As an Amazon seller, it is important that you invest in Amazon sellers insurance. Even if you are confident in your products, there is always a chance that your products could cause harm. This is especially true for high-risk products such as baby products and electrical products.
This raises questions such as: does every Amazon buyer need to buy insurance for their business? How do you buy Amazon seller insurance? This article will give you a detailed answer.
What is Amazon Seller Insurance
Amazon seller insurance is a type of insurance policy that provides protection for Amazon sellers against financial losses and liabilities that may arise from their financial business operations on Amazon’s platform.
Before you buy any kind of Amazon insurance, you should know what it covers exactly. It mostly covers non-employee, 3rd party bodily injury, 3rd party property damage, and personal and advertising injury.
In Which Case You need Insurance to Sell on Amazon
While not all sellers are really required to buy insurance, there are some circumstances that require a seller to purchase some.
Here are some of the key situations wherein an Amazon seller absolutely needs to buy Amazon liability insurance.
- According to section 9 of the Amazon services business solutions agreement, the seller must obtain and maintain commercial liability insurance within 30 days after exceeding USD 10,000 in gross proceeds on Amazon.
- Amazon requires you to purchase insurance.
- You could feel compelled to buy insurance to protect your business, even if Amazon does not require you to buy some.
If you want peace of mind and want to focus on your growing business, you should purchase Amazon insurance.This is mostly to protect yourself from unforeseen incidents. If you don’t have any insurance, you may find yourself caught by surprise by these accidents. Even if you are confident in your product, there may be times when your product could malfunction. If they malfunction, there is a chance that your clients could get injured. By having Amazon seller’s insurance, you will have protection should these accidents ever occur.
Amazon Seller Insurance Requirements
Before you buy any kind of Amazon insurance policy, you should make sure that you are able to meet all of Amazon seller insurance requirements. This is very important, because insurance that does not meet the requirements will make it impossible to claim after the accident.
Meet Amazon Insurance Policy Criteria
While not all sellers are required to buy an Amazon insurance policy, it is still advised that you do. Even if you are a new Amazon seller or below the insurance threshold, you should still invest in an insurance policy. Because you never know how your customers will use your product, and what accident will happen. If you don’t have insurance
If you are going to purchase Amazon commercial liability insurance, you must be sure to follow all these key requirements.
- Your insurance policy type can be either umbrella, general, or excess liability.
- Policies should name Amazon.com Services LLC and its affiliates and assignees as additional insureds.
- Any deductible for any policies must not be greater than $10,000. The deductible amount should be listed in your certificate of insurance.
- Policy limits must be at least USD 1 million per occurrence and in aggregate. It will also cover liabilities caused by or occurring in conjunction with business operations. These should include products, products/ completed operations and bodily injury.
- Policies must cover all sales from products that have been listed on the Amazon.com store.
- The seller’s insurance provider should have global claim handling capability, and a financial rating of S&P A and /or AM best A- or better.
- Your insurance provider must give Amazon at least 30 days’ notice of cancellation, non-renewal, or modification.
- Except for single-member LLCs, your insured name should match the “Legal entity” name that you provided to Amazon through your Account info. As for single member LLCs, wherein your legal entity name is different than the name you publicly use to identify your business. It is also acceptable for your insured name to match your trade name.
The importance of Insurance with Global Claims Capability
If you are going to buy insurance as an Amazon seller, it is important that your insurance has global claims capability. Why should your insurance have global claims capability though? What makes this feature so important in an insurance policy?
One of the main reasons why global claims capability is so important, is that Amazon is a global company. That means many sellers will sell their products overseas. By having Global claims capability, you will have more protection when you deal with overseas buyers.
Here’s an example of why insurance with global claims capability is very important.Some Mexican buyers will buy products from Amazon American site. Should there be a problem with the product, it will bring losses to consumers. Even if the buyer is not an American, you are not there. But as long as the customer sues you, you will still have to compensate the consumer.
How to Buy Amazon Liability Insurance For Amazon Sellers
When it comes to getting Amazon liability insurance as an Amazon seller, it is important that you know the best place to purchase them. The two best options are Amazon insurance accelerator and other insurance companies for Amazon sellers. Let’s delve further into these options and what they have to offer.
Via Amazon Insurance Accelerator
As stated earlier, you have two options to choose from. The first choice is the Amazon insurance accelerator. What is an Amazon insurance accelerator? The Amazon insurance accelerator is a program that was announced as part of a September 1, 2021 policy update.
It gives sellers access to Amazon’s network of certified insurance providers. These providers will evaluate, and when deemed appropriate offer liability insurance to sellers. This method was created by Amazon to speed up the overall process for sellers that need product liability insurance for the products that they offer on Amazon.
How to Find Amazon Insurance Accelerator
If you decide on using the Amazon insurance accelerator option, you should know how to find Amazon insurance accelerator on Amazon, and how to use it the right way. Here are the key steps to finding Amazon insurance accelerator on Amazon.
Step 1: Check out the list of insurance providers that are found in Amazon’s network. This is found under the business insurance section of Seller Central. When you check out the business insurance section you will be given a choice of insurance providers. You can compare policies and quotes through these interfaces.
Step 2: The second step is for uploading your proof of insurance. This is mainly for the certificate of insurance that you receive after getting approved for a policy. Should you get your insurance from a provider outside of Amazon’s network, you’ll still have to upload your proof through this tab. You will be able to receive Amazon’s $1000 liability coverage.
Pros and Cons of Using Amazon Insurance Accelerator
While Amazon insurance accelerator is the most common and obvious insurance for most sellers, it still has its fair share of pros and cons. Here are the pros and cons of using Amazon insurance accelerator.
