Best Wholesale Business Insurance

The Hartford leads our rankings for wholesale business insurance with a MoneyGeek score of 4.73 out of 5 and annual costs of $563. It earned perfect scores across affordability, customer service, coverage availability, making it our top choice for wholesale companies. Compare quotes from Coverdash, biBERK and NEXT since each brings unique strengths to wholesale distributors.

Note: We based all scores on a wholesale business with two employees across professional liability, general liability, workers' comp and BOP policies.

Coverdash leads in affordability for wholesale business insurance at $556 annually, offering the cheapest general liability and BOP coverage among companies we studied. The Hartford provides the lowest professional liability rates at $664 per year, while NEXT offers the most affordable workers' comp at $227 annually.

Coverdash offers the cheapest general liability insurance for wholesale distributors at $406 annually ($34 monthly), saving wholesale companies $132 per year compared to the $538 industry average. The Hartford ranks second at $472 annually, while Progressive Commercial offers third-lowest rates at $503 per year for wholesale operations.

Wholesale distributors pay $454 annually ($38 monthly) for the cheapest workers' compensation coverage through NEXT. The Hartford and Thimble follow next, with rates of $455 and $462, respectively.

The Hartford offers the most affordable professional liability insurance for wholesale companies at $664 annually ($55 monthly), saving you $75 compared to the $739 industry average. NEXT ranks second at $688 per year, followed by Progressive Commercial at $703 annually. Wholesale distributors choosing The Hartford save 10% on professional liability coverage.

Coverdash charges wholesale businesses just $589 annually ($49 monthly) for the cheapest Business Owners' Policy coverage, $205 below the $794 industry average. The 26% savings makes Coverdash the top choice for wholesale operations needing combined general liability and property protection. The Hartford ranks second at $650 per year, while biBERK offers third-lowest rates at $717 annually.

In general, wholesale business insurance costs are the following for the four most popular coverage types:

• General Liability: $45 on average per month, ranging from $39 to $52, depending on the state
• Workers' Comp: $40 on average per month, ranging from $34 to $46, depending on the state
• Professional Liability (E&O): $62 on average per month, ranging from $54 to $72, depending on the state
• BOP Insurance: $66 on average per month, ranging from $57 to $78, depending on the state

The coverage types wholesalers need start with workers' compensation if you employ anyone and commercial auto insurance for your delivery vehicles. Your wholesale business also needs financial protection against the specific risks you face daily: injuries in your warehouse, damage to inventory worth thousands and liability claims from the products you distribute.

• Workers' Compensation Insurance: Most states require workers' comp for wholesale businesses that have employees. Your warehouse team faces real risks every shift. Back injuries from loading 50-pound boxes onto pallets, crushed fingers from forklift accidents, hernias from repetitive heavy lifting. When your receiving clerk falls off a loading dock or a picker gets struck by falling inventory, it pays their medical bills and replaces lost wages during recovery.
• Commercial Auto Insurance: Most states require this coverage for business-owned vehicles. Whether you're delivering electronics to retailers or transporting perishable goods across town, your drivers are on the road constantly. When your delivery driver rear-ends another vehicle during rush hour or causes a multi-car accident on the highway, you're looking at vehicle repairs, medical expenses and legal fees. Standard limits of $500,000 to $1 million protect your wholesale business from these costs.
• General Liability Insurance: A retail buyer slips on your oil-stained warehouse floor during a product inspection, or your forklift operator accidentally damages a client's delivery truck while loading. Most wholesalers choose policies with $1 million per-occurrence limits and $2 million aggregate limits. Beyond covering lawsuits, many retailers won't sign distribution contracts without proof of this coverage. It's essential for landing and keeping accounts.
• Commercial Property Insurance: A late-night electrical fire destroys your entire inventory of imported goods, or a burst pipe floods your warehouse over the weekend and ruins $200,000 worth of stock. It protects your building, refrigeration units, conveyor systems, shelving and inventory from fires, storms, theft and water damage. It's the financial lifeline that keeps your wholesale operation running after disasters wipe out your facility.
• Product Liability Insurance: A batch of imported tools has defective wiring that starts a house fire, or mislabeled food products trigger severe allergic reactions. Wholesalers can be held liable when products injure customers or cause property damage. This matters especially if you import directly from overseas manufacturers, repackage bulk items into smaller quantities, or put your brand name on products. All these activities increase your liability exposure in the supply chain.
• Inland Marine Insurance: Covers items in transit and stored off-site, as opposed to property insurance which only covers items at your business location. Your $50,000 shipment of electronics gets stolen from an overnight delivery truck, or products worth $30,000 are destroyed when your cargo van crashes during transport. Standard property insurance stops protecting goods the moment they leave your warehouse. This coverage bridges that gap.
• Cyber Liability Insurance: Recommended for any business that stores credit card numbers or other sensitive data. Hackers breach your system and steal payment information from 500 retail accounts, or ransomware locks you out of your inventory management system during peak season. Beyond the immediate crisis, you're facing mandatory breach notifications, credit monitoring costs for affected clients, forensic investigations and potential lawsuits. These expenses can exceed $100,000 for a single incident.

Getting business insurance for your wholesale operation involves comparing quotes from multiple carriers and securing coverage that matches your specific distribution risks at competitive rates.

Your wholesale operation needs protection against the risks you face daily, from employee injuries in the warehouse to delivery vehicle accidents and damage to thousands in inventory. The Hartford earned our top rating with a MoneyGeek score of 4.73 out of 5, excelling across affordability, coverage and customer service. If you're watching costs closely, Coverdash offers general liability at $34 monthly and complete coverage starting at $46.

Common questions about wholesale business insurance:

We selected the best business insurer for wholesale companies based on the following criteria:

• Affordability (50% of score): The lower a company's costs compared to the competition based on our base profile for four core coverage types, the better the company performs.
• Customer service (30% of score): We scored providers on overall customer satisfaction using industry studies, customer review forum ratings and public forum sentiment analysis from sites like Reddit.
• Coverage (15% of score): We scored business insurance providers for this category based on the flexibility, payment and actual coverage options.
• Financial stability (5% of score): Using financial stability industry ratings from companies like AM Best and Moody's, we created an overall rating to judge how likely companies are to pay out claims compared to the competition.

All pricing in this article is based on the following base profile to represent the vast majority of small businesses in all states:

• Three-person business with two employees
• Coverage: $1 million per occurrence and $2 million total per year for all but BOP, which includes the same coverage plus $5,000 of business property coverage
• $150,000 in payroll
• $300,000 annual revenue