When people think of insurance products like machinery and equipment cover, they normally think in terms of the dollar value that their policy covers.

This is perfectly natural – the purpose of insurance is after all to protect your financial position in the event that something goes wrong in your business. However, effective cover has a much broader use – it can also protect your reputation as a tradie in case the worst happens while working on site.

Consider workers compensation insurance for example – this gives you a level of protection when your workers encounter an injury on site. Without this cover, you will liable for the entire costs associated with getting that employee back to work, potentially causing a breakdown in the relationship between you and your contractors or staff.

In this situation, the costs aren’t just financial. Disgruntled employees are often behind attacks on a company’s reputation, bringing a lot of potential harm to your future business.

Other cases might be less severe, but still possess the possibility to damage your business’s brand. If tools are not properly insured and go missing on site, you may be faced with significant delays which will fray your relationship with clients.

Once your company has earned a reputation for being unreliable, it will be far more difficult to find new projects to work on, even if you have subsequently taken out cover to prevent these incidents happening again.

Without the right insurance, it is not just your bank account which is on the line. A few preventable problems can quickly magnify to have a negative effect on your business in the long term.