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Archive for February, 2010

Cafe insurance – how is this different?

Friday, February 19th, 2010

You’ve got a business, you know you need cover but, a quick search on the net and you are faced with not dozens, but thousands of choices. The question you ask yourself is, how do I know which company to speak to?

What you first need to understand is what differentiates your business from others. Most types of trades present different types of risks to insurers and for this reason, they design separate contracts.

Take cafe insurance for example, your business model is different from a fish and chip shop, coffee bar or sandwich shop. Not a vast difference, but there are things which your business does differently.

You do not tend to deep fry food and you do not usually just serve coffee and cakes. For this reason, you do need to speak to an insurance broker and get them to provide you with a few different quotes from different companies. Many insurers brand their products with words such as cafe or takeaway.

The main difference is not in the cover they provide, but in the premiums they charge. This is where a broker is useful as they can sort the wheat from the chaff for you, and get you a cheap business insurance quote.

Don’t settle for the first premium you get, as with all things in life you do need to consider more than one option. You may think the price you are getting is the best, but how do you know.

Posted in cafe insurance | No Comments »

Salon insurance – vital protection for your hard work

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

The step from trainee to salon owner can take many years, but it is a rewarding path which many people choose to take. All too often in employment people become disillusioned with working for someone else and feel that happiness lies with running their own business.

Realistically, most people know that this is never going to be easy, over the years as businesses grow and grow, your asset and investment becomes more and more valuable.

This is why, you should always have an adequate salon insurance policy in force. Your clientele are you life line, if for any reason you have to close you run the risk of customers going elsewhere and not coming back. For this reason you want a policy that is going to pay at market value and to be quick at the whole process.

Most salons are single owner or partnerships, so you would ordinarily require a small business insurance policy specifically for hairdresssers or beauticians. You do need to take care to ensure that the cover you arrange has the correct amounts insured for all of the assets and contents that belong to you.

What you have to do, very simply, is to consider how much it would cost to replace your contents, computers, stock and all improvements you have made to the premises if there were a fire and all was destroyed. It is not a nice thought, but you must be meticulous in the process.

You should err on the side of caution and consider the worst case, more expensive, replacement cost. If you are VAT registered, you should include the extra 17.5%. As far as improvements to the premises are concerned, think about partitions, flooring and other building work that you have paid for.

Then, speak to an independent business insurance broker and ask them to go through the quote request process for you.

Posted in hairdressers insurance, salon insurance, small business insurance | No Comments »

Cleaners liability insurance – why is this so different?

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

When looking for public liability insurance, certain types of business need to be aware of market wide exclusions to this cover.

Any standard public, or third party business liability insurance policy, will have a significant exclusion. This is, that damage to property being worked upon is excluded.

For example, if a cleaner is cleaning and polishing a table in someones living room and there is a major scratch, then a standard policy will exclude this. The reason is, because commercial insurance, as with all types of covers, is only to cover unexpected and or unforeseen events. It can, in the eyes of an insurer, be reasonably foreseen that damage will occur to property being cleaned. So, they exclude this cover.

If however the cleaner is carrying a bin liner full of rubbish through the house and some bleach leaked through to a carpet, this is covered. Similarly, if they walk past an ornament and knock it over, this is covered. It is only the damage to items or property being cleaned that is excluded.

Help, as always, is at hand. Certain insurers have policies that cover this, of course, they are more expensive, but the peace of mind from having the wider cover is worth paying for.

When looking for a quote, ask your broker if you do have cover, specifically, for “damage to property being worked upon” and also check the excess. If you don’t have this cover, you have been warned.

Posted in liability insurance, public liability insurance | No Comments »

Pub Insurance – late opening hours

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Over the past twenty or so years, there have been massive changes in the licensed trade. Traditionally, you had 4 types of drinking establishments. Country pubs, city pubs, nightclubs and licensed restaurants. There were a few in between, but that was really it.

