Whether you are looking for business, pub or office insurance – you will find that most UK business insurance brokers offer some form of monthly instalments.

These take two forms. The first one is where you have a credit agreement directly with the actual insurance company.

The second, is where credit, or premium finance, is provided by a third party company. The two largest in the UK are Close Premium Finance and Premium Credit. Depending on how much business your broker places with them, you may or may not get a decent rate.

However, although interest rates are at a historically low figure, you will be lucky to get a premium loan at less than 4%. Most rates are 5% and upwards. The reason being that the premium finance companies are having to pay for the losses they are suffering for companies that are going bust.

One other way that they are “covering their losses” is through adminsitration fees for everything. If your broker offers you premium finance from a 3rd party premium finance provider make sure you ask, and receive, information for the following:-

1) What are the one off set up fees?

2) Will I be charged if I miss an instalment?

3) Will I be charged if I cancel the agreement mid term?

You will, unfortunately, find that 1) will definitely have a cost. As far as 2) is concerned, you can be charged up to £40 for each letter that is sent for a default. You need to be fully aware of the terms of any loan.

If you pay the insurer direct, you will tend to find they are significantly more lenient. Always opt for the option of paying the insurer direct.

The UK is now suffering, in early 2010, what looks like being, it’s worst winter for many years. The problem is, for most of the southern half of Britain, it has only been cold for a few days.

This is the time of year when, traditionally, you look for your business insurance to kick in and help you out when you have serious losses, such as burst pipes.

RSA, one of the major providers of business and liability insurance, have provided some useful information to help you in the event of difficulties here.

This really centres on preventative measures and business continuity but it is at least worth reading and covering as many of the steps as possible. You also need the protection that a policy can provide. But, in the terms and conditions you have to act as if you were uninsured at all times. This means taking all reasonable steps possible to reduce the impact of any losses to your business.

In the good old days (!) you would only be able to get a business insurance quote from a local broker. Each town and city had it’s own small band of brokers, some a lot bigger than others, than provided an excellent service to the local community.

This of course still goes on up and down the UK. However, two “inventions” have managed to revolutionise the purchasing of cover for your business or building. The first is the humble telephone and the second is the less than humble internet.

Through a careful combination of both, when Paul Roach set up Businessinsure in 2002, his sole aim was to offer a broking service to any UK domiciled business or property owner.

We continue to offer this service today and although we are based in Perth, we source over 97% of our business outside of Scotland, not bad really. Sure, it would be nice to pick up business in every town and city in the UK but we don’t have enough drawing pins or a big enough map to measure this!

So, in 2010, we will continue to offer what we always have – a professional, friendly, speedy and competitive service to one and all.

Good luck in the forthcoming year, if you work hard and stick to the task in hand you can’t help but succeed.

Nearly all UK commercial insurance companies have designed different packages for different types of trades. Many of these are sold as scheme products through a specialist broker.

If you look around you can get a scheme quote for anything from a pertrol station, a farm, a hairdressers or a sports club. Whatever you do there will be a broker that professes to offer you the best package of covers.

But do they? This is a question you need to ask yourself in these tough economic times. Take cafe insurance for example. Traditionally, a cafe was simply a greasy spoon outlet, offering unhealthy breakfasts and half pint mugs of tea. Why would an insurer offer a scheme for this type of business?

Well, some insurers do, cafes have moved on a lot in the past ten years and are more akin to sandwich bars. Yes, you can still get chips and a burger, but you can also get a slice of panettone and cup of latte if you wish.

What you do need to consider though, is whether you go for a specialist brokers scheme quote, or rely on a standard restaurant insurance quote.

The differences will be in the level of cover and price. The scheme quote will usually provide a few extra covers or increased limits of indemnity, whereas the normal restaurant quote will tend to have slightly less (although quite adequate) cover in exchange for a cheaper premium. 

Whoever you are insured with, you need to get at least one alternative quote, that way you can at least see whether the premium you are paying is in the ballpark for your type of business or not.

The vast majority of pubs and licensed trade establishments in the UK, are owned by one of the breweries or the large pub chains that have grown over the last few years.

The pub chains are reporting a torrid time. Trading is difficult but they are also having issues with having to down value their estimations of the value of the commercial property portfolio.

In the boom years they valued this book of property high and the companies looked extremely valuable, as the commercial property market plummeted, so did the values of the estate.

One area where there are making money is through the exceptionally high costs that landlords have to pay for beers and other products. This is not something we are qualified to discuss here as it is more down to the complexities of contract law when the pub lease was taken on.

