Compare Small Business Insurance is an independent comparison and education site for US small business owners. We publish plain-English guides on what business insurance costs and what each policy actually covers, and we connect owners with A-rated carriers who can quote them online in minutes.
What we do, in one paragraph
Most small business owners buy insurance once, under time pressure, because a landlord or a client contract demands it — and they have no idea whether the number they are quoted is fair. We publish the benchmark: what general liability, professional liability (E&O), a business owner’s policy, workers’ compensation and the rest typically cost in 2026, broken down by trade, by state and by coverage limit. Then we point you at a carrier who will quote you for real, so you can check your number against the benchmark before you sign anything.
Who runs this site
Compare Small Business Insurance is owned and operated by CP Ventures, a small independent digital publishing company founded by Chad Penfold (LLB, BCom Accounting). The site is not owned by, funded by, or operated on behalf of any insurance carrier, agency or broker. Editorial decisions — which policies we cover, what figures we publish, which carriers we recommend — are made by us and only by us.
We are a publisher and a referral service, not a licensed insurance producer. We do not sell insurance, we do not bind coverage, we do not service policies, and we do not handle claims. When you are ready to buy, you transact directly with the insurer or the licensed agent they put you in front of.
How we make money
This site is free to use and carries no paywall, because we are paid by the companies we refer business to. When you click through to a partner such as Hiscox and request a quote or buy a policy, that partner may pay us a commission or referral fee. You never pay more because you came through us — the price you are quoted is the carrier’s own price.
That arrangement is a real conflict of interest and we would rather name it than bury it. Our full explanation of who pays us, what they pay us for, and the rules we hold ourselves to lives on the advertiser disclosure page. How we research and fact-check the numbers we publish is on the editorial policy page.
How we produce our cost figures
Every dollar figure on this site is an illustrative benchmark, not a quote. We build them from three inputs:
- Carrier-advertised pricing — the “from” prices insurers publish for their own small business products.
- Published industry medians — premium ranges reported by carriers, brokers and industry bodies for typical small business risk profiles.
- Standard assumptions we state on the page — usually a $1 million per-occurrence / $2 million aggregate limit, a low-to-moderate risk trade, modest revenue, and no prior claims.
Where a figure is a range, we say so. Where a figure comes from one carrier’s advertised rate, we name the carrier. Insurance is individually underwritten: your actual premium depends on your state, trade, revenue, payroll, claims history, limits and deductible, and only a real quote will tell you what it is.
Who we compare
We currently refer quote requests to Hiscox, an A-rated (AM Best) specialist small business insurer that quotes and binds general liability, professional liability and business owner’s policies online. We chose Hiscox as our lead partner because it underwrites the trades our readers actually run — consultants, contractors, photographers, cleaners, IT and creative freelancers — and because it will give a solo operator a real price online in about five minutes without a phone call.
We deliberately do not run a quote form. Handing your phone number to a comparison site usually means handing it to a dozen buyers you never chose, and we would rather not be part of that. Our cost calculator gives you a benchmark without asking for anything at all, and when you want a real price you go directly to the carrier. We are actively adding carriers, and we will name every one of them here as they go live.
Our guides
We publish two kinds of content. Cost guides answer the money question for one coverage type — for example how much small business insurance costs, the average cost of general liability insurance, or average business insurance cost by state. Trade and state guides answer the coverage question for one kind of business in one place — what a photographer in Arizona or an IT consultant in Texas actually needs and why. Our cost calculator combines both: it estimates your premium from your trade, size, state and coverage in a few seconds.
Everything is written in-house by our team. We do not publish sponsored posts, we do not accept paid guest articles, and we do not let a partner review a page before it goes live. See the full guide library.
Contact us
Questions, corrections, partnership enquiries and press all go through the contact page, and we aim to reply within two business days. If you spot a figure you think is wrong, tell us — we will check it and correct it, and our corrections policy explains how.