As an official Electronic Security Association (ESA) chapter, you encourage members to take preventive measures to protect their businesses. Make sure your chapter is as well protected as your members are.

Purchasing insurance can be a confusing process, often leaving you wondering if you have the best coverage possible.

The ESA's insurance program — Security America RRG — was created to offer insurance packages expressly for ESA members and chartered chapters. Our knowledgeable staff provides expert guidance to make buying your insurance policy as easy as possible.

Security America RRG, the only insurance company endorsed by the ESA, provides commercial general liability insurance designed to meet your specific insurance needs.

Commercial general liability (CGL) insurance protects you against loss from premises, operations, and products-completed operations. Premises liability arises from the ownership, maintenance or use of an office you own or lease, and can include the serving or sale of food or alcohol on the premises.

Why You Need This Insurance

Although the chapter may not have a physical permanent location, it does have premises exposure. Any place where a meeting is held, such as at a trade show or a training class at a hotel, creates a premises liability. If a person slips and falls at a chapter event — let's say food was served at a banquet hall and a person slipped on the floor because it was wet from a spill — the chapter could be sued for bodily injury at that premises.

Any active chapter has operations. What if at a meeting they disparage, either orally or in writing, an individual member or company? This could be considered a personal injury and may result in being named in a lawsuit. There is also advertising injury liability coverage, which protects the chapter if it has any active publications such as a newsletter or web site.

The insurance also covers liability associated with lobbying, enforcing standards, and licensing issues, which involve many state associations.

Perhaps most important is the ability to provide evidence of liability insurance to third parties. For example, the Electronic Security Association's national tradeshow, ESX, requires a certificate of liability insurance from each exhibitor – and several state chapters have exhibits at the show. This is a common requirement for conventions and trade shows. If a chapter enters into a contract where proof of liability insurance is required, or if that contract stipulates that a someone be named as an additional insured, the general liability policy meets that requirement.

Important Considerations

Ask yourself these questions when purchasing your chapter's commercial general liability insurance policy:

• Does it provide sufficient coverage for your exposures? Security America's liability policy not only provides coverage for damages your chapter is legally liable to pay, but also for legal defense costs incurred for covered exposures. Limits are $1 million per occurrence/$2 million aggregate.
• Does the policy provide coverage for bodily injury, property damage, advertising injury and personal injury? Our policy covers exposures such as property damage, bodily injury, advertising injury, and personal injury. We also provide fire damage coverage to property at your leased premises.
• Is the policy occurrence-based or is it claims-made? Security America RRG offers an occurrence policy that allows you to submit a claim outside of the policy period as long as the actual loss event occurred during the policy period.

Tailored Coverage

To address exposures that are specific to a state association, Security America RRG offers specialized coverage options, such as:

• The ability to endorse subchapters onto your policy as named insureds
• The limit for activities liability can be increased upon request.
• The power to choose a deductible that meets your needs
• The option to add employee benefits liability coverage to your policy

Contact Security America RRG for more information about our CGL policy for ESA chartered chapters. Call us today at 866-315-3838 for a complimentary, no-obligation quote, or visit www.SecurityAmericaRRG.com for complete details on all our insurance products.