How much does insurance cost for an e-commerce business?

What an online seller has to carry, and who says so

No state requires a business to insure because it sells online. The requirements come from three other places: marketplace contracts, workers’ comp law once you have employees, and your own contracts (a warehouse lease, a lender, a 3PL agreement). The rest is optional, and the exposures that cost sellers the most are the optional ones.

• Marketplace contract (required to sell there). Amazon sets a general liability floor, covered below⁠⁶⁠⁷.
• Workers’ comp (required by state law). It follows your payroll, with warehouse and office staff rated separately. See the comp section.
• Product liability (optional by law, but it is the core risk). You can be pursued as seller, distributor or importer. It normally sits inside general liability as “products-completed operations”.
• Cyber (optional). Card-brand and acquirer rules apply whether or not you buy a policy⁠⁹.
• Stock and shipments (optional, but lenders and 3PLs often ask). Inventory sits under commercial property; goods moving between places fall under inland marine or carrier liability.

Amazon’s insurance requirement, as Amazon states it

Amazon publishes this in Seller Central. We read it in two Amazon staff posts in the Seller Forums (the Help page itself could not be opened without logging in, so the terms rest on those posts, one dated to the June 27, 2022 update, and Amazon can change them at any time). The terms below were checked on October 13, 2026:

Three consequences for cost:

1. The trigger is a monthly figure

   One $10,001 holiday month starts the 30-day clock. Annualized, $10,000 a month is $120,000 of sales (our calculation), so many small sellers hit it well before they feel like a “business” to an insurer.

2. The limit is a contract term

   Many small-business packages quote a lower per-occurrence limit by default. A $1 million occurrence and a $1 million aggregate are what Amazon requires, not what a quote includes unless you ask⁠⁶.

3. The deductible rule narrows your options

   Below $1 million of trailing-12-month Amazon sales, a deductible is not allowed⁠⁶⁠⁷. Price a zero-deductible quote against a deductible one only if you are above that line.

Other marketplaces and wholesale customers set their own terms. We have not verified those here.

E-commerce liability: published figures

The one figure we have for the category:

Insurer- and broker-reported figures from each company’s own customers, as published on its website; not a random sample of all businesses. Figures are rounded as published.

ERGO NEXT’s $60 is an average among its own e-commerce customers who bought GL in the prior 12 months (data updated April 2026)⁠⁵. It is $5 higher than NEXT’s retail average of $55 (our calculation). NEXT does not publish the limits behind either figure, so you cannot assume the $60 policy carries Amazon’s $1 million per-occurrence and aggregate limits. The Hartford’s retail figures are for its retail-store customers, not online sellers⁠¹¹. Insureon’s industry charts were not reproduced in our data. None of these is a regulator figure or a price for your product mix.

What actually moves a seller’s GL price is what you sell and where it comes from. We found no published rating formula for online sellers. Insurers ask about product categories, whether you import or private-label, annual sales, and claims history; a seller of paperback books and one of children’s sleepwear or supplements are not the same risk, and the underwriter will price them differently.

Importer, private-label, reseller: whose product is it

CPSC’s rule (16 CFR part 1110) requires domestic manufacturers and importers of children’s products to certify compliance in a written Children’s Product Certificate based on test results from a third-party, CPSC-accepted laboratory, and the certificate must identify the domestic manufacturer or importer certifying it⁠⁸. If you import goods or sell them under your own label, expect that to matter in three ways:

• Underwriting. The insurer will ask who certified the product and who is the “vendor” of record.
• Vendor’s endorsement. A reseller of other brands’ goods can ask for vendors coverage on its own policy, or additional-insured status on the supplier’s. A policy exclusion for imported goods or for specific categories is a reason to read the form, not the quote summary.
• Recall costs. Standard GL pays for injury or damage claims, not for the cost of pulling product. Recall expense is a separate product-recall cover, and we have no published figure for its cost.

Cyber and card data

Insureon reports $129 a month, or $1,552 a year, among its small-business cyber customers. Its page calls the figure an average but says it is calculated as the median cost of policies sold to its customers (page updated April 24, 2026)⁠¹⁰:

Insurer- and broker-reported figures from each company’s own customers, as published on its website; not a random sample of all businesses. Figures are rounded as published.

Use this as a reference, not a quote. Three facts shape what an online store actually needs:

• PCI DSS is private rules, not law. It applies to entities that store, process or transmit cardholder data. Whether you must validate compliance is up to the card brands and your acquirer⁠⁹.
• How you take payment changes the exposure. If a hosted checkout handles the card number, you hold less card data. An insurer will still ask about it, and the policy form, not the marketing page, defines which breach costs are covered.
• Cyber is separate from GL. GL responds to bodily injury and property damage. Breach notification, forensics and extortion payments are cyber items.

The cyber liability guide covers limits, sub-limits and waiting periods.

