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Small business insurance is not one product. It is a stack of policies, and the total depends entirely on which ones your business actually needs. Published 2026 marketplace data gives us solid median benchmarks for each line, so you can budget with real numbers instead of guesses.
The per-policy medians
These are national medians for standard small-business profiles, drawn from published 2026 insurance marketplace data. Your quote will differ by state, industry, revenue, and claims history.
General liability: about $45 per month, roughly $540 a year. This is the foundation policy most businesses buy first, typically at $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate. Our general liability cost guide goes deeper on what moves it.
Business owner’s policy (BOP): about $83 per month. A BOP bundles general liability with commercial property and often business interruption, and it usually costs less than buying those coverages separately. See our BOP cost and coverage guide.
Workers’ compensation: about $45 per month, roughly $540 a year, though this varies more than any other line because it is priced per $100 of payroll by class code. Our workers comp cost by industry guide has the breakdowns.
Professional liability (E&O): about $60 to $88 per month, roughly $720 to $1,050 a year. Service businesses and anyone selling expertise should budget for this.
Commercial auto: about $142 per month, roughly $1,704 a year. This is the priciest common line, and 44% of small businesses pay under $1,500 a year for it.
Cyber liability: about $140 per month. Any business holding customer data or payment information should price this in.
Commercial umbrella: about $40 per month for an additional $1 million of coverage over your underlying policies.
What the totals look like
Most single-policy small-business premiums land between $40 and $150 a month. A typical multi-policy program runs $150 to $500 a month, and published cost guides put the common annual range for core coverages at roughly $500 to $3,500 a year. A solo consultant with GL and professional liability might pay under $1,500 a year total. A 20-employee restaurant with GL, workers comp, commercial auto, and a BOP could pay $25,000 a year across five lines. Both are normal small business insurance costs.
The five factors that move every quote
Industry classification. The single largest cost driver. Insurers assign a class code based on your industry and operations, and premiums can vary tenfold between low-risk and high-risk classifications.
Revenue and payroll. These are proxies for the scale of your operations and therefore the probability of a claim. Bigger operations pay more, all else equal.
Location. States with plaintiff-friendly legal environments, including California, New York, Florida, and Illinois, see meaningfully higher premiums than states with more restrictive tort law.
Claims history. A clean five-year loss history earns preferred pricing. A history of claims pushes you into higher tiers or makes some carriers unwilling to quote.
Coverage choices. Higher limits, lower deductibles, and broader endorsements all cost more. The trick is buying limits that match your actual exposure instead of defaulting to the cheapest or the most expensive option.
Where businesses overpay
The most common overpayments: misclassified workers comp class codes (desk workers rated as operational staff), buying commercial auto limits far above any realistic exposure, stacking redundant endorsements across policies, and never remarketing at renewal. Review the full program every year with your agent or broker. A thirty-minute annual review regularly finds savings that dwarf the effort.
And remember the tax angle: most of these premiums are deductible as ordinary and necessary business expenses. Our guide to business insurance tax deductions explains what qualifies and the exceptions.
