You need business insurance on Amazon. Here’s exactly how to get business insurance and get it approved on Amazon Seller Central.

Note: this article may reference paid tools and services, including insurance providers, and may contain affiliate links.

How Amazon Notifies You

You may have received an email or performance notification that looks something like this: thank you for maintaining commercial liability insurance. What they’re asking is that within the next 30 days you need insurance. In this case, Amazon asked once the account hit $110,000 in a month, though Amazon may also request it at other times at its own discretion. You only have 30 days to verify this, and if you don’t, your account can be suspended.

So you need to get business insurance on Amazon once they ask. Before they ask, if they don’t ask, I wouldn’t recommend getting it unless you’re making a lot of money, but once they ask, it’s time to get it. Make sure you’re checking your actual Amazon email on a regular basis, or you could end up suspended without much warning. I didn’t even get a performance notification for this myself, it was just an email. So here’s how to do it, starting with where to report it.

Log In to Your Account and Go to Your Business Information

Log in on desktop and go to Account Info, then Business Information, and there it is: Business Insurance. Here’s an example marked “verified successfully” to show what it looks like once it’s done. Business insurance usually lasts a year and has to be renewed annually, but this is where you’ll manage it. Click Add New Policy and fill out the information on the next screen. To get the cheapest business insurance available, in this case around $25 a month, search “Next Insurance Amazon Seller Insurance” on Google.

Getting an Instant Quote

Look for “buy business insurance” and you’ll get an instant quote. Let’s go through this quote together.

Step by Step: Business Details

Choose retail and e-commerce, then enter the state you live in (Florida, in this example). You can follow the same steps or take your time and do it yourself. For the email, I used a test address, though you’ll want to use a real one in case they ask you to verify it. From there: tell them about your business, select “none of the above,” then continue and enter your first name.

Make sure you use your legal business name, matching what’s on your Amazon account exactly (in this example, “Hackett LLC”). All the information here is just an example and not the real business, but the steps are the exact ones you should follow. If you don’t have a legal business name, you can use the full name that’s listed on your Amazon account instead. You can double check your legal business name under Tax Information in Seller Central, or under your legal entity details, which should match.

Location and Company Information

For primary location, make sure it matches the address on your Amazon Seller Central account exactly, you can check this under Account Info. Then fill out your company information: select individual or LLC, enter the year you started your business, and the number of owners. Fill this out as accurately as you can, since it affects your pricing. For revenue, this example used $5,000, and for the type of business, just “Amazon.”

Merchant Token and Business Category

Next you’ll need your Merchant Token. To find it, go to Account Info, then Business Information, and locate your Merchant Token there, then enter it in the quote form. For “do you directly import,” select no. For business category, Home and Garden tends to work well. After that, you’ll answer a handful of yes/no questions, mostly no’s, including confirming you don’t sell illegal items. For coverage start date, you can select as soon as tomorrow.

If something goes wrong and you don’t get a quote, try again with a completely different email address rather than reusing the same one, since reusing it tends to get an automatic no. You don’t need a different computer, just a different email.

Choosing Coverage and Certificate Setup

In this example, the premier coverage came out to $25 a month. After paying, you’re charged for the first and last month upfront, which came to around $27 a month once the service fee was added, one of the cheaper options available. Once you pay, you’ll land on a confirmation page, and possibly a couple of additional steps, before you can get your certificate. From there, you’ll want to create a custom certificate.

Create a Custom Certificate

This step matters: if you just submit the default certificate, it likely won’t get approved. Click Create Custom Certificate, then Create Manually, and add Amazon’s information. You can find the correct wording by searching “Helium 10 Amazon insurance” (a tool worth checking out) and scrolling down to the relevant section. Enter it as “Amazon.com Services LLC and its Affiliates and Assigns,” along with the street address, 98108, Washington. Double check that address, in this case adding it has worked reliably, but leaving it off tends to get the certificate denied by Amazon.

From there: confirm and continue, click next, skip the optional step, then next and submit. Once submitted, you’ll get your certificate, and the bottom of it should show the wording Amazon is looking for.

Submitting the Policy on Amazon

Back in Amazon Seller Central, go to Account Info, then Business Information, then Business Insurance, and click Add New Policy. For the insurer name, don’t put “Next Insurance,” use the actual insurer name printed on the policy document. For your own name, make sure it matches your legal entity name on Amazon exactly, though you can update it later if needed. Add your policy number, along with the start and end dates, which run for a year. Check the actual dates on your policy rather than guessing.

Select “I bought insurance from an Amazon Insurance Accelerator participant,” upload the file, and submit. Amazon typically responds within about two days with an approval or denial, and will tell you if something’s off. As long as the legal entity name and insurer name both match what’s on file, it should go through.

Outro

If you need help with this, feel free to contact EHP Consultant Group. We specialize in helping sellers succeed on Amazon.