How can business owners protect themselves and their customers from liability when they reopen?

It's going to be a harder case to prove, the client or the employee are going to have to prove they contracted the virus during working hours.  If they have (employee) and know it and still come to work then the case is easier.  I'm sure there will be some dirty bags that will file a lawsuit at any request.  Also you are going to have to prove harm.

Have safety procedures for your workplace and then train every employee in their job assignment and how to use their personal protective equipment PPE.  Enforce it 100%.  minimum things like spills of any kind, careless in doing the cleaning, things in the wrong place, and distractions can be very costly if you don't prevent them.  One big source of distractions in the workplace and classrooms are the cell-phones.  Treat your workers and customers as Assets, invest in them, respect them, pay them well; and we all will have the benefit of human-Quality in all areas of our lives.

We are opening up our office today, but closing 2 hours early at 3:30pm. Those two hours we are to clean any surfaces that our customers including ourselves might have touched.  Every hour during the day we have to sanitize our desk and computer and the chairs for hour customers. The bathroom is closed to the public, only available to the employees. We are limiting 8 members at a time in our office.  We wear face protection all day long. We supply pens when our member needs to sign anything and we can't take the pen back, either the member keeps it or we throw it away.  Also, the water fountain is not available to our members either. Trying t

As discussed, The best way to protect yourself is to define safety SOPs and to religiously follow them. Also,  now that the vaccines are available everywhere, you can always demand to see the certificate before allowing them inside your facility. Another way is to make sure your insurance policy, after renewal, contains coronavirus coverage. Its a situation that will have to be made the best of.

Comprehensive General Liability Insurance should provide a business with liability coverage if someone has bodily injury from the coronavirus on your premises.  This policy will provide a business with legal defense.  Workers' Compensation Insurance will cover an employer if an employee gets sick with the coronavirus at work.  Employment Practices Liability is also very important insurance in case the employer is sued by an employee during this crisis,  Everyone needs to wear facemasks and keep distance from one another.  Management should also require everyone's temperature should be taken every day and sick employees need to stay home.

First, how would it be determined exactly where they came in contact with the virus? From a liability stand point, we are doing our due diligence. We are posting the corona virus recommended guidelines for self distancing on the front door as well as markings on the floor 6ft between workspace and client seating. Every desk, work station, common areas will have hand sanitizer available. High touch surfaces will be cleaned multiple times through out the day. Employees that are not comfortable coming into the office will still be allowed to work remotely.  

1. Each case will be different, but it's going to be a difficult case to prove. The client or the employee will have to prove that they contracted the virus during a visit to their store or office, or while working in the store or office. (Unless few people who visited that specific business  got sick with Covid 19) But first, would it be determined exactly where they encountered the virus. From a liability standpoint, most business are tacking the right steps to protect all of us.
2. At this point our office still closed. (We are working remotely)
3. After Reopening, we are going to Limit the amount of people in our office, we will see clients only by appointment, and we are going to keep a daily record of the people who came into our office.
4. We are Filling up applications by phone or by zoom call and use an e signature, most Life Insurance companies are taking this type of e-apps.  Our business partners that are not comfortable coming into the office will still be allowed to work remotely for as long as they can.
5. Protecting our Business Partners and our clientele health and safety is our number 1 priority. We are doing what we can do to protect our company from liability and risk. And keeping our office sanitized, that will help as well.

I've received quite a number of very different answers to the question 

"Does workers comp insurance cover coronavirus contracted while on the job?". They can be viewed here.

If your business employs Limited English Proficient (LEP) employees, and/or serves non-English-speaking customers, in order to protect your business from liability you might want to consider translating your Employee Handbook spelling our your Company's Coronavirus Policy into the languages of your non-English-speaking workers, and displaying your Coronavirus Policy translated into the languages of your non-English-speaking customers.

Unfortunately, we do not know yet -- as this is being debated in Senate.  We will all have to wait.  However, if it is anything like usual liability issues, liability must be proven that COVID-19 was not exposed somewhere else and only at one place of business.  Until our government figures this out, we will all have to wait and see.

Talk to insurance agent to see if you need more coverage and remember to have him to explain why. No such thing as "you need it" Than go work  a little harder and smarted to build your business back. Best thing remember how you got here.  If it worked before it will, work again.