The pros of Amazon insurance accelerator:
- Sellers will also be given a choice of a pre-vetted list of insurance providers. This will let you compare the providers through quotes and policies.
- Even if you do sell your products outside of Amazon, some policies will still cover your products.
While using Amazon insurance accelerator has its fair share of pros, there are still some cons to take into account of:
- Due to Amazon insurance accelerator’s stringent qualifications for insurance providers, Amazon has a smaller selection to choose from.
- The insurance accelerator is also offered in a handful of countries.
- The policy also has no predefined rates like IP accelerator.
From Insurance Companies
Apart from working with an Amazon insurance accelerator, it is also a good idea to reach out to various insurance companies that work specifically with Amazon and e-commerce sellers.
How to Find Insurance Companies for Amazon Sellers
While you could use the Amazon insurance accelerator, you also have the option to work with other insurance companies. If you do opt to use insurance companies as an Amazon seller, you should know the best sources. Here are key tips on how to find insurance companies.
If you are going to look for insurance companies, your first choice should be to use Google. When it comes to using Google to find insurance companies through Google, it is best that you focus on the first page.
The first page will have all the best options that you could choose from. Just make sure that you use the right keywords when you use the search bar.
Aside from Google, Amazon also has a question-and-answer section where sellers could ask their queries about policies.
Question and answer sites
There are also a lot of question-and-answer sites such as Quora that offer answers to various questions on insurance policies and other queries.
You should remember that not all question-and-answer sites are equal. Before you get any kind of advice from a Quora page, you should make sure that their tips are legitimate.
Amazon course tutor or friend’s recommendations
You could also ask for help from Amazon course tutors. These tutors specialize in helping Amazon sellers get the best deals for their insurance policies.
If you have friends that use a particular insurance company, you could try out their recommendations as well. Just make sure to do your own research as well.
Recommend Amazon Insurance Companies
Here are some great examples of insurance companies that you should try out. These websites offer great policies, and will ultimately protect.
Thimble
It is a company that customizes seller insurance. The company specializes in various industries such as apparel makers, candlemakers, jewelry makers, soap makers, and leatherworkers. Thimble offers simple, scalable, and flexible business. Thimble services are simple, because Thimble asks fewer questions, and provides more options.
You can buy a policy online, in the app, or over the phone in minutes. It is also scalable because sellers can choose the size, stage, and coverage for their shipping. Sellers will also have total control of their insurance policies. This includes seamless edits and modifications, and pauses to the service. They will also be to cancel their insurance policy instantly should work slow down or hire pick up.
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Well Insurance
The Well Insurance company is a company that offers a wide selection of insurance coverage. It offers coverage options such as access to Amazon insurance accelerator.
Aside from access to this service, the company also offers business auto insurance, eCommerce insurance, general liability, inventory insurance, inventory storage, longstanding Amazon insurance, ocean marine cargo insurance, product liability insurance, Umbrella insurance, and workers compensation as well.
Insureon
This insurance provider helps Amazon sellers to find policies that match their unique risks and requirements. Insureon offers various types of insurance such as business owner’s policy, general liability insurance, worker’s compensation insurance, cyber liability insurance, commercial umbrella insurance, and commercial auto insurance.
Pros and Cons of Using Insurance Companies
The key advantage of using an insurance company is that there is a bigger selection of insurance providers. This means that you have more options to choose from.
The main disadvantages are that it takes a good deal of time and effort in order to fit your needs. As it was stated earlier Amazon insurance accelerator has fewer selections, however their selections are more vetted. On the other hand, if you choose to work with insurance companies, you will need to double-check potential insurance companies.
You will also need to spend time in ensuring the company liability insurance is up to Amazon requirements.
How Much Does Amazon Seller Insurance Cost
When it comes to getting insurance, you should know that there is really no set answer to Amazon seller insurance cost. This is because each insurance policy is different. However, there are three factors that you will need to take into when it comes to calculating the cost of your insurance policies.
These factors are:
- Revenue
When it comes to estimating the cost of Amazon seller insurance, the company’s revenue is a very big factor.
Remember that when an insurance company issues a policy, it is accepting the risk the seller’s products may be defective or malfunction. The product may even cause personal injury to a customer. So it makes sense that the more you sell, the higher the risk that a product could malfunction.
The easiest way to assess how many products you sold is to look at your revenue. The more you sell, the more units you have out in the market. The more units you have in the market, the more chances of accidents or malfunctions. So it stands to reason that your insurance premiums will be higher.
- Product category
Aside from the items you sell, you should also take your product category into consideration. Remember that not all products have the same kind of risks. For example, you are selling clothing such as T-shirt or teddy bear.
While the product is usually safe, there is still a small chance that the product could malfunction and cause injuries to the user or cause an electrical surge or fire. On the other hand if your products are merely blankets or towels, it would understandably less dangerous, and the premium will be less pricey.
- Location
Yet another factor when it comes to assessing Amazon insurance costs is the location. While this is not as big a factor as the other factors, it is still necessary when it comes to assessing Amazon insurance costs.
For example, if a seller is located in the United States, then the premiums are lower than for sellers located overseas. Overall, the impact of location will depend on the specific circumstances. However, you should be aware that the location factor will always affect your premiums.
Conclusion
When it comes to protecting your growing e-commerce business, it is important that you invest in the best Amazon seller insurance. This is critical because some unforeseen accidents may occur when consumers use your products, and cause greater compensation.
As stated in the article, there are many advantages to getting Amazon insurance. If you buy Amazon insurance, Amazon will cover any claims under $1000.
If you think you’re not ready to purchase insurance since your Amazon business is still new, or you have some other questions, we are glad to provide help for you.