Pubs, I seem to remember, closed at 10.30 pm on a Sunday and 11 pm every other day of the week. Last orders were shouted at 20 or 10 to the hour and that was it, the shutters went down and the pub was shut.

As far as pub insurance was concerned, this was great for the insurers in helping to categorise businesses. If it opened later than 11pm, on a regular basis, then it was a nightclub.

Commercial insurance companies rated, or calculated their premiums, accordingly. Nightclubs had more liability claims, fire claims (because you could smoke inside and it was dark!) and arson when a few different owners in particular places decided to torch each others businesses.

Nowadays though, as with everything in life, things are slightly different. A typical city centre pub, inn or wine bar can choose to apply for a late licence. If you do have a late licence, at least once a week, this is something that must be declared to you insurer or your business insurance broker. It does affect things and potentially, an insurer could repudiate a claim if they were not aware that you opened on a Friday and Saturday night until 2 am.

It may seem that you have to declare a lot of information, bit if you deal through a decent broker you will get asked all of these questions automatically.

Posted in business insurance broker, pub insurance | No Comments »

Traders or commercial combined insurance?

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Every business likes to think they are unique and in a way, by virtue of their name only they are all different.

Following on from this, different companies call what are essentially the same products by different names. This is just one of the things that happens over time, particularly with brand names. Think of MP3 and MP4 players and you will know what we mean.

As far as commercial insurance is concerned, it can be confusing. Each insurer calls their own products by different names. In reality, the products really are much the same. If you have a policy that covers your business, depending on your insurer, the policy could be described as a commercial combined insurance policy. What this is, is a policy that “combines” all of the covers that you could potentially need. They are not automatically included, you need to pick which covers you need from a menu.

The difficulty is, that another insurer, selling exactly the same cover, will call this a traders combined insurance. Don’t worry if a broker tells you to move from a commercial, to a traders or to an umbrella policy. The brokers job is to sell you the best policy they can for the best price, forget about the name – the policy should be the best you need.

Posted in commercial combined insurance, traders combined insurance | No Comments »

Professional indemnity insurance – a brief explanation

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Public liability insurance is something most people are familiar with. If I injure you, or damage your car or something you own, then I can be held liable under UK law. Even if I haven’t acted in a foolish manner, I can still be faced with a legal bill for you or your property. For example, if oil leaks out of my car, down the drive, onto the pavement and you slip, it is my fault. I wasn’t necessarily being negligent, but it is my fault. If my car was not there, you would not have slipped. Another way of describing it is third party liability insurance.

The key thing in all of this is that there has to physical damage, illness, injury or disease.

What happens if you give me some advice, and I pay for it, and a sa result of taking your advice, I lose out financially? For example, a solicitor not doing the correct property searches on my house purchase, and I end up with an even bigger legal bill? This is where professional indemnity insurance comes into play. There has been no physical loss or damage, but I have suffered financially because of someone other persons bad, incorrect or negligent advice.

A huge number of different types of business can be liable for bad advice, if you are one of them, speak to a broker as soon as possible.

Posted in professional indemnity insurance | No Comments »

Chinese Takeaway Insurance – do I need a special policy?

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Different types of food establishments essentially present the same risks to insurers. Whilst there can be a vast difference in the type of food cooked, how it is cooked and how busy the business is, most underwriters will tend to have a very simple, dual pricing, for takeaway insurance.

The dual pricing only refers to the fire risk presented by the business. If you have a fixed frying range, as we describe it, the Frank Ford type, then you will present a slightly increased fire risk (to an insurer) and consequently you will need to pay a higher premium.

It is always best to declare the fullest information possible, to prevent any problems in the event of a claim. So, Chinese takeaway insurance is really no different from Cantonese, Vietnamese, Italian or Spanish – to an underwriter.

Specialist policies are not really available across the market. If there is one it tends to only have cosmetic differences aimed at trying to gain market share. The nuts and bolts of the policy really are the same. If, as you have in Scotland, it is a Chinese takeaway and fish & chip shop, then it needs to be declared as such.

