Insurers have long argued that if you leave your keys in your car and your car is stolen, then this is tough luck on you. They say that you have not paid “due care and attention” to “protecting your asset”.

Examples of this are where you pay for fuel or leave your car in the driveway for 5 minutes with the keys in. Insurance is about unexpected events, if you don’t expect it to happen and it does, you should be covered.

The Ombudsman, reports Insurance Times http://tinyurl.com/yzxs98a is prepared to reconsider this. In essence, as long as you have not had a wilful disregard for your property, to you and me, been very silly and left you car unattended for a while where you could reasonably expect it to suffer a theft, then you may be covered.

This wil apply to home more than business insurance, but it is at least a start.

So, the 22nd December 2009 sees the Office of Fair Trading throw in the towel in it’s fight against the banks. We will never know how much lobbying has been going on in the background. There will be millions of disappointed banking customers who thought they were in for a windfall of a few hundred pounds and more.

Two things need to be considered, firstly where the charges legal. Yes they were, whenever you open a bank account you are given terms and conditions to read, if you are not happy then you are free to cancel your account.

Secondly, and more importantly, where they fair? Was a £30 charge justified for going £10 overdrawn? Although going overdrawn meant you were being given money that we not yours to have, the charges were still very excessive.

This brings us on to business and commercial insurance premiums. If you have just received a renewal or a new business insurance quote, look very carefully at the premium.

This is normally made up of two, possibly three things. Firstly the premium, say £1,000. This is the price the insurers are charging for the risk. Secondly, the insurance premium tax, which for businesses is 5%. This adds £50 to the above figure and the only one who benefits from this is Mr A Darling as the money goes straight to the Treasury. The third one, which you will see more and more often, is an administration charge or fee. This can be £30, £50 or even £250.

This is the one you need to watch, your business insurance broker will usually earn a commission of around 20% on the premium, if there is a charge you need to ask who actually earns this and the vital bit, why?

It is always worth asking if the fee can be removed. If you don’t ask, you don’t get and it could save you around 10% of your annual insurance bill.

You may not always get the fee removed because the broker may have turned down their commission in order to get you a better price.

It’s been one of the busiest weekends of the year for many businesses, mainly those in the retail and hospitality trade. Christmas party nights out do not seem to have suffered as many people are just going out anyway to wish good riddance to the bad business parts of 2009.

As we move into the Christmas break many people and businesses are wishing each other the festive cheer that goes around at this time of year.

But, a small word of warning. Whether you think so or not, there are a group of criminals who really are just rubbing their hands with glee at this time of year.

We have seen an  increase in the number of break ins as UK plc has endured it’s longest every recession (thanks Gordon). However, over the Xmas break there will be a small spike in thefts from the more commercial industries. Many businesses do close for up to two weeks.

What you need to be aware of is that your premises need to be as secure as possible. Yes, you may have an intruder alarm but those people who make their living from robbing others will not stop after a burglar alarm is activated.

There are three things you can do to protect yourself. Firstly, on your last opening day, check every single window, door, bolt, catch and latch is secured. It doesn’t take much of a gap to give someone an opportunity.

Secondly, whilst it may be hard going, you need a rota of staff to go in an inspect the premises through the festive break. Just a quick five minutes is all that is required.

Thirdly, make sure your business insurance policy is in force. If steps one and two above fail, then this step will help make sure the business is not out of pocket.

One of the motivational things that is good to put across to your kids, is that to get good at any profession you need to study hard.

There is a story that training to be a vet needs more work than being a doctor. That is not to say that training to be a GP is easy, but vets have to know about all types of animals.

Many vets will of course join an existing practice, but at some point nearly everyone will wonder if they could set up their own business?

To do this, as with every business, there are too many things to think about. Some you will remember before you open for business and others will hit you like a sledgehammer when you realise that you have not done it.

For vets, one of these is surgery insurance. Through their professional trade body, it is easy enough to get professional indemnity insurance. It is a requirement of them practising their trade.

The other thing to consider getting before you trade is a veterinary surgery insurance quote. This will cover the business assets, including buildings, liabilities (including to members of the public), money, commercial legal expenses and business interruption.

A commercial insurance broker, over the net or local directory, is all you need to  get you a basket of quotes.

In the construction industry, there are thousands of different trades. People tend to specialise in certain areas. The word Artisan is great as it means an expert or skilled craftsmen in a particular trade.

What does this mean for your public liability insurance? Most businesses and sole traders in construction will either work for someone else, the main contractor, or if they are the main contractor, appoint sub-contractors. In reality it is combination of the two that most business will find themselves.

If you appoint a builder to pop an extension on your house, then he may do the brickwork and carpentry, but will sub-contract the electrical and plumbing work.

If you are that main contractor, then you need to be very careful about the insurance you have in force. Firstly, when you sub out work, this is usually because it is more skilled and this means more likely to cause damage (ie plumbers and blow torches). Secondly, you need to be clear whether, if damage is caused, your combined liability insurance covers you.

The homeowner is paying you, they do not care if it was a sub-contractor that burned their garage down, they will claim against you.

You then need to know whether your insurers will cover you. What happens if you declare bricklayer as your trade and then submit a claim for damage caused by a plumber?

