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Archive for August, 2010

Commercial building insurance – separate policies

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Many companies will include cover for buildings in their standard business insurance policy. This can be for one of three main reasons:-

1) The business, whether a sole trader, ltd or partnership, actually owns the building that they operate from.

2) There is a full insuring and repairing lease in existence.

3) The business does not own the building, nor does it have an insuring and repairing lease but still arranges cover.

The question regarding option 3 is, whether this is the correct way of doing things. There are many basic principles and rules relating to insurance. One of these is that you cannot arrange cover on any property or person that you do not have a financial interest in, unless this is legally required.

For example, I cannot arrange commercial building insurance for the factory down the street, because it is nothing to do with me. If it burns down tonight, why should I benefit financially?

There are cases where an individual owns a building and decides to put this in a trust, related to their pension. In these cases, the individual may choose to rent the building to their own limited company.

This needs to be considered very carefully though. The reason being that if the limited company is in financial trouble at all, then there is the potential for the cover on the structure not to be paid or if there is a loss, the payment will only go to the limited company and it’s creditors may claim the settlement monies.

In these cases, the actual policy that covers the building should formally note the financial interest of the building owner. ie a policy for ABCDE Limited, should note the financial interest of Mr Joe Bloggs as the beneficial owner of the building. Therefore, in the event of a loss, to the buildings, that is covered by a policy, the payment will only be made to Mr Joe Bloggs.

If there is any doubt about this, you need to speak to a specialist, independent business insurance broker to make sure you have the right cover in place.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance broker, commercial building insurance | Comments Off

Business insurance policies – capitalised terms

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

If you are in the middle of a claim and having to read through your business insurance policy wording, you need to take this one step at a time.

Most policies will be in excess of 40 or 50 pages and yes, the words are usually quite small. In 2010 though we are lucky in that most insurers will have their wordings on a website in a pdf format. If you cannot get it from the insurers website, then your broker should be able to email one through to you. If they try to charge you for this, tell them to forget it.

Once you have this in a pdf format, open the wording and expand the page a bit by pressing the plus option a few times. This way the small words actually become readable.

The first page you need to look at is the one with the definitions. This will include details on what is a building, what is stock, what is damage etc etc. This is the capitalised terms we talk about. The wording should have the definitions in bold with the first letter capitalised.

This may sound silly and pedantic, but this is how policy wordings are set out and “fit together”.

You can then find out whether, for example, the damage that has occurred is actually damage that is covered with the wording. You should find Damage in the first few pages. Rather than trawling through each page, press Control and F (ie press control, keep your finger on it and then press f) then you will get a box up which you can insert the word damage into and then search the wording for it.

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Products liability insurance – who needs this cover?

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

We often get asked, when people are looking for a business insurance quote, whether they need products liability insurance.

The answer to the question, which does not help, is yes, probably. There is no legal requirement, under UK law, for a business or individual to have products liability.

We first of all need to understand what this cover is. Simply put, if you manufacture or supply (with the manufacture being undertaken by someone else) a product, which causes injury, illness, disease or damage to another person(s) or property, you can be held legally liable. Now, as you can be held legally liable you would think it follows that you should have the cover, but this is not the case.

So, now we understand that 80% of UK businesses (who supply or manufacture products) need this cover, what happens if you do not have it? If I go to a supermarket and buy a tin of beans, in UK law I have a financial relationship with the supermarket. Therefore, if the product poisons me, I will claim against them. The law is not concerned with who made the product, I claim against the party I bought it from.

The supermarkets insurers would then pay out to me, with their insurers deciding whether to subrogate (or claim) against the business insurance insurers of the ultimate product manufacturers. This is where it gets interesting, every link in the chain from product manufacture to sale, which can be three, four, five or more companies, needs to have insurance cover.

