Copier and printer insurance is not only strongly recommended for leased equipment, it’s a requirement.

Every time you lease a copier, printer, or multifunctional machine, the leasing company requires you to have insurance of some kind.

I have been getting a lot of questions about copier and printer insurance lately, so I reached out to my associate Maria Russo Farris who works at The Mitchell Agency, to make sure I had all my facts straight.

Copier and printer insurance on leased equipment covers situations where your machine is destroyed by a fire, or some other mishap. The leasing company has to be named as the loss payee, and the dollar amount the machine needs to be insured for has to be declared.  

According to Maria, who deals with these claims on a day-to-day basis, in most cases you don’t need extra copier and printer insurance. The insurance you have on the contents of your business will cover the cost of any destroyed equipment without any problem.

You can easily add your leased office equipment to your business insurance and name the leasing company as the loss payee. As long as you have enough money down on the property contents of your business, there would not be an increase on the insurance you’re paying.

Do You Need Copier and Printer Insurance for Your Leased Equipment? – Let’s Do The Math

Still not sure whether or not you need extra copier and printer insurance for your leased equipment? Let’s break it down into simple math.

Let’s say you have $40,000 on your business insurance and your copier is in the range of $5000. In this situation your insurance would more than cover the cost of your printer if it were destroyed in an accident.

In addition, in the above situation there will also be no increase on the insurance you have on the contents of your office.

In any case, it’s important to make sure you’re covered in some way — if you’re not the leasing company will charge you insurance in case the equipment is damaged..

You don’t want to deal with your leasing company when it comes to insurance issues. Generally, the leasing company’s insurance is much more expensive than covering it through a policy you already have.

The key takeaway here is that you’re probably covered for the cost of damaged equipment under property contents insurance. In order to ensure you’re covered, you have to get a form from your insurance agent naming the leasing company as the loss payee.

Don’t worry about doing this because, as I said, it usually won’t lead to an increase in what you’re paying now. Your insurance agent will know what you’re covered for, and will let you know right away if your office equipment is something that will be covered for what you’re paying now.

If you don’t provide this simple form to the leasing company then they have no choice but to automatically charge a higher rate then what you would pay normally.

Bottom line, when leasing a copier make sure you’re covered for accidental damages.