February « 2011 « BusinessInsure Blog

Archive for February, 2011

Business insurance renewal increased?

Monday, February 28th, 2011

In 2011, we are starting to see some, not all, of the business insurance companies we deal with increasing premiums on their renewals. It has always been a source of concern that they tend to buy in new business. The prices you can get for a new quote, compared to identical terms for, say, a third year renewal can be vastly different.

But, it is not just our industry, I am sure that every single trade carried out in the UK has their “loss leader” type business. It is frustrating for us though, because we, as brokers, tend to bear the brunt of peoples anger as we are the front end of business and are the ones that speak to the end consumers. The commercial insurance senior staff can sit in their, sometimes, ivory towers and decree that renewals will go up by x%. An astute broker will keep a close eye on things though and whether you are paying £200 or £20,000 your year on year percentage increase, form 2010 to 2011 should not be more than a few percent. Insurance premium tax has gone up, so you should expect 1%, inflation and a few other costs have pushed things up so, on clean (no claims) business, a 3-4% increase is what we would expect.

Any more than that and you may need to start speaking to your broker, or maybe anpther one, about getting an alternative. If a broker says there is no alternative, then they are not quite telling the truth. There is always and alternative, it just may be that your current broker does not have enough providers to help them get a better price for the same cover.

Posted in business insurance, commercial insurance | No Comments »

Block of flats insurance

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

News reaches me today that one of the largest UK insurers has pulled out out the market for block of flats insurance. Now, I am only hearing this from a potential customer who has been pedalled this line by his broker. Usually when you get a comment like this, what it means is that the insurers has refused to deal with the broker any more, not that they have pulled out of the market. But, the customer was so surprised that they phoned the insurer who apparently confirmed this.

Again, this coudl be the insurer simply saying that they are not dealing with a particular broker any more for certain, or all, types of business insurance.

This one I think is possible because it is near the coast. It is brand new, £5,000,000 buildings and next to a marina. Now, the insurer could be thinking of an increased storm exposure or even that there is a potential subsidence risk, who knows?

If you are looking for a quot e though, give us a call. We are not an insurer but a broker and can therefore search the market for you.

Posted in block of flats insurance, business insurance | Comments Off

Compare business insurance – the right way.

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

Following on from our previous posts about the sites that offer to compare business insurance, we thought we would say what you should expect.

In the olden days (pre 1990) if you were looking for a comparable quote at renewal for your business, you really only had one option. You would speak to a local broker and they would offer to come and see you. As part of their visit they would ask to see all of your existing documents and then come back to you with two things. Firstly, a straight comparison with what you had, and secondly, offers of additional insurance cover.

Any broker would always say that another provider was not really giving exactly what they should do as far as cover is concerned.

Here at businessinsure, we like to do things slightly differently. If you were to phone us up to discuss an alternative to your renewal, we would look to gain as much information about you, your business and what your plans are for the next twelve months. There is no point in sticking with the same sums insured etc, if your business is to grow or change substantially in the next twelve months.

We would then offer a comparable quote to the cover you have at present. It may well be that we offer slightly different excesses and terms, usually for the better. But, until we see a copy of your existing insurance, there is not really that much that we can do to check what cover, terms, warranties, conditions and excesses you have.

Then, if we felt that you were missing out on cover, for example a licensed premises without loss of licence insurance, we would let you know. Hopefully, you would then be sitting there with your existing business insurance renewal and a comparison quote to consider.

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

Do compare business insurance websites really work?

Friday, February 25th, 2011

A friend of mine asked me about their car insurance. They had a renewal from company A and had used a few of the comparison sites and managed to get alternatives that saved up to £128. As a business insurance broker, they of course think I am well versed in every aspect of insurance. I explained that private car was not my thing, but I would happily review the documents.

