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June 11, 2025 13 mins

Let's Talk About Small Business Insurance

The protection of your small business shouldn't be an afterthought—it's the foundation that allows your entrepreneurial dreams to flourish. Timothy Walters, licensed insurance agent and small business owner, dives deep into the essential coverages that shield businesses from increasingly complex threats.

Most small business owners focus primarily on profitability and cash flow, often viewing insurance as just another expense. However, as Timothy explains, this perspective misses the critical role insurance plays in business sustainability. "When lawyers get involved, they swing like they're in the big leagues," he cautions, highlighting how quickly even minor incidents can escalate into financially devastating legal battles in today's litigious environment.

Beyond the fundamental general liability coverage that protects against slip-and-falls and property damage, modern businesses face an evolving risk landscape. Social media liability has emerged as businesses increasingly engage with customers online. Product liability protects manufacturers and retailers from claims of defective merchandise. And perhaps most critically, cyber liability has become essential as data breaches affect businesses of all sizes. "The question isn't if your data will be exposed—it's when," Timothy warns, noting how breaches can trigger expensive notification requirements, forensic investigations, and reputation management.

Small business owners must have frank, honest conversations with their insurance agents about their actual operational risks. Cutting corners on coverage might save money in the short term, but leaves businesses vulnerable to catastrophic losses that far exceed premium savings. Ready to protect what you've built? Contact The Walters Agency for a free 20-minute consultation at 423-417-2070 and discover how proper coverage creates true peace of mind for your business journey.

To learn more about The Walters Agency visit:
https://www.brightway.com/agencies/tn/knoxville/0237/team
The Walters Agency
7009 Asheville Hwy
Knoxville, TN 37924
423-417-2070

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Walters Agency podcast, where
insurance meets peace of mind.
Hosted by licensed insuranceagent and owner, timothy Walters
, we're here to help families,homeowners and small business
owners throughout East Tennesseeprotect what matters most Our
mission creating win-win-winsolutions for insurance.
Let's dive in.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Small businesses face unique risks and the right
insurance coverage can make allthe difference in protecting
their future.
Welcome back everyone.
Skip Monaco, host slashproducer, back in the studio
with Timothy Walters, licensedinsurance agent and owner of the
Walters Agency.
Timothy, how's it going?
I'm going well.
How?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
are you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I'm doing just fine.
Doing just fine.
We made it to hump day.
That's a good thing, right?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
What day is it?
Today's week?
We're in June, now, right.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, can you believe that?
I cannot believe it's June Idon't need to know man.
Halfway through the year, Yep,yep, so Dempsey.
Small business owners have alot to consider when it comes to
insurance.
I know because I'm a smallbusiness owner as well.
Specifically, how can theyprotect what they've built?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Let's talk about small business insurance.
Yeah yeah, small business.
You know and I'm a smallbusiness owner too you know
there's challenges that I'm sureare similar no matter how big
your business is.
But I think small businessowners face some challenges and
maybe larger businesses havegotten past.
And of course, there's alwaysthe money issue, right, and I
like, I think, a lot of smallbusiness owners that I speak to
that's their primary concern.

(01:46):
You know, I talked to peoplewho are starting new businesses,
people who've been in businessfor a while, and the concern is
how much am I making?
Am I making?
Am I breaking even?
Am I in the red?
I got some black on the on theaccounts, maybe a little bit
this month.
I mean, that's like the biggestconcern typically that I hear

(02:07):
from people in business and youknow, I get it cause I'm the
same way.
Even all that aside, I alwaystell people you still got to
look out for your insurancebecause, as a small business
owner I don't care if you juststarted up or if you've been
doing it for a few years peoplethink you got all the money in
the world.
So if something happens, whenlawyers get involved, they swing

(02:28):
like they're in the big leagues.
So if you don't have yourinsurance squared away in the
right manner, you could be inreal trouble and people sue for
reasons that are legitimate.
People sue for reasons that arejust stupid.
We all know this.
We live in America.
That's the society we built,for whatever reason, and, like I
said, you still need insuranceI always tell people, if you

(02:51):
don't have insurance at all, youdefinitely need to get
something put together, at leastfor general liability purposes.
General liability is beingbasically like hey, somebody
falls and smashes their headthrough your store window by
accident and they sue you.
Okay, well, that's generalliability.
Maybe you're running some kindof specialty service that

