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Archive for March, 2010

Warehouse insurance for goods in your care, custody or control

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

In previous posts we have stated that one if the mainstays of commercial insurance in the UK is that you can only cover, or insure, something in which you have a financial interest. So, you own, or have mortgage on, a building and if it burned to the ground you would suffer a financial loss. Either you have lost you nest egg or you will have to continue paying a mortgage on a property that doesn’t exist.

Whereas, if your next door neighbour buys a building, you cannot take out a policy on it. If this building suffers a loss, why should you be paid out?

There are situations though when you do need to arrange cover for some physical asset that does not belong to you. One of these situations arises in regard to warehouse insurance. As a business, you may accept payment from third parties who will store their products at your premises. Or, you may operate a fulfilment warehouse, you store stock for a third party and then pick and pack it as and when they tell you once they have a sale.

In both of these scenarios, the stock is not yours. You do not have legal title to it, but in the event of a loss, it was in your care or custody. In these situations, you are able to arrange insurance for said stock, on the proviso that your contract terms and conditions state that you are responsible. They should say that you provide cover up to £x and there is an excess of £y.

Many insurers shy away from these types of risks as you could be storing literally anything. Best process to follow is to get on the phone to a broker, speak to them, get them to understand the risk and ask them to quote.

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Fish and chip shop insurance – another insurer pulls out of the market

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Fish and chip shop insurance is one type of cover that insurers either do well, do poorly or they don’t do it all.

One of the main managing general agencies in the UK for the past few years have just announced that, with immediate effect, they are no longer underwriting takeaway insurance, which includes the traditional chippie.

But why is this happening? Simply put, it is all down to two things. Basic economic supply and demand and insurers inability to gain critical mass. One of the main principles of business insurance is that the premiums of the many help to pay for the claims of the few. If an insurer insurers enough of a particular type of risk (ie houses, cars, hotels, office etc) then across a 12 month period the premiums all put together should cover the claims that come in. There will be good, excellent, poor and terrible years. Over the years though, the rough and the smooth balance and everyone is happy.

But, fast food insurance does have it’s fair share of claims and many insurers have dipped their toe in the water (because there are so many takeaways and they just see the £ signs) and decided to start insuring them. But, if they are not getting the correct price and enough of them (to get the critical mass) then they will simply not make money, year in year out. This means it is uneconomic and it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that if you stop insuring them, you will start to lose less money.

These things happen throughout the insurance cycle, it is not a problem or an issue as there will always, without fail, be someone else willing to provide cover for a similar type of premium and cover, you just need to spend a bit more time looking.

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Block of flats insurance – why is it so difficult to get a quote?

Friday, March 19th, 2010

In England and Wales, the vast majority of flats or maisonettes (usually one flat ground and one flat 1st floor) are insured on a “block” or “umbrella” policy. What this means is that the individual flat owners do not (normally) insure their own bricks and mortar.

In the majority of cases their is a single block of flats building insurance policy that covers the whole structure from the foundations to the roof. There are two understandable reasons for this. Firstly, in the event of damage, say to the roof, there is not an argument between which insurer is responsible. And secondly, you can get a better deal by buying one “big” policy.

However, this does not stop it being more difficult to obtain than a standard house, car or business insurance policy. The reason is that it is the type of policy that falls between the personal and business type of product.

You need to make sure that you have a good quality policy with low excesses and wide cover. Most commercial insurance companies will have specialist block of flats building insurance policies, these will cover buildings, loss of rent, property owners liability and glass. As with most financial products, you need to kiss a few frogs until you find a prince (or princess) but getting two or three quotes from different providers should give you enough of a range of quotes to decide what to do.

You will need to gain agreement from the other flat owners, usually best to try and arrange a quick annual meeting where you can all get together to decide what is best.

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Small business insurance – getting the balance right

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Every business, whether a large corporation trading across the world or a sole trader just starting out, will have a requirement for good quality commercial insurance.

There are two main types, the cover that the law of the land says you must have and the cover that you make a deliberate choice to buy, even though it is not legally required.

The majority of small business insurance policies will fall into the latter category. Many smaller ventures and sole traders do not employ anyone, so there is no requirement for employers liability insurance (legally required). There needs to be a balancing act for the business between choosing what is sensible cover at a competitive price compared to being 100% risk averse and insuring every possible eventuality.

The first step in this balancing act is, thankfully, free. You need to speak to a business insurance broker to discuss what you need, what you want and how much you can realistically afford. The broker will then, for no charge whatsoever, duly go away and source a whole range of quotes and premiums for you. They will then present this to you, in the form of written quotes and you can then decide which of these policies, or covers, you will take. You may decide in the first year of trading to take out skeleton or basic cover, you can then add to this in future years as your business grows due to your continued efforts and hard work.

In the unlikely event that a broker try’s to charge you an up front fee for doing the quote work, walk away very, very fast. For every one broker that does this there are 100’s of others who will do it the proper way, for nothing!

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You've signed the lease – now you need pub insurance

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

To say that the end of 2008, all of 2009 and what is likely to be most of 2010 are tough economic times is of course an understatement of epic proportions. Even Gordon Brown will admit that due to a combination of world economics and mis-management of the UK economy every business is suffering. For example, we have just had reports that Scottish retailers have had their worst February since records began.

But, there are tentative signs of the entrepreneurial spirit throughout the UK. The government has tried to squash this but us entrepreneurs are made of sterner stuff.