Speak to your business insurance broker just to check whether you have adequate cover. You may need to pay a bit more, but the peace of mind for covering all activities is worthwhile.

The Financial Services Authority places a heavy onus, quite rightly, on a business insurance broker to offer the best service and product range.

We are professionals whom the business community trust to offer quotes that provide the cover required.

There are two things you (the business owner) can do to help this process go as quick as possible.

The first one only applies if you are looking for an alternative at renewal. If this is the case, please have your most current schedule to hand.

The second one applies to getting a new business quote or a renewal alternative. You should try to have as much of the following information available as possible:-

What you do? The type of  trade, profession, service you offer, products you manufacture of supply and your work at your business premises and at third party locations. 

How many staff you have, the work they do and the annual wage roll figures.

You trading and correspondence addresses with details of the construction and security at your building. 

Who are you insured with at the moment, if applicable, with details of all claims or losses (whether insured or not) in the past 5 years.

Details of your turnover, gross profit and replacement costs for buildings, contents and stock.

Businesses, as you would expect, make decisions every day based on a number of factors. When deciding whether to purchase commercial insurance, there are two main thoughts.

Firstly, is there any legal requirement for cover to be in place and secondly, are you prepared to be un-insured for any parts of your business.

These two questions apply equally to office insurance. You may think that your office, with no visitors, which is super secure, will not suffer any loss at all. The only real legal requirement for an office is employers liability insurance. If you employ anyone, whether they get a salary or not, or have family “helping out” or even have volunteers, then you must, by UK law, have employers liability insurance at a minimum limit of indemnity of £5,000,000.

Aside from the legal requirements, you need to consider public liability and business assets cover. Public liability is in case anyone (however unlikely) is injured whilst at your premises. For example, the postman tripping over a loose cable.

In addition, you have to decide if you are happy to let your computers, contents, tables, chairs and other electronic equipment go uninsured. It may only be worth £5 or £10,000, but if you have a theft or a flood you will realise that replacing these contents will create a hefty, un-needed, hole in your balance sheet.

One of the fundamental principles that is drummed into you when going through the insurance exams (which are not really that bad) is insurable interest.

You cannot, in normal circumstances, insure something which you have no insurance interest in, whether this is a building, an asset, a vehicle or even your next door neighbours life.

Going into more depth, what this means is that you cannot benefit financially form something in which you have no financial interest. Therefore, you cannot insure the 17 year old next door neighbours Subaru Xtra Loud n Fast  in the fairly sound knowledge that it is going to be written off fairly soon. The reason being is that the neighbour will have it insured already, you cannot then say when it is written off that you would like a cheque for £5,000 as well.

The same principle applies to buildings insurance, except in certain cases. One of these is where a business rents a building. It is the building owners responsibility to purchase a landlords building insurance policy and then usually bill the tenant. If you have a good relationship with your landlord, you can usually look for a quote yourself, insure it in your name and then have the owners interest noted on the policy.

Therefore, in the event of a loss, you do not benefit financially as the claim payment is made to the beneficial owner of the building who has their interest noted.

So, come on whether you own a pub, restaurant, hairdressers or any other type of business – call us to see what we can do for you.

When you take out a commercial building insurance policy, you will have three main sections of cover. Buildings, contents and property owners liability.

Property owners liability is also known as public liability. This is your liability to people that visit your property. If someone is injured by your property then you may find yourself with a letter from a solicitor alleging you have been negligent.

It is difficult to list all of the scenarios where you could face a claim. A few examples are, a slate falling off the roof and damaging a neighbours car, a delivery person tripping on a loose flagstone and lastly, a visitor slipping on an icy path.

We are now entering the coldest time of year, winter officially starts of Monday 21st December. We are asked by many clients what their responsibility is for keeping their path ways safe.

We have seen a growth in the number of “no win no fee” solicitors. Thankfully though, insurers are starting to fight back against the onslaught of spurious, unprovable claims.

So, if someone alleges that they slipped on an icy path or your business car park, what are you to do? The whole thing boils down to whether they can prove you have been negligent. No-one can reasonably expect you to keep every path, pavement and car park as clean as kitchen table.

As long as you make a reasonable effort, within a reasonable time, you should be able to fend off any claim. The emphasis is on the word should, this is not always the case and you need a commercial building insurance policy with POL to help you with the costs of any claim, whether it is dubious or not.

Most businesses in the UK tend to operate from a leased premises. The major reason for this of course is cost. It is usually cheaper to rent on a short term basis than to arrange a commercial mortgage.

For a new business this makes sense as there are simply too many costs at start up stage.

We have moved premises twice. The first time we moved, it was to a pretty dismal office that really had not been cared for. One of the first things we did was to arrange for a lick of paint and new flooring to be installed in the property. We had carpets installed which were not that expensive.

Nowadays, a lot of retailers when they do choose to start are putting in laminate floors. They look good, are easy to clean and it is quick to install.

Once thing you will find though is that it is not cheap. This raises the question of who should insure a laminate floor. You will see in your commercial lease, that the landlord is probably responsible for the commercial building insurance.

You, as the tenant, will need to cover your “tenants improvements” on your shop insurance  policy. If you don’t, in the event of a flood or burst pipe you may find yourself considerably out of pocket.