The potential for a claim is low, but you really should have the cover in place. You don’t need to have the cover, no-one is going to quote UK law to you to prove you need the cover. But, if you want to get adequate protection for your business you really should give us a call to get your own product liability insurance quote.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance quote, product liability insurance, products liability insurance | Comments Off

Pub insurance – alternative renewal quotes

Friday, August 20th, 2010

We have arranged pub insurance for a particular customer for many years. We have, were necessary, moved their insurance cover from one company to another to ensure they always get the best deal.

They have significant sums insured and we have always got them the best deal, with year on year decreases because of a no claims discount. This year though, they have an alternative quote that was 20% less. They called us up and told us this and quite rightly said that they could not afford to say no. They had given our renewal quote to the other specialist business insurance broker, who had said (but would not confirm in writing) that they were offering comparable cover.

As the customer is long standing, they emailed through the quote. Unfortunatley the differences in the cover were staggering. The sums insured were less than hald, there was no legal expenses insurance and the excess was £500. It is quite obvious why they would not put this in writing.

We discussed this and they reduced some of our sums insured but realised that they were basically being conned.

If they had not spoken to us, they could have gone ahead with the cheaper quote and lost out big time. When you get to your renewal, speak to someone like Businessinsure. We will always quote like for like wherever possible and if there are any glaring differences, we will let you know.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance broker, pub insurance, pub insurance quote | Comments Off

Business insurance – speak to a human being!

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Looking for a business insurance quote and using the net? We can guarantee if you go to the worlds favourite, and best, search engine Google, that you will be faced with an array of choices when you tap in your search term.

Getting a top three position in Google is the Holy Grail of most companies. You will find though, that the bigger the company, the more money they have to invest in tweaks and cheats to get to the top. But, the ones that appear at the top are not quote what they seem. I always thought that to get to the top means you are the best. However, being a small, independent business insurance broker, we have realised that however good, quick, competitive and/or recommended you are, this does not mean you will be anywhere near the top.

This troubles me, the top five or six in most insurance categories feed you straight through to a website where you, the customer, have to fill in all of the information and at no time at all do you get any advice, help or pointers about what cover you really need.

If you have got this far into this blog then you are hopefully thinking along the same lines. Have no fear though, for every company that has invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in advertising and search engine optimisation to get to the top, there are hundreds of independent brokers just waiting to offer you a personal service. When we say personal service, this means that you can actually speak to a human, get advice, understand what cover is or is not required.

Whilst we do not doubt that a website that offers to compare business insurance will get you a competitive price, who is there to confirm to you whether the cover is competitive as well?

Posted in business insurance, business insurance quote, compare business insurance | Comments Off

Specialist business insurance policies – takeaways and restaurants

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Depending on the exact trade you are involved in, there may be a specialist business insurance policy available for you. But how do you know whether you have been sold a standard, run of the mill policy, or one that is suited to your specific needs?

This can be a difficult question to answer and one that you need to consider carefully. To an outsider, one policy can be exactly the same as another. For many companies, this can be acceptable. However, for others you can get a much better alternative cover, by getting a policy that has been designed specially.

For example, takeaway insurance policies are loosely based on a sho or retail insurance policy. They have similar risks, windows can get smashed, peopel can trip on the premises and employees can get injured. However, there are particular risks that are associated with takeaways and restaurants that are not related to a standard clothing shop, for example.

Go to any takeaway on a Friday or Saturday night and you are more than likely to see a delivery driver hovering around with a cool box, waiting to take the next delivery. What happens if they injure someone or spill food on someones hall carpet (this has and does happen quite regularly)?

A normal shop policy will not necessariluy cover this, whereas a specialist policy should have this cover included. Whilst it is not always your job (as there are specialists to do this for you), one thing you should do is to consider all of the business risks that you face and think whether you have a suitable policy to cover you.

Posted in business insurance, restaurant insurance, takeaway insurance | Comments Off

Business insurance brokers – where are they going?

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

If you have a business insurance policy in place at the moment, the chances are that this is through a broker. By law, you must receive details of your insurance renewal “within a reasonable timescale” of the actual renewal date.