We are seeing, for the first time in at least a year, an increase in the volume of new pub insurance quote requests. When we say new, this is not simply new enquiries to us, but people taking on a new lease. Back in 2007 when there was so much money (debt) in the economy new pubs where all the rage, nowadays though this activity has dipped.

So, if you are someone who has finally taken the plunge and realised that, if you put your mind to it, you could actually run a very tight ship, then you will have a whole host of administrative items on the agenda.

One of these, which you may feel is OK to push down the list (but this should be in your top three) is business insurance. If you don’t employ anyone, you may feel that you do not need it and that it is a luxury you can do without. But, please don’t ignore it. A good quality pub insurance package, including commercial legal expenses, can be had for under £50 per month or just over a pound a day.

The way to get the best price for the widest cover is to go to an intermediary and get them to do some searching for you, but don’t, whatever you do, ignore the need for this cover.

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You’ve signed the lease – now you need pub insurance

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

But, there are tentative signs of the entrepreneurial spirit throughout the UK. The government has tried to squash this but us entrepreneurs are made of sterner stuff.

The way to get the best price for the widest cover is to go to an intermediary and get them to do some searching for you, but don’t, whatever you do, ignore the need for this cover.

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Commercial liability insurance – watch the hidden excesses

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

There are three main choices when looking for a business insurance quote, you can either take out a liability only policy, a policy that combines liabilities with business assets or, if you are that way inclined, to go without cover.

Instantly discounting option three, because we would never recommend that any business operates without cover, whether there is a legal requirement or not, you may choose to take out the liability only option.

The reasons for this are because you may not have any business assets to insure or you decide, for cost reasons, that you will not insure the business assets.

Commercial or business liability insurance is a way of describing the three main covers, employers, products and public liability insurance. You can usually get a quote for public only, or a combination of the other three. Noting that employers is never available on it’s own, insurers always offer this as part of an overall package.

With public liability insurance (your responsibility for loss or damage to other people or their property) you need to be careful about the excess. The premiums vary a great deal, part of the reason for this is that insurer a) may only have a £100 excess (the amount you pay of any valid claim) whereas insurer b) that offers cheaper quote may have a third party property damage excess of £500.

Once you have had to take the hit for one or two claim in a few years, you will soon realise that the cheaper quote, in the long run, was actually the much more expensive option.

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Preparation required for a quick and cheap hairdressers insurance quote

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Anyone who has worked in an office and been on one of those seemingly pointless, but somehow necessary, training courses, may have been told about the 6 p’s. Proper planning and preparation prevents poor performance. There are alternatives, some with a four letter “p word” inserted between prevents and poor.

This, believe it or not is something that will help you if you are looking for a cheap hairdressers insurance quote. You have different options nowadays for arranging business coverage. You can go to a broker, direct to an insurer or, if you like to take risks, you can use a website that offers to compare business insurance.

Personally, as we are one, we think a broker is the best option. This is borne out in reality as well as you will receive a better quote for wider cover in the vats majority of cases.

But, you do need to prepare yourself. Getting a bit of useful information together before you make that first phone call is something that can help the broker do their job even better. If you are looking for a renewal quote, you must have your current insurance policy (and schedule) and your renewal offer. In addition, you will need details of all claims and losses (whether insured or not) in the past five years. This applies to all claims you have made whether the insurers paid out or not.

You do not need to declare to your broker your current premium, but it does help.

Preparation for a new business involves having your business plan to hand and knowing how much it would cost to replace all of you business contents and stock.

Posted in cheap hairdressers insurance, compare business insurance | No Comments »

Pub insurance – can I include commercial building cover?

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

The majority of public houses in the UK are owned by the large breweries or pubco’s. They tend to lease each property to individual tenants. Hence the phrase, tenanted public house.

In the terms of these leases, which are becoming less onerous thankfully, the building owner places certain obligations upon the tenant as regards arranging cover.

It is usually the responsibility of the incoming tenant to arrange their own pub insurance which covers the business contents, or assets, stock, liabilities and fixed glass and sanitary ware.

It is the responsibility of the owners to arrange commercial building insurance for the physical structure or “bricks and mortar”. In the terms of the lease though the tenant has to pay for the insurance. We do get asked whether we can offer a better quote for the buildings than the landlord has arranged. In nearly every case, because we consider each quote on it’s merits, we can beat the existing terms.

Whilst this will offer a saving to the tenant, they can only arrange cover if the landlord agrees. The owner does not want to say yes, you can arrange cover and then find out 6 months later that you have forgotten to pay and a huge fire claim goes unpaid.

The way around this is, if the landlord agrees, to get their interest noted on the policy as the beneficial owner. Therefore, the policy will not be cancelled (if this has to happen) without the landlord receiving written notification of this. Thereby allowing them the option of getting their own policy in force.

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

Public liability insurance – what is it and do I need it?

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Everyone understands the phrase “you are liable”. This means you, or a third party, are responsible for something.

When we start to talk about the legalities of this, we think about public liability insurance, which can be confusing for a business.

The first thing to ask is, what exactly is it? Simply put, it is your legal liability for any loss, damage, disease or injury (physical or psychological) to any third party person or property. The key thing here is “legal” liability, whilst you may feel a moral obligation in certain circumstances, public liability insurance only applies if you can be proven to be liable, at law.

The second thing to ask is, do I need it? Maybe or maybe not. There is not the similar legal requirement to have the cover that applies to employers liability insurance. But, you may need it as part of a contract or because you want to protect your business in the event of a claim.

If you are unsure, call a broker to discuss their thoughts on whether you do need this cover and let them get you a comparative quote.

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