Another area where a landlord may be paying through the nose, is for the commercial building insurance. Unless the publican owns the building, they will rent this from the actual building owner, whether an individual, a business or, as mentioned above, a large pub group.

The publican will arrange their own pub insurance policy, this will not normally cover the buildings. In the 10+ years we have been operating as brokers, in 90% of cases it is cheaper to insure the buildings as part of package insurance policy. It is common sense that the commercial insurer of the pub will offer a decent price to cover the structure as well.

The issue is that the publican has no legal ownership of the building. This can be sorted out by noting the financial interest of the beneficial owner (of the building) on the pub policy.

This way the landlord is happy as the bricks and mortar are covered and he has a happier landlord who is paying less for the building insurance. The landlord is happier because he has a bit more cash to play with in these exceptionally difficult financial times.

Hairdressers and beauty salons have had a bit of a tough time since around September/October 2008. It was at this time that most businesses that we speak to, point to as when the full effects of the recession hit home.

Before then, the news was more about a credit crunch as the whole world decided to hoard it’s money rather than lend it to others. This started in early 2008 and as time wore on, it became apparent that the lack of funds was causing an issue for everyone.

People that had maybe got their hair done once every two to three weeks, were now waiting an extra couple of weeks between visits. The net effect of this is that all types of retailers, not only hairdressers, were suffering with reduced cash flow.

Unfortunately, many have fallen by the wayside. Those that are surviving are going to spend a good few months and even years licking their wounds. One way to help yourself, as a business owner, is to look around for cost savings in all areas. One of these is your salon insurance. You really do not have to suffer high premiums is you have had a good claims experience.

Whenever your annual policy is due for renewal, you need to speak to at least one commercial insurance broker and task them with not only beating your existing renewal but offering you wider cover and possibly interest free instalments.

At Businessinsure, we offer quotes for all types of trades. One area where we pride ourselves in getting very competitive premiums, is for takeaway insurance.

Takeaway and fish and chip shop insurance are sometimes the “black sheep” of the commercial insurance world, if there is such a thing?!? Statistics on takeaways, including sandwich bars, coffee bars and cafes are thin on the ground. It is estimated that there are over 100,000 of these businesses, even after the devastating affects of 2008 and 2009 are taken into account. If you average the premium at £750 per year per business, then the total paid every year is over £75 million. So why do some insurers not touch them with a barge pole?

The reason is that traditionally, if a capacity provider has not been selective enough, they do not collect enough money in premiums to cover the losses. As a consequence, they increase their prices.

You may find your existing broker or direct insurer is only offering renewal at an increased premium. One of the reasons given is that the minimum premium levels are increasing.

We have one provider that has increased their minimum from £550 to £1,100. This does not mean though, that all are doing the same.

Many underwriters, that understand the business are still offering relatively competitive terms, you just need to look around.

If you spend enough time looking for a product or service, you will always find it cheaper. In these current hard economic times, there are more and more companies offering guarantees to beat a competitors price. Business insurance is exactly the same.

In theory, if your find two insurance brokers that offer to beat any quote you receive, you could go backwards and forwards between the two, getting the lowest premium possible. In reality, they would find some reason why not to do this for you.

What you need to do is to sit back and take stock. You want a cheap business insurance quote but you also want wider cover. We said that you can spend time looking and always get the price reduced, but something has to give and this is usually the level of cover and/or the level of excess you pay.

It is not a myth, but the only way to sort the wheat from the chaff is to speak to a business insurance broker. Give them the task of looking around for you, you’ll be amazed at what we can do for you at no cost whatsoever.

One of the biggest sources of large cost claims under pub insurance are those for liability. A public house can suffer claims for the three main types, public, products and employers liability.

Public liability insurance claims can be made by anyone who is not an employee (as they are insured under EL). This is usually a customer, but can also be a delivery person, postal worker or anyone with a legitimate right to be on the premises. You will also find, incredulous though it may be, that any intruders could potentially raise a claim against you if you have over zealous security measures.

Whilst your commercial insurer will pay out for valid public liability claims you will have an excess to pay and also pursuing a claim is time consuming. So, you really should do all you can to prevent claims. There are two ways of doing this. Firstly, which is more expensive, is to install CCTV in the public areas. This way any spurious claims can be met head on.

Secondly, you should ensure that all public areas are clean and tidy and any walkways are as dry as possible. The majority of PL claims are for slips, trips and falls. In the wet winter weather, it is better to be safe than sorry through mopping up as much water as possible and laying down approved rugs or cardboard.