(03:14):
requires some professionalliability, like lawyers, doctors
, medical professionals.
Maybe you need something whereyou're manufacturing or you're
making a product that you sellto people.
Maybe you need something that'sgoing to cover for products
that were defective or causedamage or something like that.
So there's a lot of things ininsurance the risks that we can

(03:34):
help cover that hopefully younever have to use.
It's like medical insuranceHopefully people have medical
insurance.
Hopefully they never have touse it.
But we all know the longer youlive, the more likely
something's going to happen toyou.
Same thing the longer you're inbusiness, the more likely that
you're going to have to use yourinsurance somehow shape or form
.
And if you don't have it or youdon't have it written correctly

(03:58):
to reflect your actual risk,you know you could be in trouble
.
Having a frank, honestdiscussion about what you do,
you know what your riskexposures are, and making sure
that your insurance is writtencorrectly is very, very
important.
And I know people don't want topay extra money People I talk

(04:18):
to people.
They're very cagey sometimeswhen I ask them questions
they're like well, this is goingto cost me more.
I'm like, maybe, but we stillneed to know the truth.
And if we write you a policynot having all the correct
information and then somethinghappens and your policy doesn't
cover something correctlybecause we didn't have the
information, you know that's notgood for you, that's not good
for us.

(04:38):
Like I said, you know the wholethe whole thing about cost
benefit analysis.
I always tell people it's betterto pay a little bit, then go
cheap, not be honest aboutwhat's going on.
And then you have to use yourinsurance and find out that it's
not going to do what youthought it was going to do and

(04:58):
that's it.
Well, you, small businesschallenges, a small business
ownership.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
There's lots of them too, buddy.
Well, you mentioned liabilitycoverage.
What about what are someessential types of insurance
that every small business shouldhave?

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Well, I would say the most basic type would be
general liability, and again,that's just general liability.
That's like you know, ifsomething pretty standard
happens again somebody slips andfalls on your property, you
need something to cover, youknow, for maybe they got to go
to the hospital and get theirbones reset, or something like
that.
Cover, for maybe they got to goto the hospital and get their

(05:35):
bones reset or something likethat.
One thing a lot of people don'tthink about these days, but
most businesses, even out of thehouse businesses, they have
social media presence, they haveFacebook page, they have
Instagram or whatever, maybeeven a MySpace.
I don't know, Is that still athing?
I don't know.
So you might want to havesomething to cover, like if

(05:56):
somebody says oh well, youdefamed me on social media
because we got into an argumenton this post and you said
something that I didn't reallylike, so I'm going to sue you.
There's coverage that will helpprovide legal representation

(06:18):
and provide coverage forpotential damages for those
types of things.
People don't think about itbecause, again, the social media
has become so ingrained.
People just like having aconversation with somebody, but
it's not.
It's on a public platform orit's on a private public
platform.
I mean, you've got yourbusiness tied up in it.
So, yeah, if somebody reallydoesn't like something you said,
unfortunately, a lot of timespeople will recourse to oh, I'm
going to sue this person becausethey have an opinion I don't

(06:39):
like, or I didn't like theirprice, or they quoted me.
I've had this happen to mePeople didn't like the quote
that I gave them and they'veactually tried to report me to
the state of Tennessee to try toget my insurance license hit
because I gave them a quote theythought was too expensive.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
There's all kinds of crazy out there.
Fortunately the state ofTennessee gets a lot of those.
All they did was call me andask a couple of questions.
I provided some emails to themand the thing went away.
It wasn't a big deal.
But again, the crazy is outthere and sometimes business
owners make mistakes.
Maybe they say somethingincorrect or, you know, make an

(07:18):
accidental misrepresentation,and again that can get you in
some trouble.
So, yeah, there's coverage forthose kinds of types of things.
Again, going back to if you'remanufacturing products, you know
, and your product, you know,injures somebody, makes somebody
sick, wasn't made correctly,and they're like well, we're
going to sue you and so just,you know, returning the product

(07:40):
and asking for a refund.
Yeah, there's coverages forthat kind of thing.
So it's all bound up in thespecifics of what you do and
what you offer.
But so, yeah, there's reallynot many risks that aren't
insurable.
It just depends on what you'redoing and how much it's going to
cost.
I suppose, and some people,there's no law that says for a
lot of businesses anyway,there's no law that says you

(08:01):
have to carry insurance, likewith auto insurance, to drive on
public roads, you have to havepersonal insurance for your
vehicle and everything.
But you know businesses.
A lot of times it's somethingthat's not legally required, but
as a responsible business ownerto take care of yourself and
your clients, it's definitelysomething that should be looked

(08:22):
into at the very least.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Absolutely.
Now you mentioned social media.
What about cyber threats?

