Crime Insurance
Secure your business against theft, fraud, forgery, and dishonest employees.
Commercial crime insurance can protect your business from money lost to dishonest acts: employee theft, forgery, fraud, and theft of money in transit. These are losses standard policies usually do not fully cover.
Nearly every business is exposed to theft, and it goes well beyond cash. Merchandise, supplies, and money are all targets, whether from employees or outsiders. Standard business policies offer only limited protection against crime and often fall short on fraud. Crime insurance was built to fill those gaps and protect your business from a wide range of dishonest acts.
Who Should Consider Crime Insurance?
If your business handles money, inventory, or financial information, or has employees with access to company assets, you have a real risk of crime-related losses.
- Businesses that handle cash, credit cards, or cheques
- Companies with employees who can access financial records or customer data
- Organizations with inventory or products that are easy to carry off
- Small to mid-sized businesses with limited in-house security
- Any business that hires part-time, seasonal, or temporary staff
What can be covered?
Employee Theft
Money lost to dishonest employees, including theft of cash, valuables, and property.
Misuse of Funds
When an employee abuses access to company money or financial information for personal gain.
Forgery & Alteration
Losses from forged or altered cheques and similar documents.
Extortion Threats
Protection against outsiders demanding money or property under threat.
Money in Transit
Theft, loss, or destruction of cash and cheques while being carried by a messenger or courier.
Coverages shown are general examples, not a description of any specific policy. Policy coverages widely vary and should be confirmed with your broker.
What Crime Insurance Does Not Cover
Crime insurance usually leaves out government seizures, knock-on losses like income you miss out on, dishonest acts by the owners, partners, or directors themselves, acts by independent contractors, theft by an employee you already knew had stolen before, and losses from war. Knowing these limits helps you build a complete protection plan alongside your other policies.
How Pricing Works
What drives your premium
- How much money moves through your businessCash on hand, the size and volume of the payments you send, and how often money is in transit. The more that flows through, and the more of it that moves by wire or e-transfer, the more there is to steal.
- How many people can touch the moneyThe number of employees who handle cash, issue payments, or can get at financial records and banking details. Staff turnover, and temporary or seasonal hires, add to it.
- The checks you have in placeThis is the biggest lever you control. Two people required to approve a payment, someone other than the bookkeeper reconciling the bank, and a mandatory callback before any banking change all lower your price, and some are conditions of being paid at all.
- Inventory that is easy to carry offSmall, valuable, resaleable stock is a bigger target than bulky goods, and how you store, count, and secure it feeds directly into the premium.
- The limits you chooseEmployee theft, forgery, and money in transit each have their own limit, and the mix of limits you set moves the price.
- Hiring practices and past lossesBackground and reference checks on anyone handling money improve your terms. Prior theft or fraud losses raise the price, and an employee you already knew had stolen before is not covered at all.
- Your deductibleA higher deductible lowers the premium but raises your share of every loss, which matters because crime losses often surface as many small ones rather than a single large one.
Frequently asked questions.
What does commercial crime insurance cover?
It can respond to money lost to dishonest acts: employees stealing cash, valuables, or stock; forged or altered cheques; and fraud that moves money. It is built to fill the fraud gaps that standard property and liability policies leave open. Scams that trick your staff into sending money, like phishing and fake invoices, are handled through cyber insurance rather than crime.
Is employee theft rare, or do small businesses really need this?
Employee dishonesty is one of the most common and costly crimes small businesses face, exactly because smaller teams often have fewer internal checks, and the losses often go unnoticed for months. If employees handle cash, inventory, payments, or financial information, the risk is real no matter how much you trust your team.
What about scams that trick my staff into sending money?
Social-engineering scams, a fake email from the boss, a phony request to change banking details, or a fraudulent invoice, are handled through cyber insurance rather than crime insurance. Crime insurance responds to theft, forgery, and fraud involving your money and property. We make sure the two are set up to work together so a scam loss is not left in the gap between them.
How is crime insurance different from cyber insurance?
They overlap but are not the same. Cyber deals with data breaches, system attacks, and the scams that trick your staff into sending money or changing payment details. Crime deals with the theft of money and property by employees and outsiders, including forgery and fraud. Some incidents can touch both, which is why many businesses carry each.
What does crime insurance not cover?
It usually leaves out losses you cannot prove or document, knock-on losses like income you miss out on, acts by independent contractors, dishonest acts by the owners, partners, or officers themselves, government seizures, war, and theft by an employee you already knew had stolen before. Knowing these limits helps us pair crime coverage with your other policies so the whole picture is protected.
Protect Your Bottom Line
Our team is ready to find the right coverage at the right price. Get a tailored quote today.