Everyone who has, or has had, car insurance knows what an excess is. If you have a bump, a scrape or a broken windscreen you’ll usually have to pay the first £50 or £100.

There are two reasons why insurers apply excesses. Firstly, to try and prevent people submitting claims for piffling amounts and secondly, to reduce their administration costs this increasing their profits.

You can understand why there is an excess but it is a pain when you have a completely fortuitous accident that you have to be out of pocket by £100. If you do accept that an excess is something that you will have to pay, then what happens if you are happy to pay a higher excess? Maybe you have not claimed for years and years and decide that if you double your excess and get a discount, this may be worthwhile.

As far as business insurance is concerned, this is something that can save you maybe 10 or 15%. When you add up your annual insurance premium, this may be a worthwhile saving. The best way you can find out how much this will be worth to you, is to speak to your commercial insurance broker.

Don’t tell them to do it, just ask them to get you some quotes so at least you can decide whether it worth taking the risk of a higher excess to save some much needed cash.

Looking back over the years it was much rarer for businesses to trade from their home address. This is not to say that this didn’t happen, just less often.

I remember when John Birt was in charge of the BBC, this was the first time (to me) that a large organisation had gone through a major outsourcing project. Many functions that he thought were costly to the BBC were outsourced. Truth be told it was a bitter pill to swallow as a lot of outsourcing goes hand in hand with job cuts. Now, I am not saying he was the first, but it now much more accepted for businesses to outsource a lot of, mainly, clerical functions. Much of this outsourcing is being undertaken by the same people that did the job in the first place. It may cost the parent company slightly more, but when you add in the pension, tax, sickness and other associated staffing costs there is a financial reason why outsourcing goes on.

This has resulted in many thousands of people doing the job they have done for year’s but from their home address.

There is a common misconception that a lot of home insurance policies will automatically cover business assets. This is not true.

Firstly, you need to tell your home insurer that you are trading from home as most policies will restrict or even exclude cover where a business is carried on from the home address.

Secondly, you need to see if they will cover your business assets and/or liabilities. Chances are they will not, or if they do it will be a hefty additional premium.

If this is the case, you can look for a home office insurance policy. Many underwriters will offer these types of policies and the premiums are very, very low compared to the level of cover provided. Annual premiums for business assets and liabilities (excluding professional indemnity) for a clerical business will start at around £75.00.

They may be slightly harder to find than a standard office insurance policy, speak to a business insurance broker, over the net or local, and see what they can do for you.

As with all types of commercial and business insurance, when looking around for a fish and chip shop insurance quote, you have to consider two things in the main.

Of course, you are looking for the best price. But, this should not be your prime concern, it needs to be a twin concern with getting the right cover.

Comparing business insurance policies from the different providers would take a great deal of time to put into one document. As a flavour of the differences though, you need to consider the following when you receive a quote:-

1) Is accidental damage included? This is an important cover, standard perils do not cover if you drop something which is damaged or if you spill liquid into a machine. This is AD cover.

2) Glass cover, is this included? If you rent a shop you are more than likely responsible for the glass (shop front) through the terms of your lease.

3) Commercial legal expenses, is cover provided? Litigation nowadays, for members of the public, clients and staff is easy. An employment tribunal claim can cost your business many thousands of pounds, and that is just if you win? Check you have adequate cover.

Given the past couple of years and the desperate financial times we have been through, and continue to experience, you may think the last business you would want to start is a shop.

But, entrepreneurs are made of sterner stuff. A significant number of the top 250 firms in the UK can trace their roots back to difficult economic times. There are many different reasons for starting a business in 2009/2010. Many competitors, who have been trading at a loss, have finally fallen so there are potential gaps when the upturn begins. Commercial rents have never been better. If you are being quoted a high price for a building, you don’t need to worry as in every town and city there are plenty of other properties you can go for.

A long with cheaper commercial rents other items such as shopfitting, stock purchase, financial and accounting advice and even staff can be obtained at better prices than say 2007.

Another consideration for your shopping basket when setting up is shop insurance. Along with other services, cheap shop insurance is a reality nowadays, if you know where to look.

It is true that if you look long and hard enough you can find anything cheaper. The same is true of commercial insurance, including retail. But you need to get a policy that is not only cheap but provides wide cover. This is where you need to speak to an independent business insurance broker. If they are not independent, then they may not be able to go to more than one insurer. The only way you can get a competitive quote is from a broker that can go to more than one insurer, it is obvious.

Flooding, whether on a small or large scale, from a river or backed up drains, is a terrible thing to happen to any home or business.

Until such a thing has happened, you really cannot prepare yourself for the devastation and disruption that it will cause. Not only is your property damaged, the whole infrastructure of your local area can be affected.

The governnment, sensibly, has spent money in developing flood services. We are not talking about flood defences which are an ongoing issue, but the services to the public. Here in Scotland we have SEPA, and they have some great help and advice on their website about what areas are under threat and actions to take.

Obviously, one of their main points about being prepared is to have adequate commercial insurance in place. Insurers of course would like businesses to reduce the impact of any flood losses as the claims tend to be very large and take a while to get settled.

One thing though that every government body and business insurer will agree on is that the primary concern should be for human life. Flood waters are, by their very nature, not slow. Do not under any circumstances put the protection of your personal property above the protection of your own, your family, friends or employees lives.

Whatever the politicians may say or even wish to be true, we are still in technical recession. It may well be that in January 2010, in the UK we will technically exit the recession.

But, we all know that a technical exit from a recession does not mean that all in the business world will be rosy.

With the economic conditions so difficult nearly every sector of the commercial world, apart from debt recovery, has suffered a down turn.

