Real Estate Professionals Insurance
Providing Business Liability Insurance in Austin, Round Rock and All of Central Texas
Do Realtors and other real estate related businesses need insurance?
All real estate professionals need realtor insurance, including a quality real estate errors and omissions liability policy. Sunstone Insurance Agency helps real estate professional craft a comprehensive insurance package for all of their insurance needs. Let us help you with a real estate agent insurance quote.
Real Estate Professionals need Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance to properly cover their greatest exposure.
Why do realtors need professional liability insurance? Real estate agent insurance should be designed to protect the losses that are most likely to occur. At Sunstone Insurance Agency we help you assess your business needs, evaluate your budget, and work to quote real estate agent insurance targeted to your needs. Most General Liability policies exclude coverage for claims arising out of a realtor’s negligence in rendering professional services. While often required and a good policy to have, general liability insurance alone will not adequately address your real estate liability insurance needs. A general liability policy will protect you from claims stemming from property damage or bodily injury to third parties. They do not cover monetary claims alleged from a realtor’s negligence or breach of contract, which is the errors and omissions claims scenario a real estate agent is likely to face. Errors and Omissions insurance found in a professional liability policy for real estate agents, provides the realtor protection for these scenarios.
Consider this common real estate agent claims example: A customer contacts a realtor to help them locate and buy or lease a property. Their intent is to run a home-based business from the property. After closing, they find out that the realtor did not discover or did not communicate to the client that the homeowners association prohibits home-based businesses. The former client sue for the money lost in as a result of the unrealized business income or cost to cancel the contract and / or sell the property.
Professional liability insurance for real estate agents can save your business.
A good professional liability policy for real estate agents does more than just pay out damages. At Sunstone Insurance Agency, we are often asked why a real estate professional should purchase an errors and omissions policy when they don’t think a claim is likely or the perceive exposure is low. Can’t a real estate professional just self-insure against this? A Real Estate errors and omissions policy does more than just cover damages, it also covers costs for a legal defense. No professional can be certain they won’t be brought into a frivolous lawsuit. Hiring a lawyer to defend the claim or reach a settlement out of court can cost a business $50,000 or more regardless of whether damages are found at all. Many small agencies do not have the ability to cash-flow this kind of cost. Compare that to the average cost for errors and omissions insurance: $500-$1000 per year per employee, and it just makes good financial sense to invest in a professional liability policy. Those average real estate agent errors and omissions premium numbers show that you can pay premium for an entire career and likely spend less money than a single, frivolous claim resulting in zero damages.
Real Estate errors and omissions insurance for home inspectors and other real estate related professions.
A real estate professional liability policy is for more than just realtors and brokers. Consider another claims example: home inspectors are almost always hired to inspect a house before a purchase. If the inspector fails to discover obvious issues, a claim could follow. Instead, assume the home inspector discovers an issue but tells the purchaser that it does not need to be fixed right away. Shortly after closing, the issue quickly results in significant cost to repair. It could give rise to a lawsuit by the purchaser. Without a real estate E&O policy the inspector would have to pay to settle or to hire a lawyer, the cost of which could be the end of his business.
All real estate related professionals need errors and omissions insurance. We can help the following professionals find inexpensive errors and omissions insurance:
- Auctioneers
- Mortgage Brokers
- Property Managers
- Real Estate Appraiser
- Home Inspectors
How much errors and omissions insurance should I buy?
We get this question quite a bit at Sunstone Insurance Agency. The answer depends on your particular circumstances. Some things to consider are the requirements of the lenders with whom you commonly work, whether your State requires certain limits as part of licensure, and your overall risk tolerance / aversion. At Sunstone, we can provide a real estate agent insurance quote at multiple limits. Some real estate professional choose to keep lower when they start their business, and gradually increase them as their book grows.
Comprehensive insurance Solutions
As with all businesses, at Sunstone Insurance Agency, we want to be your one-stop shop for all of your risk management and insurance needs. Call us today to ask about health insurance for real estate agents, auto insurance for real estate agents, general liability insurance for real estate agents and more. You are a busy professional, simplify your workday by allowing us to handle all of your insurance needs under one roof.
Some of our offerings include:
- Flexible coverage limits available, from $250,000 - $2,000,000 per claim
and aggregate. - Punitive Damages Coverage Available
- Disciplinary Proceedings Defense Coverage
- Subpoena Defense Coverage
- Professional Liability / General Liability package policies available
Ready To Get Started
Simply fill out the form below and we'll send you a quote for free to make sure you and your business are fully covered.