Archive for August, 2009

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Tradesmens insurance cover

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

In the un-politically correct world of commercial insurance, you can choose to purchase a tradesmens insurance policy. Unfortunately insurers have not moved to providing tradespersons cover….yet.

If you are in a construction related trade, such as a builder, plumber, electrician, carpenter or painter and decorator, it is sensible to have cover in case you cause any damage to other peoples property or indeed other people. This cover is called public liability. You may also have to prove this cover is in force if you are an appointed sub-contractor.

A tradesmens insurance policy must include, as a minimum, public liability. You can additionally buy employers liability and tools insurance. The policies are rated on a per capita, or number of partners/employees basis. Most insurers will cover a maximum of 10 on one policy. Once you get above this limit, you will need a separate combined liability insurance policy or specialist contractors all risks insurance.

Cover for public liability at a limit of indemnity of £1,000,000 for a carpenter will be available for prices starting at £65.00 per annum. Speak to an independent business insurance broker and they will seek quotes from a number of insurers to get the best price and cover for you.

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Cafe insurance

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Choosing the right business insurance policy is important. The reasons being that each type of trade will need to have certain types of cover. If you have a cafe, takeaway, restaurant or coffee shop you need to make sure you have the right type of policy. At the right price of course!

Cafe insurance policies will provide the usual types of cover a business will need. Buildings, contents, stock, employers, public and products liability and business interruption.

In addition, a cafe or any business that serves food for consumption on or off the premises will need to have the following covers:-

1) Suitable public liability if they have seating on a public pathway. Most local authorities insist on a minimum public liability limit of indemnity of £5,000,000.

2) Frozen or refrigerated food cover. This should include cover if the freezer breaks down as will as if there is a power cut.

3) Products liability. Claims, whether justified or not, are on the increase for people claiming to have been made ill from the products they consume.

4) Commercial legal expenses insurance. This should include employment tribunal legal costs as there is a steady and apparently never ending upward curve in employees going to a tribunal.

5) In addition to shop front glass cover, which should be a minimum for any shop insurance type policy, you will need to have cover for all lettering. If a window is broken, the new lettering can be more expensive than getting the glass replaced in the first place.

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Rebuilding sums insured

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Previous blogs have mentioned the importance of having the correct sum insured when arranging commercial building insurance.

When insurance companies provide quotes, they will expect you to read through and understand the policy wording. The difficulty is that a policy wording can be 60 or 70 pages long. With the best will in the world it is not something that is easy to understand.

This does raise the benefits of appointing an insurance broker to help you with the quote, because they need to make you aware of any terms, conditions, warranties and excesses. However, when you do arrange a property owners insurance policy you will need to understand what the building sum insured represents.

When declaring your sum insured, you need to insure for a figure which represents the combined value of the following:-

1) The full rebuilding cost in the event of a total loss.
2) The cost of debris removal costs (including asbestos removal)
3) All legal fees
4) All architects and/or surveyors fees.

Whilst 1 will be the highest cost, you can easily add a further 20-25% to this figure to take account of 2, 3 and 4.

To ensure you have the correct figure, you may need to appoint a specialist surveyor to provide a report confirming the correct reinstatement sum insured. Unfortunately, the insurers will not pay for this. It is a cost you must bear yourself.

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Building and property insurance – check you have adequate sums insured

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Commercial building insurance policies are different to those covering residential insurance. Whilst the basic policy is the same, in that it covers the structure (bricks and mortar), the glass and the property owners liability there are two main differences.

Firstly, commercial property insurance policies can, and usually do, include loss of rent – payable or receivable. Most businesses or individuals own a commercial property with the intention of earning income, through the rent receivable. If you are on an insuring and repairing lease, you may need to include insurance for the rent payable to the landlord.

The second difference is in the sum insured. Most residential or domestic insurers will cover a standard amount, say up to £400,000. You do not have to prove the rebuilding cost, unless it is in excess of this figure. For commercial property, you need to declare a rebuilding cost when taking out the policy. Your insurance broker or insurer cannot suggest a rebuilding cost. Each property is different. If your sum insured is not adequate, you may face problems with claims being reduced accordingly.

To ensure you have cover on the correct basis, if you are not certain that the sum insured represents the rebuilding cost, get a professional valuation report from a quantity surveyor. Whilst this may cost a few hundred pounds, it will save you money in the long run.

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Precision engineers insurance

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Certain commercial insurance companies have specialist products for certain types of trade. For example, motor garages will be insured on a motor trade insurance package policy. The same is true of the UK’s metal manufacturing companies, many insurers have specialist precision engineering insurance policies.

The very nature of these businesses is that they have high sums insured for machinery, they tend to keep a lot of expensive stock including non-ferrous metals and their employers liability risk is quite high due to the nature of the work they are doing.

It is for this reason that they are better to seek a specialist policy rather than being covered on a standard commercial combined insurance package.

When looking for a new business quote or seeking alternatives at renewal, a precision engineering or general engineering company is better asking a business insurance broker to obtain quotes.