To cut a long story short, the only thing that they had managed to do was reduce the premium. When you looked into the cover and excesses there were such vast differences, they were, frankly uncomparable. I explained to my friend that, if all they wanted to do was to meet the absolute minimum legal requirement for drigin on the road, then they should take the cheapest quote. Even then I had my doubts about the speed with which the provider in question would actually pay out on the claim. If however, they wanted a policy that would actually pay out on the types of things they would normally expect, for example a windscreen claim without a massive excess, then they should stick where they were.

Over Christmas, when we had our two quiet business days of the year, I had a renewal that was due for a shop. I had a look at some of the sites that offered to compare, and it was the same old story, all they do is offer cheaper prices. Now, don’t get me wrong, we always try and save customers money, but, not at the expense of their cover.

Posted in business insurance broker, compare business insurance, compare business insurance quotes | Comments Off

Combined liability insurance – getting a quick quote

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Technically, here in the UK, we are out of recession. This is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. We had a dip at the back end of 2010 but not many people are expecting this to continue in quarter 1 2011. A lot of the problems at the end of last year were due to the weather and logistical problems.

But, having said all that, things are still pretty tough. No-one is naive enough to start talking about Norman Lamont’s “green shoots of recovery”. However, the corner has firmly been turned. Many businesses which were on the brink of failure, simply mothballed their operations until a later date.

We are starting to see many of these businesses now starting to look around for quotes, particularly combined liability insurance. This is the basic cover that many companies are asked to prove they have in force as they enter into or tender for contracts.

Getting a quote, and quickly, is usually the order of the day. Things are never easy and you usually never have enough time. So, if you are tendering and want to know the likely cost of any insurance, how do you get a quote as soon as possible?

The answer is to speak to a business insurance broker. Our role is to serve you and any broker worth their salt can usually give you an indication over the phone and a confirmed, written, quote within a few hours.

Posted in business insurance, combined liability insurance | No Comments »

Contractors insurance – looking for a new quote

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

A friend of mine runs a small building firm, in the main they supply brick and block laying services. Now, the last few years have been tough for everyone except bankers and football players, but those in the building industry have really suffered, and this is continuing. He has however recently asked to up the cover under his contractors insurance to pick up some additional employees.

He is sensible enough to know that we are by no means out of the woods yet. We are seeing a lot of the pent up demand over the past few years starting to flow through. There are many businesses that have learned some serious lessons over the past few years about managing cash flow. But, some of this cash is now flowing into the bigger building projects and my friend, with his team of 4 people, says he is being offered a job a week, some of them fixed term for up to 12 months. The difficulty is, after the tough times of the past few year, do you jump at the first offer or take on smaller jobs and see what comes around the corner?

If you have been in the builidng industry and are seeing your work levels increasing, this is all well and good. What you do need to do though is make sure that you have adequate business insurance in place. Even a cursory call to your broker will help just to review what cover you have got and whether it is sufficient for your needs.

Posted in business insurance, contract works insurance, contractors all risks insurance, contractors insurance | Comments Off

Wholesalers insurance – roller shutter doors

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

If you have a wholesalers insurance policy, you need to look very carefully at all of the terms and conditions that apply to your cover. Some of these are more important than others. If your insurer can prove that you have not complied you could be faced with the potential of not having a claim paid.

The three main types of physical loss that you could suffer are wet weather or burst pipes, a fire or a break in. All of these will destroy or result in your stock being stolen.

Most warehouses will have roller shutter doors. It is the easiest and cheapest way of putting on a door that allows large quantities of stock (or vehicles) to enter or exit the premises.

Older roller shutter doors have a small door in the shutter which you enter and then unlock the main door. If your roller shutter door have locks on the floor, then these types of doors are very easy to force open from the outside with a reasonable size crow bar. Most business insurance companies that offer these types of policies will have specific requirements stating that the roller shutter door must have at least two internal locks on the doors. These will need to be at least 40 cm from the ground floor, on the inside.

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

Professional indemnity insurance – why is it so expensive?

Monday, February 21st, 2011

Depending on the type of trade, when we get some people a professional indemnity insurance quote, their first response is to question why it is so expensive. Not because that are just unhappy about the premium, it is usually because they cannot see where the risk actually is. The whole point about insurance is that you are buying financial protection for that “once in a blue moon” event.

