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Your Business Changed. Did Your Insurance Change With It?
- Ginette Preto
- Aug 21
- 3 min read
You have insurance.
Your policy renews each year. You may even have a Certificate of Insurance ready to provide when a customer, landlord, general contractor, or vendor asks for proof of coverage.
So you’re covered.
Right?
Not necessarily.
A 2025 survey conducted by Wakefield Research for NEXT Insurance found that 92% of small-business owners report having business insurance, but only 13% feel completely prepared to face business risks.
That means having an insurance policy and feeling properly protected are not necessarily the same thing.
At G.Preto Insurance, this is one of the reasons we believe an annual business insurance review is so important.
Your business can change considerably in twelve months. Your insurance needs to keep up.
Your business changes faster than your insurance policy
Think about what your business looked like when you originally purchased your insurance.
Maybe you had fewer employees, lower revenue, one vehicle, less equipment, fewer customers, or a much smaller service area.
Then the business grew.
You hired people.
You started using subcontractors.
You purchased equipment.
You bought another vehicle.
You signed a lease.
You began taking on larger contracts.
You added installation, delivery, consulting, property management, or another service.
You started working in another state.
Your business evolved.
But did anyone update the insurance company?
Insurance policies are built around very specific information about how a business operates. When those operations change, the insurance may need to change with them.
A policy that was appropriate three years ago may not properly reflect the business you own today.
A Certificate of Insurance does not necessarily answer the question
Business owners are frequently asked to provide a Certificate of Insurance, or COI.
A COI is useful because it provides evidence of the insurance coverage currently in place.
But it does not create coverage.
For example, if your policy is written for one type of business operation and you begin performing a completely different type of work, issuing a certificate does not automatically make that new operation covered.
That is why our team sometimes asks questions when a certificate request comes in.
What work are you performing?
Where is the job?
Are subcontractors involved?
Does the contract require Additional Insured status?
Is there a waiver of subrogation requirement?
Does the work being requested match the operations your insurance carrier knows about?
Those questions are not meant to make the process difficult.
They are meant to help make sure your insurance actually reflects what you are doing.
What should be reviewed each year?
A good commercial insurance review should look beyond whether the premium increased.
At G.Preto Insurance, we want to understand whether anything meaningful has changed in your business.
That may include:
Revenue
Payroll
Employees
Subcontractors
Vehicles and drivers
Equipment or inventory
Locations
Services offered
States where you perform work
Contracts you are signing
Property you own or lease
Professional or consulting services
New business entities or DBAs
Changes in these areas can affect General Liability, Workers’ Compensation, Commercial Auto, Property, Inland Marine, Professional Liability, Umbrella and other coverage.
Sometimes the existing policy is still perfectly appropriate.
Sometimes we simply update information with the carrier.
And sometimes a change in operations creates an exposure that should be addressed differently.
The important part is finding out before a claim occurs.
Our goal is not simply to renew your policy
At G.Preto Insurance, we work with business owners to understand how the business operates today, not simply how it operated when the original application was completed.
Our goal is to help answer three basic questions:
What has changed?
Does your current insurance still match the business?
Are there risks we should address before the next policy year?
Insurance cannot eliminate every business risk.
But keeping your coverage aligned with the way your company actually operates can help prevent unpleasant surprises when you need the policy most.
If your business has changed over the past year, or you simply have not reviewed your commercial insurance in a while, we are happy to take a look.
Ginette Preto, G.Preto Insurance, LLC Home • Auto • Business
Source: NEXT Insurance, 2025 Business Insurance Coverage and Risk Report, survey conducted by Wakefield Research among 500 U.S. small-business owners and decision-makers.
This article is for general educational purposes only. It is not legal, tax, or insurance coverage advice. Coverage, exclusions, limits, and claim decisions depend on the specific policy language and facts. Consult your insurance professional and appropriate legal or financial advisors for guidance about your business.
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