I remember back in the early 1980’s driving through South London and seeing a self storage depot that had started up in an old warehouse. Being able to store your goods in someone else’s warehouse was not a new concept at the time, but this was the first “in your face” warehouse I had really seen. It was big and brash and anyone driving towards Putney bridge could not help but notice this.
Moving on to the last five or ten years, we have seen hundreds, if not thousands of these warehouses popping up all over the country. With the advent of the internet and digital telecommunications, you do not need to have a physical business operation to trade. You can operate from a small home office and keep your stock where you like.
Most of the companies offering self store facilities, will have some form of warehouse insurance policy that you can purchase. This is usually on a month by month basis and is a cost per thousand pounds of stock.
You may think this is the only alternative but, you can, in many cases, add this cover to an existing business insurance policy. All you have to do is make sure that your broker, and consequently your insurer, are fully aware of everything about the stock storage location.
The key thing is that you need to have control over the security of the stock. If it is kept in a secure unit, where only you have access whether through a lock and key, alarm pad entry or key fob system, this is what the insurers need to know. If it is more of a fulfilment house, where they are doing all the work for you, then you do not have so much control over the security of the stock.
Most insurers are realistic enough to know that this is somehting that most businesses get involved in. They are therefore able to provide cover for you, in most cases at a much better premium than you can get through the storage facilities own insurance scheme. The best thing to do is to speak to your business insurance broker, explain what you want, how much cover you need and how long for and then compare this to the alternative. You would be surprised at how much you can save.