What you are not buying is a policy that covers out for the losses you reasonably expect to make in business. What we mean by this is when you have to re-do some work or go back and fix a bit of snagging. Everyone accepts that this is part of their business and the costs are built in.

With a business insurance policy, you are looking for (in exchange for the payment of a premium) an insurer to pay out for the “big” claims that could potentially destroy your business.

This is why professional indemnity premiums may appear to be more expensive, in reality they are not, because the potential costs of claims are difficult to quantify. What you can be sure of is that if a client, or ex-client, decides to pursue a professional negligence or PI claim against your business, then this is because it is serious. There are costs, and time, involved for any company that is looking to claim against another.

So, when you get your professional indemnity quote at, say, £500 per year, when you cannot perceive there to be any risk, then you have to accept that there is going to be the potential of a claim, otherwise you would not be getting the insurance cover in the first place.

What you can do, is to look around to see what is the cheapest premium for the level of cover you need. Insurer A may charge £1,000 whereas insurer B could be half that. It just depends on the insurers appetite for your particular type of business. If they want this business, they will quote a competitive price, if not, then they will price themselves out of the market.

Posted in business insurance, professional indemnity insurance | Comments Off

Contractors insurance – quick and easy quotes

Friday, February 18th, 2011

We have seen, in late February 2011, the first real solid reports which are trending that the UK is not going to enter a double dip recession. Whether those on the left wing will ever admit it, the weather during December 2010 really put a hole in any positive growth figures. We effectively went for 5 weeks, 10% of the working year, without a proper transport system and without people even able to attend work. But, things are starting (very slowly) to pick up. We are seeing this in the business insurance world from all types of industry.

Whilst the construction industry is one that has suffered a traditional double whammy. Firstly they are still suffering the after effects of the credit crunch and the reduction in mortgage lending, they are now suffering from central government withdrawing or restricting funding for a range of building projects. But, it is a resilient industry and we are starting to see an increase in requests for construction insurance quotes. Whether this is just for a single public liability insurance policy or for a more complex multi layer liability policy with contract works, there are more businesses out there starting to grow. As they grwo they start to realise that there is a need for insurance and this is where Businessinsure come into play.

What you do not want is to spend hours and hours searching the net to find the right deal. What you do want to do is to speak to a broker and let them do all of the hard work for you. You only need give one broker your information once and then they will then search the market for you. If you have had insurance before, you will know roughly what the price is likely to be. If, in the unlikely event that the broker quotes you much higher, you can then look around and speak to A N Other broker.

Posted in business insurance, construction insurance | Comments Off

February Business Insurance Sale

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

With business insurance, you do not really get a sale season, prices remain fairly static throughout the insurance year. The best way for you to get a competitive alternative is simply to look around.

Insurers are getting a bit tighter with their pricing during 2011. All this means is that they starting to get a bit tougher (but not too much) on their increases. They have realised for years that they have been underpricing business but they are still a little bit frightened of putting through significant double digit increases on all business as this would mean a loss of market share.

So, whilst we cannot guarantee some sort of percentage reduction, we do know that with our experience and knowledge of the market we can look in the right places to get you the best deal. Take for example surgeries insurance. If you travel around every single town, village and city in the land, you will find doctors, dentists, vets and a whole range of other types of surgery. Some of these are quite imposing buildings which you would think are quote expensive to cover.

But, there are a number of insurers that are not only still keen to pick up surgery insurance policies, they are positively fighting to get this business on the books. When we say fighting this simply translates to them offering better cover for better prices.

If you find that your policy has gone up in excess of 5% (premium wise) and you have not had a claim in the past twelve months, then you are probably paying too much and now is the time for you to look elsewhere for a quotation.

So, no they are not offering a special 28 day February sale, but if you look in the right places you can always find yourself some sort of bargain, whether this is better cover, better prices or interest free instalments.

Posted in business insurance, surgeries insurance, surgery insurance | Comments Off