Workers’ comp: warehouse and office are different classes

An e-commerce company usually has two payroll groups: people who pick, pack and ship, and people at desks. Comp is rated by class, and the gap between those two is the largest figure on this page. These are official rates from the state funds. The class that fits your own operation is for your insurer or state fund to assign; the codes below are the nearest general ones, not a determination.

Base rates set by the state fund before experience modification. Ohio and Wyoming charge per $100 of payroll; Washington charges per hour worked, and part is withheld from wages. Other states’ insurers file their own rates; see where rates are published.

• Ohio. Storage warehouse NOC (8292) is $2.5553 per $100 and clerical office (8810) is $0.0466, so a warehouse payroll dollar costs 55 times an office one (our calculation, rates from July 1, 2026)⁠¹. Retail store NOC (8017) is $0.6188⁠¹.
• Washington. Warehouses NOC (2102) is $1.6525 per hour worked and clerical (4904) is $0.2223, a ratio of 7.4 (our calculation, 2026)⁠². Washington charges by hour, not payroll.
• Wyoming. Warehousing and Storage (493000) is $2.27 per $100 and the clerical exception code (000010) is $0.31 (2026)⁠³.

Worked example, our calculation with assumed inputs and Ohio’s 2026 base rates (before experience modification): $200,000 of warehouse payroll is 2,000 units of $100, times $2.5553, or $5,110.60. $100,000 of office payroll is 1,000 units times $0.0466, or $46.60. The total is $5,157.20, and 99% of it comes from the warehouse. Moving a few people from desk to warehouse work changes the premium much more than adding to the office.

For the cost to the employer in all private industry, BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (June 2026) gives this figure for workers’ comp per hour worked⁠⁴:

Average employer cost per employee hour worked for workers' compensation and for health insurance, averaged across all workers in the group, plus workers' compensation as a percent of total compensation. Group averages mix high- and low-risk jobs, so they are not a premium rate for any single business. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), National Compensation Survey, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private industry workers, released 9 Sep 2026.

Insurer-reported comp prices for this category do not exist in our data. ERGO NEXT’s nearest figure is for retail ($89 a month, April 2026), and it covers its own retail customers, not warehouse operations⁠¹². Use the workers’ comp guide and the state requirements table to see when the first employee triggers the duty in your state.

Inventory, goods in transit and who owns the loss

Stock is covered, if at all, under commercial property at the location where it is kept, and the commercial property guide explains valuation (cost or selling price) and coinsurance. We found no published insurer or regulator figure for inventory cover on online sellers, so we give none.

What to verify before buying:

• Where the stock sits. A home garage, a rented unit, a 3PL’s warehouse and an Amazon fulfillment center each fall under a different party’s insurance. Ask whether your policy covers stock at locations you do not own, and which sub-limit applies.
• Who bears the loss in transit. Goods moving between your supplier, your warehouse and your customer can be covered by an inland marine policy, a carrier’s limited liability or neither; see inland marine. Look at the terms of each shipment’s contract rather than assume.
• Business interruption. If a supplier or a single warehouse is your only source of sales, the loss of that site is an income loss; the property policy must include it expressly.

A single-owner seller with stock and a computer may fit a business owner’s policy, which combines GL and property. The Hartford reports its retail customers pay an average of $152 a month for a BOP (page updated May 20, 2026), a storefront figure not measured against online sellers⁠¹¹.

Building the budget

1. List the contract floors

   Amazon’s $1 million limit, any lease requirement, and a lender’s property requirement set the minimum. Write the limits down first, then price⁠⁶.

2. Split payroll into warehouse and office

   Apply the class rates above, or your state’s, to each group; use the example as a template⁠¹⁠²⁠³.

3. Decide on imports

   If you import or private-label, ask the insurer in writing how it treats products you certified yourself⁠⁸.

4. Price cyber as a separate quote

   Compare it with Insureon’s $129 median only as a reference point⁠¹⁰.

5. Compare the quotes on limits, not the price

   Check the per-occurrence and aggregate limits, the deductible and the additional-insured wording against the table above.

For storefront sellers the retail stores page shows the figures for shops with customers on site.

Sources

1. 1
   Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation / Ohio Administrative Code, OAC 4123-17-06, Appendix A: base rates effective July 1, 2026 (private employers) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
2. 2
   Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, 2026 hourly rates by risk classification Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
3. 3
   Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, Workers' compensation 2026 industry base rates by classification Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
4. 4
   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (released Sept. 9, 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
5. 5
   ERGO NEXT, How much does general liability insurance cost? (data updated April 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
6. 6
   Amazon Seller Central, Commercial Liability Insurance Requirements (Seller Forums, Amazon staff post) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
7. 7
   Amazon Seller Central, Updates to the Commercial Liability Insurance Program Policy (effective June 27, 2022) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
8. 8
   U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Children's Product Certificate Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
9. 9
   PCI Security Standards Council, PCI DSS overview Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
10. 10
    Insureon, How much does cyber insurance cost? Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
11. 11
    The Hartford, How much does a business owner's policy cost? (updated 05/20/2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
12. 12
    ERGO NEXT, How much does workers' comp insurance cost? (data updated April 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑

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