April « 2011 « BusinessInsure Blog

Archive for April, 2011

Choice is what matters.

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

If you are looking for a cheap business insurance quote, then the more choice you can get, or have, then the better things will be. Or, so you would think. We recently quoted for a customers pub insurance, we went to six insurers and got a range of quotes from £760 to £4,000. The customer took out the lower quote as we recommended this one, as it included legal expenses and equipment breakdown cover.

But, with the £4,000 quote, we were surprised to find out that this company had also quoted the client, through another broker at just under £1,000. The quotes we obtain were from a web quote system and if the information declared was the same, then the quote should be the same.

However, we raised this with the insurers only to be told that the broker who quoted the alternative had a “special deal” arrangement, allowing them to quote at substantial discounts. Now, I am happy to accept that a big business insurance broker that puts most of it’s business with Insurer A will get better prices. These you would expect to be in the 5-10% difference mark. 75% less is just a bit too much.

Complain as we did, the insurers basically were not that concerned. The good news is that we got the business anyway, but the moot point is that, if you think you are getting choice, then maybe it is not what you think. The best way to get proper choice, is to go to two or three different brokers, as opposed to two or three insurers direct.

Posted in business insurance, pub insurance | Comments Off

Business insurance premiums on the increase…

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

If you look in the press today, one of the major newspapers are stating that your insurance for the family car is going to be nearly a £1,000 per year. Now, we all know that newspapers like a bit of scaremongering, and the £1k a year bill will probably only apply to people living in the cities, parking on the street.

However, there is no smoke without fire and insurance premiums are definitely on the increase. We have some companies who have not had an increase on their business insurance premiums for three or four years. This year though we are going to have to put through a small increase, just a few percent, but I know that they are going to bleat that they should not have an increase. But, even looking at inflation over the past 18 months, realistically they should expect some sort of increase, whether or not there has been a claim or not.

But, if a business is realistic, what sort of premium increase should they expect? In January this year, the insurance premium tax rate increased by 1%. So, without even thinking about a “profit” increase, the tax rate has already gone up. So, in addition to the 1%, what should you really expect? If you have been claims free for a few years, your expectation should be for an increase in the region of 2 or 3%, plus the 1% IPT rise.

It depends on the type of product though, takeaway and restaurant insurance premiums are increasing at a higher rate than maybe, office and shop insurance. This is due to insurers individual experiences with these types of risks. As far as takeaways, fish and chip shops and restaurants are concerned, more and more insurers are withdrawing from the market. As they withdraw, the basic economic principle of supply and demand kicks in, which means they can charge higher premiums than they could last year.

If you are finding that you have had an increase over and above the few percent we have mentioned, then you really should give us a call to see what we can do for you.

But

Posted in business insurance, restaurant insurance | Comments Off

Office insurance – stock holding

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Online retail insurance policies prevent a bit of a difficult choice for some insurers. In the olden days, they had shop policies that were designed for high street premises or locations with a “shop front”. As the internet continues to grow, we are seeing more and more growth in the online retail area. We are not in any way saying it is easy to trade in this manner, but if you want to set up a website to trade online, for less than £100 and a few hours work, you could technically be up and running.

If you trade from home, you can usually get a home business insurance policy that covers your stock and liabilities. However, many internet retail businesses now operate from small office premises. Whether this is a sign of the recession (in that there are more office premises up for rental) or not, we can’t tell. But we are getting more and more quote requests for businesses that run a retail website, trade from an office and keep thousands of pounds worth of stock in that office.

So, do we quote it under a shop or office insurance policy? It all depends on the nature of the stock, the security and how much stock is stored. We need to be careful that you not only have cover for the stock itself (ie theft, fire, flood etc) but in addition you get the required liability cover.

We had just such an enquiry where the customer was selling fancy goods, glassware and trinkets. They said that there was no liability risk, but if we did not at leats recommend that thye took out products liability cover (which they did) then we are failing in our service to them.

Most insurers are happy to cover these types of risks under both retail and office contracts. If you are looking for a quote, please call us to discuss.

Posted in business insurance, internet retailers insurance, office insurance, office insurance quote, online business insurance quote, shop insurance | Comments Off

The banking crisis and business insurance.

Monday, April 11th, 2011

You may not have heard it, but Gordon Brown admitted over the weekend that “he didn’t understand the banks”. In terms of understatements, this is akin to Brown saying he had some personality issues and didn’t quite get on with Tony Blair.

It would have been nicer and maybe more re-assuring if Mr Brown had actually said this while he was in power, but we know what he was like, he would only ever admit to what he thought was right. If he had been a bit more human he might still be in power.

But how does his lack of understanding of the banks fit with the business insurance industry? If you look around on the net, you may find that there are hundreds and hundreds of different companies that offer this cover.

