Arson, is not an offence. This may be surprising but the Criminal Damage Act 1971 actually abolished this as an offence, but continue to allow the term to be used when charging someone. In Scotland, Arson is known as wilful fire raising.

The CDA 1971 covers offences of damage to other persons property (including by fire). Arson can be broken down to two categories, arson with a potential financial gain and arson as a malicious act.

Commercial insurance policies do not usually specify or include the word arson. They provide cover for fire (amongst other perils) this means that any cause of fire is covered. For example, if a neighbouring property catches fire and this spreads, you are covered.

If you set fire to your own property, whether for financial gain or not, you are not covered. Insurance is there to cover unexpected eventualities. You would be covered though if a neighbour set fire to their own property and this, unfortunately, spread to your property.

The one thing to watch out for is your excess, this should be around £200 to £250.

In order for us to provide a commercial building insurance quote, we need to undertake a “fact find” process. Every insurance broker must go through this so that they can understand the “demands and needs” of the customer or insurance purchase.

We are great believers in promoting the idea that commercial insurance is not, as some would have you believe, rocket science.

The premium rating for the vast majority of policies, whether for business or domestic insurance, is based on four key things.

Firstly, the type of occupation. Properties can either be let, unoccupied or owner occupied.

Secondly, where the building is. Insurers have spent many years collating huge amounts of data and this is combined with other date, such as flood maps. As a result, insurers skew their rates depending on how much risk there is of the geographic area suffering a flood, or storm or how likely properties are to be vandalised etc.

Thirdly, the sum insured for the building. Quite obviously, the higher the cost to rebuild the property the higher the premium is.

Lastly, the claims experience for the particular insured. It is no use have a concrete built office (low, low risk) if there has been a higher than average number and cost of losses.

Many years ago, I used to work for General Accident. Whilst we always used to think there were no perks to the job, it was a nice, safe existence. Many people who worked there thought that it was a job for life company. Now I would never agree that you should think this about your employer, but certain companies did give you the impression that once you had you foot in the door at 16, as long as you didn’t blot your copybook, you would leave with a decent pension on your 65th birthday.

Anyone who works in financial services in 2009 knows very well that this is not the case. Cosy companies where you can do your 9 to 5 without really trying (and get away with it) have gone by the wayside.

As I said the perks at GA where minimal but one thing we did get was a copy of “A Premium Business – A history of General Accident” by Peter Young. I found this book again the other day and scanning through some of the pictures evoked memories of an old fashioned insurance office where everyone was called Mr, Madam or Sir and starched collars where de rigueur.

Looking at some of these pictures made me realise why things have changed. There are three reasons, increased competition, modernisation and computerisation.

Computers have changed the world beyond recognition and the advent of the world wide web has changed the business insurance world upside down.

Going back fifty years, to get a commercial insurance quote would have taken just short of forever. Nowadays though, you can phone a broker at 10 am and not only have a quote, but get your new business policy documents emailed through by 10.15 am.

Old school insurance companies will not consider this progress, whereas we cannot see a world where you do not work in this manner.

Tomorrow, the Bank of England confirms whether there are to be any changes to the base interest rate. It is widely expected to remain at the historically low figure of 0.5% well into 2010.

This does not, unfortunately, mean that you can go out to one of the high street banks and get yourself a business loan at half a percent interest. Interest rates are lower than they used to be. But, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is having a real problem with the banks that have received unprecedented amounts of our money, including a phenomenal £30 billion pledged on the 3rd November 2009.

The banks are not lending money in the manner that the government wants them to. UK plc has lent the banks money, effectively, to stop them going bust on the proviso that they support the UK economy by lending money. But, bankers being bankers have said thank you very much for the money but we are going to hoard it away in case we get caught out again.

So, form a traditional bank you cannot get a decent loan. The good news is, that in other areas you are able to get interest free loans. One of these is for your business insurance.

There is one inescapable fact that every business owner needs to know. Commercial insurance companies are desperate to secure your business. The recession has caused around 10% of businesses to cease trading and many others are reducing their outgoings. The insurance companies are therefore chasing a depleting market and are pulling every trick in the book to get your business.

If you are looking for a commercial insurance quote, you should insist on your broker providing you with the option of paying in interest free instalments. If they say no justifiably, then you should at least beat them down to 1 or 2% tops.

Most people who have walked around a British city will have seen, at some point, a lorry unloading metal kegs of beer at a pub.

Usually you notice it because of the noise as they are rolled along the pavement, then they are delivered through a cellar or trapdoor to the pub.

Pubs get through a fair amount of beer, as you would expect, and as a result need to store a few kegs. A standard barrel of beer holds 36 gallons, or 4 firkins (in very old money). This is 288 pints.

Pubs cannot store these easily as it takes a bit of space, most pubs or licensed trade premises will have a basement or cellar. As with most items on this blog, this does have implications regarding pub insurance.

When looking around for your quote, you will be asked a question about the basement or cellar. Of course, you will need to declare correctly this information and most insurers will accept it.

However, you need to be careful that you always ask for a written, formal pub insurance quote. The reason being that you can check the level of excess that has been applied. Many insurers will apply a vastly increased excess for losses attributable to stock or equipment damaged by flood in a basement or cellar. There is not point in storing £900 of beer in a cellar if you have a £1,000 excess. Once a barrel has been contaminated by flood water or worse, effluent, you cannot use the contents, so the stock (the beer) is a write off.

Looking around, you shoudl be able to find a broker that can get you the cover you need (flood in basements) for your business.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which has become the figurehead for how much funding can a British bank receive, actually had some very good, quality, profitable businesses. And, it still does.

One of these is RBSI, which is the parent company for it’s famous insurance brands, DirectLine, Churchill and NIG. It also owns GreenFlag, the vehicle recovery company.

Even in these difficult times, the insurance companies are still returning a profit. We thought we had seen the last of the “for sale” rumours, it is ironic than when first put up for sale, AIG were one of the main contenders to buy.

Now we see that the EU are asking RBS to divest some of it’s jewels to reduce the levels of ownership by UK plc.

Whether this goes ahead, which would seem likely now, there will be no change whatsoever for the customers of these brands. We transact a significant amount of business with NIG as they do have a good range of business insurance products. One would hope that the insurance arm is broken up and NIG is purchased by a large, reputable, commercial insurance company. What we mean is that you really need to split the personal lines, car, house and travel from the business side, fingers crossed the sale, when it happens, will be on this basis.