Your business insurance policy may cover stolen cash up to a certain limit, but on a basic policy, these limits are generally not going to be very high. This is for a number of reasons, but two above all:
- Moral hazard. That is, it's far too easy for someone to steal cash from their own register and file a false claim.
- Cash is difficult to document. Unless you want to take a photo of your register and send it to your insurance company on an hourly basis, it's hard to prove how much cash was actually stolen in a theft or robbery. Cash is a liquid asset, constantly changing in value. Therefore, it’s hard to prove exactly how much you might lose in any given scenario.
You will find these same issues coming up in home insurance policies, where your insurer may cover only up to around five hundred dollars or so in stolen cash following a burglary, even as your physical property is covered for thousands of dollars.
For many businesses, cash isn't much of a concern. If you run an online startup, for instance, you're probably only going to have that first dollar earned to frame and put up on the wall. Otherwise, cash on hand will likely be very little—the rest is in the bank.
But if you do deal with a lot of cash in your business, such as if you run a restaurant or convenience store, then you're going to want to look into getting your register protected under a crime insurance policy with your business insurance provider.
Crime insurance can be helpful in recovering from any number of monetary losses. Your plan can include employee theft, stolen inventory, robbery and even credit card forgery. If you work in a customer-facing industry with a real brick-and-mortar location, you will absolutely want to talk to your insurer about crime insurance.
Every business has its own set of risks to contend with. If cash is on the list, then you need to ask your business insurance provider about cash insurance, and consider a crime insurance plan to protect your earnings.