In reality, there are lots of companies offering cover, but not as many as you woudl think because lots of them trade under different names or entities. In recent years, NIG, or National Insurance and Guarantee Corporation Limited, have continued to grown into a top ten commercial insurance company.

NIG were owned by Churchill, who were bought by Direct Line who are owned by everyone’s favourite bottomless pit of a bank, RBS. As a result of the Labour administrations softly softly approach on the banks, we know how much debt RBS has. The UK government has bailed out RBS. But, as a condition of this funding, the EU is stating that Royal Bank of Scotland Insurance, RBSI, is “divested” or sold off. So, by 2013, depending on who buys NIG, how it is sold, if it is merged or stays the same etc etc, we may have one less, pro-active, growth orientated insurer.

But, it could be better, depending on which company decides to buy NIG (if this is what happens) then we may see more growth and more competition.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance broker | Comments Off

Cheap business insurance quotes?

Saturday, April 9th, 2011

A simple post heading, but is it really still post to get a cheap business insurance quote?

The answer is yes. Whatever happens to insurance premiums you will always be able to get a cheap quote. But, and it really is a big one, cheap is not always best. We prefer to say, cheaper. You can usually get a better price than your existing renewal. But you need to be very careful about getting one that is too cheap. This can mean that you have inadequate sums insured, low cover, high excesses and onerous terms and conditions that you simply cannot ever meet.

Therefore, you may save yourself hundreds of pounds, but in the event of claim you start to find out that the cheap policy was cheap for a reason.

We are not saying, by default that you should always take the most expensive quote. What you need to do is to seek the service and advice of a business insurance broker. There are thousands upon thousands of brokers out there just waiting for your call or email. It is what we do best, what we do all the time and are very good at. Forget the websites that “promise” to compare business insurance. They are just comparing price, because this is the easiest and lowest common denominator to sell under.

Get a broker to do your bidding and you wont go far wrong, do not always think that cheap is best. Have you ever tried the 20p bottles of cola compared to the branded ones? Now you can start to see that whilst cheap is still a product, it is nowhere near as good.

A broker will not always get you the cheapest of cheap deals, what they will do is scour the market on your behalf and come back with the best price AND cover AND claims service from the insurers available. If they fail to offer you a good product, you have a comeback on them. But, some of the autoquote websites give you no come back at all.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance broker | Comments Off

Laminate flooring – buildings or contents?

Friday, April 8th, 2011

Anyone who has recently had a business insurance claim may understand exactly what this question is all about.

If you have a buildings policy and separate one for contents and there is a loss, which damages both the contents and buildings, then you may find insurers arguing the toss about what they are responsible for.

We have an ongoing claim under an office insurance policy at the moment. A pipe burst behind one of the plaster walls, with enough pressure for the water to force it’s way, horizontally, through the plaster. The insured did the right thing and called the fire brigade who turned off the water in the street. I wont say where it is, but if they had phoned their local water board the chances are that it would still be flooding today.

Anyway, the water was off, emergency pumps were used to get the water out of the property (basement) and the insured then decided to pursue a claim. One of the items that they are claiming for is a damaged laminate floor. They tried to claim for the walls and ceilings as well but we have told them to speak to their landlord. The landlord insurance policy insurers are saying that the laminate floor is not part of the buildings. But, if it is fitted to the building and you would not take it with you when you go, then it is part of the building and should be covered as such.

Carpets, fall under contents, they always have and always will. Although they are “fitted” you can easily pick them up and take them with you when you go.

If you have a contents policy, please make sure that you have an item on it for tenants improvements that you may be responsible for. If you are in any doubt, please speak to your business insurance broker for advice on what you need, and can, cover.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance broker, office insurance | Comments Off

Visiting a business insurance comparison website?

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

If you are, there are a few hurdles which you may fall at. You need to be aware that “one size” does not fit all in the business insurance world.

If, like us, you have spent the past 10 years closely monitoring the internet and how business customers find an insurance provider, you can’t help to have noticed that the bigger companies have dominated the search market.

It used to be, many years ago, that if you looked on Google for, say, business insurance, you would find on page one or two a list of independent brokers. Independence makes a great difference because it means that a broker can go to whichever provider they see fit, to get you the best price and premium.

Nowadays, the top ten in Google are a combination of websites that offer to compare business insurance and others that are single company insurers. This is frustrating for customers and us, because we want people to be given a range of results, not just those that have managed to expend the biggest SEO spend.

The frustrating part is that they get through to a website, expecting to get a good quality comparison but there are, as we have said, many hurdles to cross.

The problem being, if your business does not “fit” into their categories then you are snookered. The issue being that you only find this out once you have probably entered the site, put in some information and spent 5 or 10 minutes of your busy life to be told, “the computer says no”.

Now, you may think this is good for us, in a way it is because people leave these sites and then search for one that has a human being at the end of a phone line who can discuss your individual requirements. However, once people have been on one or two of these sites, they become a bit tainted and think that this means that every business insurance broker website is “bad” and they cannot find the service they are looking for.