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yes, yeah, information informational God.
Yeah, I'm an insurance guy, so,yeah, information Cyber okay.
So the losses for data breachesand the cyber attacks have gone
through the roof.
Because everything's online now.
Everybody's information isonline, every company that we

(08:52):
work with and I say we, as in99.9% of the public in the whole
world, the information isonline.
Very few people actually keeppaper records anymore, so the
risk of data breaches is veryreal.
I think Amazon just had onerecently, if I'm not mistaken.
So the risk is there and ifyour company is hit with a cyber

(09:17):
attack, your client's personaldata or financial data is stolen
.
That's a big deal becauseyou've got to do the mitigation
for it.
You've got to make sure thatthe information is re-secured.
You might have to pay for theexpense of clients.
You know running down, you know, hey, you know, have there been

(09:38):
any fraudulent charges?
I mean, that's a spider webthat can go a long ways and we
don't have time to go like,follow that particular trail,
but there's a lot of potentialexpense involved in a data
breach or successful cyberattack, so even small businesses
these days.
I would recommend having somecoverage for that type of risk

(09:58):
data breach, cyber attacks, thatkind of thing, because I don't
really know any businesses thatI've talked to that actually are
completely offline.
I don't think I've ever talkedto one.
Since I've been in thisbusiness, I know we have a
pretty robust policy in ourcommercial insurance for Because
all we do is data.

(10:18):
We just deal with people's dataall day, every day, so it's
important.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Absolutely.
What an important discussion.
I mean from a small businessowner's perspective.
We need solid protection andyour insights have definitely
made that decision easier.
And so, for those listeners outthere, if you don't have
insurance for your smallbusiness, talk to your insurance
.
Or if you do, talk to yourinsurance agent to make sure,

(10:43):
talk to your agent If you don'tTalk to your agent.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
If they don't do commercial insurance, ask them
if they can refer you tosomebody who does.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
No.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
You need to have that discussion.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Does the Walters Agency handle commercial?

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, yeah, we do.
Like I said, that's one of thethings we do, no-transcript and,

(11:43):
but it's still.
I mean I honestly don't carehow much the price for cyber
insurance goes up.
Risk to your business and yourclients for a data breach is
only going to increase over timeas the as the the risk and
rewards for the people who aredoing the cyber attacks.
Their risk is very low becausethey're almost impossible to
catch the rewards and for onesuccessful data, successful data
breach for them you know it isis enormous because they go out
and they sell that data.
You know, and everybody'sgetting these, uh, scam phone
calls.
You know we is enormous becausethey go out and they sell that
data.
You know, and everybody'sgetting these scam phone calls.

(12:04):
You know we all get the textmessages and the scams.
Well, that's probably becauseour data has been sold to these
data brokers out there.
Say, all of us have probablyhad our data exposed at some
point in time or another.
It's out there on the marketsand it's just getting traded
around.
So it just really comes down towhen, not if, it comes to bite

(12:25):
us in a real financial way andyou want to have the right
insurance as a business personto cover that risk for sure.
Absolutely, I'm really glad youasked that question, Skip.
It's an important one.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yes, absolutely Well, you heard it here.
If you don't have commercialinsurance, if you don't have
cyber threat insurance or databreach insurance, give Tim a
call.
He'll tell you all about itwith a 30-minute free
consultation right.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
That's right, I'll talk about it all day long, if
you let me.
There you go, there you go.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Well, tim, like you said.
Very important question, veryimportant discussion.
Appreciate it.
And Well, tim, like you said.
Very important question, veryimportant discussion.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Appreciate it and we'll catch you in the next
episode, all right.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Thanks, skip.
All right, man, you have agreat rest of the day.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
You too.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
That's a wrap on this episode of the Walters Agency
Podcast.
Ready to find the rightcoverage for your home, business
or family?
Call or text 423-417-2070 for afree 20-minute consultation.
Until next time, stay covered,stay protected and keep winning

(13:33):
with the Walters Agency.
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