Commercial property owners will readily admit that they have not seen business as tough as it is now, in living memory. Not only have the price of commercial property slumped by nearly 50%, the yield on existing investments has dropped as there are simply not enough tenants.

If you have a commercial building insurance policy, on one, two or many properties, you may be tempted to cut back on your overall expenses by cancelling the cover.

There are many problems associated with this. Firstly, you buildings are your business, heaven forbid if a fire destroyed a property which you cannot rebuild, particularly if you still have a mortgage on it.

Secondly, if you are in a higher risk area, say for flood or theft, it may prove additionally difficult, when you can afford the premiums again, to find a business buildings insurance quote. Insurers don’t like to see gaps in cover as they think this could be a sign of a moral hazard as you have not cared about the building (suffering a fire) in the past.

Whatever the politicians may say or even wish to be true, we are still in technical recession. It may well be that in January 2010, in the UK we will technically exit the recession.

But, we all know that a technical exit from a recession does not mean that all in the business world will be rosy.

With the economic conditions so difficult nearly every sector of the commercial world, apart from debt recovery, has suffered a down turn.

Commercial property owners will readily admit that they have not seen business as tough as it is now, in living memory. Not only have the price of commercial property slumped by nearly 50%, the yield on existing investments has dropped as there are simply not enough tenants.

If you have a commercial building insurance policy, on one, two or many properties, you may be tempted to cut back on your overall expenses by cancelling the cover.

There are many problems associated with this. Firstly, you buildings are your business, heaven forbid if a fire destroyed a property which you cannot rebuild, particularly if you still have a mortgage on it.

Secondly, if you are in a higher risk area, say for flood or theft, it may prove additionally difficult, when you can afford the premiums again, to find a business buildings insurance quote. Insurers don’t like to see gaps in cover as they think this could be a sign of a moral hazard as you have not cared about the building (suffering a fire) in the past.

Irrespective of the type of company you work for, own or manage or what type of trade you undertake, you will need to make sure you’ve appropriate insurance protection in place.

During 2009 there have been large numbers of businesses that are cutting expenditure at all levels.

Businesses of all sizes are facing up to different economic times. To say it is a steep learning curve is an understatement. Businesses that were used to growth rates in double digits are now facing up to the reality of year on year decreases.

Some long term, family owned businesses, have been through previous economic scares and survived. Newer ventures though are having to adapt and change. We have seen many insolvencies and brand name companies go to the wall.

There are two main reasons why there have been failures. Firstly, the inability to plan for a downturn. No matter how good your business is doing, as part of your annual planning you have to think about what would happen if customers tightened their belts. Secondly, having too much debt. Someone in business once said that indebtedness is good, meaning that it shows you are taking risks and growing. But don’t get carried away. It is like the credit card offers that used to come through the door. Just because they are being offered, it does not mean you should take it.

As the reigns are being pulled in on spending, one area where savings can be made is by getting a cheaper commercial insurance quote. Insurers are not immune to the downturn, they are on the hunt for good quality customers. A good customer to an insurer is one that hasn’t had any, or many, claims.

If, over the past 5 years, you have had less paid out in claims than you have paid in premiums, the first thing you should do is appoint a business insurance broker to review all of your cover arrangements.

Whilst we do not like to guarantee anything, we are pretty certain that you will save yourself some money.

Liability insurance is purchased or quoted for, depending on the limit of indemnity. This is also known as LOI for short. This limit, should be the maximum amount of liability a company, business or individual may face. For example, a plumber looking around for a public liability insurance quote, has to ask him or herself, what is the maximum amount of damage that I could do?

Now, burning a house to the ground will result in the need for a rebuild. This of course depends on the type of property, where it is, is it listed and a whole host more.

Only 10 year ago, you could get, through a general liability insurance policy, a public liability limit as low as £100,000. Nowadays though, you would be hard pushed to find anything less than £1,000,000. Most businesses are now insisting that anyone or any business that works for them, has a minimum limit of £2,000,000 and more often £5,000,000.

We are also getting increased requests for limits of £10,000,000. It is not difficult to get quotes for £10,000,000, what we need to do is get one insurer to quote the primary (or base) layer of £5,000,000 and then get another insurer to do the second £5,000,000. The reason being that one insurer is not keen to take a potential £10,000,000 hit, say if our negligent plumber burned down a block of flats.

So, limits are on the up and if you sub-contract any work, make sure that your subbies have the correct cover in place.

Alistair Darling, in his UK pre-budget report yesterday, was not giving much away. Undoubtedly, if the latest date for an election was in 2011 yesterday would have been a different picture. However, it was more of the same with some blatant electioneering included.

But, we have heard the mantra recently that those that can best afford it are the ones that are going to have to bear the brunt of paying off UK plc’s astronomic debt mountain.

What we were looking for was some pointers as to how he was going to help all of the micro, small and medium businesses to continue to trade given the dire economic situation we are in.

Unfortunately, we did not hear much to help, the much hyped but ultimately costly and non-effective VAT decrease is being reversed in January 2010. There was nothing yesterday about how to help small businesses apart from allowing tax to be deferred, note that this has not been reduced.

In the commercial insurance broking world we are seeing the effects of the financial mis-management from the the previous Chancellor. Businesses are cutting costs in all areas and for some they are living dangerously by cancelling their insurances.

This need not be the case though. Nowadays, more than ever before, it is easier and quicker for a company to compare business insurance quotes. Gone are the days of seeing a number of brokers and waiting days and days for quotes. Instead of cancelling your insurance, spend some time looking around the net and you will, if you look long and deep enough, find yourself a better deal.