Savannah runs on small business. The boutique on Broughton, the tour company working the squares, the restaurant on River Street, the HVAC contractor in Pooler keeping up with all the new rooftops, the shop in Garden City serving the port, the surf rental on Tybee. If you own one of them, you already know the job description: you’re the CEO, the HR department, the janitor — and, whether you signed up for it or not, the risk manager.
A business owners policy — a BOP — is how small business owners handle that last job without making it a second career. It bundles the three coverages nearly every small business needs into one policy, from one carrier, with one bill, usually at a meaningful discount versus buying the pieces separately. Here’s what’s in the bundle, what isn’t, and why the third piece matters more on this coast than almost anywhere else.
1. Commercial property coverage. This protects the physical stuff your business runs on: your building if you own it, your build-out and improvements if you lease, plus inventory, equipment, furniture, fixtures, computers, and signage. Fire, theft, vandalism, wind, burst pipes — the perils that can empty a storefront overnight. A restaurant’s kitchen line, a boutique’s inventory, a contractor’s shop full of materials: for most Savannah small businesses, this number is bigger than the owner guesses until we add it up together.
2. General liability coverage. This responds when your business injures someone or damages their property — and pays the legal defense either way. A customer slips on a wet floor. A tour guest trips on a curbstone. Your crew’s ladder goes through a client’s window. A product you sell causes harm. In a city built on foot traffic and tourism, general liability is the coverage between an ordinary Tuesday and a lawsuit — and it’s also the certificate your landlord, your clients, and event venues will ask you for. We issue those routinely.
3. Business interruption coverage. The piece owners skip when buying cheap online — and the piece that saves businesses here. If a covered loss shuts you down, business income coverage replaces the revenue you’re losing and keeps paying the bills that don’t stop: rent, payroll for key people, loan payments. A kitchen fire that closes a restaurant for four months doesn’t just cost repairs; it costs four months of income while the payroll and the lease roll on. Business interruption is the difference between reopening and never reopening.
Running a business on the Georgia coast means hurricane season is a line item. Three things every local owner should understand about their BOP before June:
BOPs are built for small and mid-sized businesses — generally lower-risk operations under carrier thresholds for revenue, square footage, and employee count. Around here, that covers a lot of ground:
Larger or higher-risk operations graduate to a commercial package policy with more horsepower. If that’s you, we write those too — the point is matching the form to the business, not forcing the business into the form.
A BOP is a strong foundation, not the whole building. Budget alongside it for:
Required in Georgia for most businesses with three or more employees, and it's the law, not an option
Work trucks, delivery vehicles, and vans need their own policy; personal auto policies exclude business use, and that exclusion bites
If you sell advice, design, or expertise, this covers the mistakes general liability won't touch
If you take cards or keep customer data (so, nearly everyone now), a breach is a business-threatening event; cyber coverage is increasingly available as a BOP endorsement
Serving alcohol requires it; Georgia dram shop exposure is real for bars and restaurants
Spoilage coverage for restaurants and anyone with refrigerated inventory (think power loss in a summer outage), equipment breakdown, hired and non-owned auto for businesses whose employees drive their own cars on errands
Part of our job is walking your operation honestly and telling you which of these you need — and which you don’t.
For most small businesses, a BOP runs somewhere between $500 and $3,500 a year, with many landing near $1,000–$1,500. Your number depends on your industry, revenue, property values, building construction and age, location, claims history, and coastal wind exposure. The bundle itself is the first discount — a BOP typically costs noticeably less than buying property and liability separately. Beyond that: security and fire protection (alarms, sprinklers, monitored systems), sensible deductibles, a clean claims record, and paying annually all trim the premium. And because carriers’ appetite for coastal Georgia business risk varies enormously, comparison shopping through an independent agency moves the number more here than in most markets.
We insure small businesses across the greater Savannah area and the Georgia coast, including:
Savannah, Pooler, Garden City, Port Wentworth, Bloomingdale, Thunderbolt, Tybee Island, Vernonburg, Rincon, Springfield, Guyton, Richmond Hill, and Pembroke.
Downtown storefronts, Pooler franchises, port-adjacent operations in Garden City and Port Wentworth, trades working out of Rincon and Guyton, marina businesses in Thunderbolt, beach retail on Tybee — if you run it, we can cover it.
Online BOP quotes are built on defaults — default property limits, default income coverage, no one asking whether your business income number reflects your actual busy season or whether civil authority coverage matters for your location. We build the policy from your real numbers: what it would cost to restock and rebuild, what a month of closure actually costs you, what certificates your landlord and clients require, and which endorsements your specific operation needs. Then we shop it across carriers, and we’re here — locally — at renewal, at claim time, and on the day a storm has a name and you’re wondering what your policy says. Your business is how you feed your family. We treat the policy that protects it accordingly.
General liability is one coverage; a BOP includes it plus commercial property plus business income, usually for not much more than standalone liability. If you have any physical assets or any revenue you’d miss, the BOP is almost always the better buy.