We work here to a target of between 14 and 21 days prior to renewal to either have all your documents sent to you, or to give you written confirmation of your renewal terms. When your policy falls due for renewal, you may want to look a bot closer at who is actually offering this to you.

Consolidation in the business insurance broker world is rife. Going back only four or five years and there were in excess of 3,000 brokers. Then, some larger companies started to buy up smaller outfits and this number has now reduced to around 2,000. You may find that your offer is from a different company that has swallowed up your previous business.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Usually, it just means that you are being serviced from a different business in a different office by different people using different systems. Which can add up to you not getting the personal service that you have always been used to. If you want to be able to speak to the same person whenever you call, then you may want to consider moving your business elsewhere.

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Business insurance claims – VAT

Friday, August 13th, 2010

If you have made a claim against any type of business insurance policy, one of the questions that will be asked is whether or not you are VAT registered.

You do need to think very carefully about this, because it is going to affect your claim by 17.5% or whatever the VAT rate increases to in the future. We know it is easy to answer the question, because you either are, or you are not, VAT registered.

The reason for thinking carefully is, where you VAT registered at the time of the loss? A lot of businesses start off small and through natural growth get to the stage of their turnover increasing. Once you get to the threshold for VAT, then this has a serious affect on your business.

Not only do you have the process of going through quarterly VAT returns. You have to attune your mind to thinking about prices with and without the 17.5%.

If you make an insurance claim and you are VAT registered, then you will find that your claim will have 17.5% removed from the eventual settlement cost. This is because you can offset this against your VAT return so that you do not lose out.

But, if you were not registered at the time of the loss, but are now, do not whatever you do, declare it because you will not get the full settlement costs you are due.

Posted in business insurance claim | Comments Off

A business insurance broker can do wonders for your business

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

If you have a business insurance policy, there is a chance that you might not be carrying the correct level of cover. You could be under insured.

The difficulty is, that you don’t want to be over insured. Anyone in business can think about every single eventuality that could occur to them and decide to take out a policy, or cover, to protect them. If you have lots of spare cash, then this is something you should consider. But, in reality this is not the case. Businesses do not want to spend 5-10% of their income on insurance.

A typical business, not doing anything that is too major or high riks, should look at spending around one half to one percent of their turnover on policies.

You may have found that over the past 12-18 months, any policies that you did have were being renewed at higher, or unchanged rates. The reason being that insurers are finding things just as tough as every other business. They are looking to increase their premiums, to help pay for losses.

This is why, if you have a policy that is due for renewal, you should always speak to a business insurance broker to see what they can do for you. They cannot guarantee to beat every single business premium out there, but we can guarantee that in more than 3/4’s of cases that they will offer you a better deal with no reduction in cover.

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Shop insurance – excess levels

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Every shop insurance policy will have certain levels of excess against the different types of cover provided. An excess is an amount that you must pay towards any claim.

You either have to pay the excess directly to the insurers, or they deduct the amount of the excess from a claim. If you have every had insurance for your car, you will be well aware of the fact that excesses apply. Usually when you start to drive or a re a young driver learning, you will have a higher excess. The reason being that insurers feel that you are more likely to have a claim.

The same can be said of different types of insurance cover. You are more likely to have a claim on your business insurance shop policy for a smashed window that you are for, say, legal expenses. Most insurers therefore apply a much higher excess for this level of cover.

The thing is, you need to shop around not just for a cheaper policy, but also one that offers better cover. Anyone with a modicum of computer skills and a telephone can get a cheap quote. But, if it is at the expense of cover and with higher excesses, then it really is not worth it.

Shops and retailers are having an awfully tough time, there is one way though that you can save money. Speak to an independent (this is very important as they will work with many different insurers) business insurance broker and they will get you two things. Good cover at the cheapest premium they can.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance broker, retail insurance, shop insurance | Comments Off