Hopefully, and it is not just Google, as Yahoo and Bing are also partly to blame, the search engine companies will realise that what the user wants is not always delivered on page one. If you find yourself in this position, please take a sneaky peak onto page 2 or 3, you will be surprised at what you can find.

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

Getting a local business insurance quote

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

We have heard for year about borders being removed and having the ability to trade worldwide for everyone. Whilst things are better than ever, certain industries still like to work in their own individual territories. In the UK, business insurance has fallen into this category. Whilst there were never cartels operating, it was usually agreed that insurers would only deal through business local to their branch area.

Therefore, if a broker sitting in Perth (for example) received a quote from a business in London, it would prove slightly difficult, with certain commercial insurance companies, to get a quote. They had this antiquated opinion that, if a business was not looking for quotes in it’s “local market”, then this meant that something was up.

Thankfully, things have moved on a considerable amount from those days. So, if you are looking for your quote, you are not restricted to the handful of brokers in your local town. But, the question is still asked, “am I better to get a local quote?”.

If you speak to a local business insurance broker, they will of course sell you the benefits of being local. But, in our experience this does not always guarantee you the best premium for the widest cover, nor does it mean that you will always get the best service.

We can be challenged on thsi and I am sure that in some locations, certain businesses have always dealt locally and are happy to continue. Others however, do not even think about dealing locally. They know that to get the best deal (price, cover and service) that you have to go National.

This is where we can help. Although we are a broker, in one area, we cover the whole of the UK, so whether you are in London, Penzance or Inverness, we are here for you.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance broker, business insurance london | Comments Off

The shrinking takeaway insurance market

Monday, April 4th, 2011

On Friday the 1st April, we had another of our main business insurance providers telling us that they would no longer be providing cover for certain types of takeaway.

The restrictions that apply are, in the main, to those types of takeaways that choose to stay open once the pubs are shut. Their philosophy, based on years of statistics, is that takeaways that stay open later than 11pm have an unfair proportion of claims to others.

In the main, these claims are due to drunks deciding to smash places up for whatever reason they have chosen. Usually, they have been ejected from the premises for one reason or another or there has been a fight or someone is just intent on causing a bit of trouble.

As well as these claims though, takeaways are increasingly a target for armed and violent robberies. They take a lot of cash and in cash strapped Britain today, unfortunately, the crime rate is increasing. As well as robbery with violence, we are also starting to see more break in claims. I am not personally sure what people think they will be able to nick from a takeaway without it being very heavy and cumbersome (given that 99% take all the cask off the premises).

But, this does not stop the claims and this has an adverse affect on the premiums being charged for takeaway insurance policies. We have seen in the past few years an increase in the premiums and excesses form the insurers, but this has not helped many of the them start to turn a profit yet.

Therefore, it was not an April fool on Friday, one of the main providers had decided to exit the market. The problem was that they had not exactly gone about it in the most detailed way. We received an email saying they were refusing to offer renewal on a handful of cases. It would have been nice to get some prior warning but insurers do not always work this way.

Having said all this, it is not a market that has disappeared, if you are looking for a competitively priced takeaway insurance quote, you should really give us a call to see what we can do for you.

Posted in business insurance, takeaway insurance quote | Comments Off

Commercial building insurance – is the market turning

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

Every commercial insurance company in the UK has their own “preferred” types of business that they want to underwrite. Some will balk at the higher risks (such as oil rigs, airports etc) whereas others specialise in this area. It is a case of, whatever floats your boat.

If the insurers know, from experience, that they can make money from a particular type of risk (say, fish and chip shops) then they will do three things. Firstly, they will design specific products to suit the industry. Secondly, they will market these products and thirdly, they will price accordingly.

I have done a few different marketing exams in the past as part of my professional qualifications. You can tell that they are not written by people in the real world, because they say that targeting niche areas is the key. This is absolute tosh. In 2011, there is very little marketing that anyone can do, that cannot be immediately replicated by A N Other.

This is where commercial property insurance comes into play. You cannot get yourself a niche product, because everyone wants a piece of the action. All insurers want commercial property business, because, over the years it makes them money. There is enough of it about that they can get in some significant premiums to cover the losses. As a result, they price to get the business, which means cheap.

Over the past few years though, they have been going beyond the profitability line. We have seen two harsh winters, this means lots of burst pipes, collapsed gutters and other cold induced damage to property. So they are not making as much as they thought, and are losing out. How do they rectify this? By increasing prices. If you find that you have a commercial or business property insurance renewal that has gone up a bit too much, give us a call to see what we can do for you.

Posted in business building insurance, business buildings insurance, business insurance broker, commercial building insurance, commercial buildings insurance, commercial property insurance, commercial property insurance quote, commercial property owners insurance | Comments Off