The benefits of appointing an insurance broker, rather than buying insurance direct are:-

1) The broker will do this for nothing as they will only earn their fee or commission when you agree to their quote.
2) They will do a full review of all your insurance requirements.
3) They will know which, of the hundred of insurers, to approach for your particular trade.
4) Finally, you will start to build a relationship with your broker who will be able to help you through any claims you may have.

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Business insurance costs increasing? Don't you believe it.

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Believe it or not, the UK insurance industry has three regular magazines/newspapers. One is printed weekly and the others monthly. The latest issues contain details of how everything from basic business insurance, to professional indemnity insurance premiums are increasing.

However, this message needs to be viewed with caution. Of course, insurers are starting to feel the pain of the recession – and why not, everyone else is hurting. However, insurers do have themselves to blame partly. Whilst the recession is not their fault, they have been underpricing many of their products for years and subsidising this with investment income returns.

So, they are now starting to feel the pinch with less people insuring and claims on the increase. If your insurance broker tells you that your premium has gone up by more than just index-linking, then look around for an alternative. Index linking figures being applied to commercial building insurance are in the region of 2-5%, depending on the insurers. For other building insurance, eg residential, the figures are nearer to 2-3%.

Just because your current insurer is pushing up the premium for your cover it does not mean that you will not be able to get a better premium for the same, if not better cover.

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Business insurance costs increasing? Don’t you believe it.

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Believe it or not, the UK insurance industry has three regular magazines/newspapers. One is printed weekly and the others monthly. The latest issues contain details of how everything from basic business insurance, to professional indemnity insurance premiums are increasing.

However, this message needs to be viewed with caution. Of course, insurers are starting to feel the pain of the recession – and why not, everyone else is hurting. However, insurers do have themselves to blame partly. Whilst the recession is not their fault, they have been underpricing many of their products for years and subsidising this with investment income returns.

So, they are now starting to feel the pinch with less people insuring and claims on the increase. If your insurance broker tells you that your premium has gone up by more than just index-linking, then look around for an alternative. Index linking figures being applied to commercial building insurance are in the region of 2-5%, depending on the insurers. For other building insurance, eg residential, the figures are nearer to 2-3%.

Just because your current insurer is pushing up the premium for your cover it does not mean that you will not be able to get a better premium for the same, if not better cover.

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Guest House Insurance

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

It is difficult to find a definition of a guest house or a hotel. Most insurance companies have their own ways of splitting these down which will additionally include bed and breakfast establishments.

Most commercial insurance companies will treat a hotel as any establishment with 6 or more letting rooms. Bed and breakfasts will usually be those with up to three letting rooms.

If you run a bed and breakfast you will usually need to register with your local authority and/or the local tourist board. They will, in most cases, insist that you have adequate public liability insurance cover. Sensible limits of indemnity are £2,000,000 and upwards.

You need to be careful as most home insurers will allow you to offer rooms to paying guests, but they will not extend your public liability cover. You will need to look for a separate guest house insurance policy. The problem you may face is that this will be more expensive than your usual home insurance, because of the increased risks. One option is to leave your buildings insurance with your home insurer (after getting their agreement that this can be used as a guest house) and then get a separate business insurance covering the assets, contents and public liability.

You need to speak to a business insurance broker if you take any DSS tenants as very few insurers are able, or happy, to offer this cover.

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Doctors, dentists and vets surgery insurance cover

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Business insurance is available for all types of business, whatever trade and whatever size, a bespoke policy or package is available.

Most UK based commercial insurance companies will offer office insurance package policies. These will include the types of cover usually required for offices, such as buildings, business assets, stock, liabilities, money and business interruption.

As far as doctors surgery insurance or practice insurance cover is concerned, most insurers will offer cover based on an office insurance policy. These, slightly altered, policies are also used for dentists insurance and vets insurance policies.

They will include the usual office covers noted above but should have additional covers included. The additional, specialist, covers will include precious metals cover, refrigerated medicines cover, locum insurance employee cover and cover for doctors and vets bags and belongings away from the surgery.

One type of cover that is not included in these policies is professional indemnity or professional negligence cover. This would usually be provided as a separate policy or more usually through a particular trade body.

So, if you are a practice manager looking for business insurance you will probably be offered an office insurance package, but make sure it has the additional covers you need.

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Office insurance – employees personal effects

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

A recent, genuine claim, straight out of a film. The MD of one of our larger clients got his £900 suite caught in a shredder, luckily for him, it was only the jacket.

The films would of course have this being the persons tie, while they were wearing it. But, the claim was for the suit and a very expensive one at that. These things do happen and you would rightfully expect the insurance policy to cover the damage to the employees personal effects.

They had an office insurance policy and yes, included within the contents section was a limit of up to £5,000 for employees personal effects.

I wondered whether some of the online “cheap as chips policies” would offer this cover. I did check on a couple of other policies, one shop insurance and the other a hotel insurance policy, via some of the online sites which offer to compare insurance for you.

Surprisingly, one of them did not cover this at all and the other had a limit of £100in respect of each claim. Buying on price is a good thing, but you really do need to check on the product.

The secret is to speak to a business insurance broker and get them to seek out the best policy at the cheapest price. You just need to talk to someone, you’d be surprised at how much quicker this is than going through the process online.

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