
Methodology
Business insurance ratings methodology
NerdWallet rewards business insurance companies for reliability and good service. We calculate star ratings based on scores in about a dozen categories. These include:
- Each company's financial strength.
- How many complaints customers made relative to its market share.
- How easy it is to get coverage.
- How accessible customer service is.
Learn more about how we rate small-business insurance companies.
Our editorial team routinely fact-checks and updates these data points. We also adjust our scoring on an ongoing basis. This helps our star ratings reflect changing industry norms. For instance, in 2026, we began evaluating how easy insurers make it to add an additional insured.
Our ratings are a guide. But insurance policy details and prices can vary widely. We encourage you to shop around and compare several insurance quotes.NerdWallet does not receive compensation for any reviews. Read our editorial guidelines.
Insurer complaints methodology
One key factor in our star ratings is how many complaints insurance companies get. Here's how we arrive at that score.
Disappointed customers can file a complaint with their state's insurance department. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) collects, analyzes and groups complaints by business line and insurance company every year. A business line is a specific type of coverage, like workers’ comp.
Then, the NAIC calculates a complaint ratio for each company. It divides the company's share of complaints by its share of total premiums for each line of business. It then adds these ratio values to their official complaint index.
- A complaint ratio of 1 means a company received about the expected number of complaints relative to its size.
- A ratio of 2 means it received twice as many complaints as expected.
- A ratio of 0 means it received half as many complaints as expected.
NerdWallet obtains the raw NAIC data every year. We aggregate results at the company level and fact-check these results. Then we calculate a three-year average of each insurer's complaint ratio and convert it to a score for our star ratings.
Business insurance star ratings consider complaints about two lines of business: commercial liability and commercial property. We analyze complaint data on commercial auto and workers' comp policies too. But we don't currently incorporate these into our ratings since they're less universal.