The only real difference to the insurers may relate to cooking using a wok. They will put on a condition excluding losses attributable to fires from unattended woks whilst cooking. It is difficult to repudiate a claim on this condition, it is really there to remind the business owners that they must not leave a wok, over a naked flame cooker, unattended.

Posted in Chinese takeaway insurance, takeaway insurance | No Comments »

Commercial buildings insurance – loss of rent cover

Friday, February 12th, 2010

In 2010, we are finally seeing, what Norman Lamont would describe as, the green shoots of recovery.

Time is a great healer, rather than government intervention. One area of the market that is starting to pick up is property. Not in a huge way, but bit by bit. We have seen in, January and February 2010 more commercial building insurance enquiries, for new purchase property, than we saw in the last third of 2009. Spring is traditionally the time for home sales, whereas commercial used to be steady throughout the year.

If you are buying a commercial property, then you are either doing this to rent out, to develop or to occupy yourself. If you are looking to rent, you need to ensure that you not only cover the structure itself, but that you have loss of rental income cover.

This does not mean cover if the tenant defaults, what it covers is if there is a fire, or a flood and your tenant moves out, you receive the equivalent rent from the commercial insurance company until such time as it is let again.

Make no mistake though, in the event of a serious fire your building could take years to get rebuild. Modern industrial units are quicker, due to the natue of materials. Whereas, older established buildings, such as hotels or restaurants will need time.

So, you need to make sure that not only do you have the correct building sum insured, but that you have an adequate loss of rent. As an absolute minimum, you will need 12 months, for many properties though, 18, 24 or 36 months would be more suitable.

Posted in commercial building insurance, commercial property insurance | No Comments »

Online business insurance UK – where do I start?

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

The only real problem when looking for online business insurance is that you are not meeting someone face to face. Sure, for car and house insurance this is not an issue as we have spent years in the UK being weaned off the need to physically visit an office to buy this type of cover.

But, it does present an issue to some people when they are looking at more complex covers. There is a feeling that someone in a suit who visits you or you visiting them somehow adds more weight to the policies they are selling. Have no fear though, because the old guard has changed.

You can now get, in many cases, a better, quicker and ultimately more competitive service from a business insurance broker who you never meet. Wherever you are in the country you can pick up the phone and within a couple of hours receive a confirmed email quote or even a policy if required.

But, where do you start? The following three points are all important:-

1) Pick a broker that is domiciled in the UK and only works with UK based insurers.

2) Check that they are directly authorised by the Financial Services Authority.

3) Only work with an independent, ask the broker if they are able to obtain quotes from more than three insurers, if the answer is no – forget it.

Posted in business insurance broker, online business insurance | No Comments »

Office insurance – can I cover my employees equipment?

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Larger businesses tend to supply electronic equipment such as laptops and mobile phones for their staff. They are usually covered under a block business insurance package with the technology provider. If they look carefully at how much they are paying for the insurance they might get a shock, but that is another story.

Smaller businesses though, with just a few employees, may choose to refund the cost of mobile phone bills or Internet access to their staff. Their employees will own the items, but what happens if they are stolen or damaged whilst on company business?

The chances are there is nothing in the employees contract that says you are responsible for the replacement cost. Whilst you have no legal liability for replacement, you will more than likely feel a moral obligation to do something.

One or two losses a year could add up to £1,000, straight off your bottom line profit, which is not good. It tends to be more clerical and sales staff that need this cover, so if you have an office insurance policy, you will need to refer to it to see if employees personal effects are covered.

If they are not, you can usually get this extension included. It may be that you have to specify that the machines are not owned by you but a good quality policy should be able to include this cover for around £20 a year per £1,000. The cost will go up if the equipment is likely to go within the EU or Worldwide, as the likelihood of damage or loss is increased.

You will look to pay an excess of between £50 and £100, any more and you should complain to your broker to get you better terms.

Posted in business insurance, office insurance | No Comments »