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Archive for June, 2011

Business insurance – glass cover

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Those of us that have worked in, or studied, business insurance will be told, or learn, within the first few weeks that you cannot usually insure something which does not belong to you. The example we are usually given is that you cannot take out a policy on your next door neighbours house or car and then, if they suffer a loss, put a claim in against it.

That, to most of us, is fairly obvious but it has to be laid down in statute and any type of policy will have this built into the policy wording.

However, you will have noticed that we said usually because, as with most things, there are one or two exceptions. We had an enquiry from someone looking for a salon insurance policy. As part of the normal underwriting and fact finding process we asked about their previous losses. They had been trading for 6 years and mentioned that they had a glass claim for £1,000 that was turned down. Why was it turned down? Because their previous policy that they had bought from a website that offered (and we use the term loosely) to compare business insurance. All that had happened was that the website had flagged up the cheapest, sold it on price and didn’t point out as boldly as they could have done, that there was no glass cover.

So, how does this relate to insuring things that do not belong to you? In the UK, the majority of shops, offices, restaurants, salons and takeaways wil be in rented premises. But, and it is improtant, as part of their lease over 95% of these businesses will be resonsible for all fixed glass and sanitaryware. Fixed glass means the shop front and rear glass including fixed mirrors in the building and snaitaryware means toilets and sinks.

Their policy did not have this cover, their landlord refused to make a claim on their commercial building insurance policy so the hairdresser had to stump up the cost themselves. Not only that, as it was a loss they had to declare it when looking for a quote. We managed to get them a competitive quote, with unlimited glass cover with a £200 excess.

If you do have a rented premises, please make sure that you have adequate insurance. You would not believe the cost of one smashed shop front window.

Posted in business insurance, salon insurance | Comments Off

Business Insurance – Android Apps

Monday, June 6th, 2011

It is not normal that the business insurance industry is at the vanguard of IT developments. I remember being told, when I started out 25 years ago, that we would soon move to becoming paperless.

In our main office, we have around 4,000 clients and, we have to keep paper records of everything. Every phone call, email, post or fax has to go on the file, either the original or one of our notes. As you can imagine, this means that we have some serious amounts of filing. We have considered scanning, but I have this belief, albeit at the back of my mind, about what would happen if everything we scanned disappeared? We are told that this cannot happen, but the ones that tell us this are the sales staff from the scanning companies.

In addition to the scanning, we have to keep a hard record anyway. We would need to have a warehouse somewhere else for all our papers to be kept. Maybe one day we will get round to trusting these firms but at the moment, we are happy with our paper records.

So, as far as this side goes, we are not quite at the forefront of anything. Paper always has and, for my lifetime, always will rule the day. But we are an innovative business insurance broker. We trade in a different way to the significant majority of brokers. As a step forward from this, we will be launching our very own business insurance app. We have had to take a gamble, do we go for Android or Apple first? Having looked around and checked with my peers, it has to be Android. We will develop a similar one for Apple soon, but the plans are by the end of quarter three, 2011, we will have one up and running. Watch this space of feel free to let us have any thoughts on what you would want to include.

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

Shop insurance – stock in transit

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

As a business, we have a card for a cash and carry warehouse. We use it infrequently but when buying consumables, such as tea, coffee, toilet rolls and cleaning products, it makes a big difference. As a business insurance broker, we are not VAT registered so we have to add on 20%, and leave it there.

The main companies that do this are Makro, Booker and CostCo. There are others, but these are the largest. When we go to the cash and carry I am always amazed by the shop keepers, hoteliers and restaurant owners that have trolleys so stacked up they can barely move. My insurance mind starts to work in overdrive and calculate exactly how much stock they have and if they take it in their car or van, are they insured for it?

Most of our shop, hotel and restaurant insurance policies include a small element of cover for goods in transit. The usual limit is £2,000 with £750 for wines, spirits and tobaccos. This provides cover if the stock is maybe stolen en route or the car crashes and the stock is destroyed.

Most of the people I see are probably not far off this figure but some, with big white vans, are guaranteed to be way over this limit. Now what they should do it speak to their broker and get the limit increased, the chances are that to go from £2,000 to £3,000 will only cost about £20 per year. I know it is more money but at the end of the day there are some insurances that you really cannot do without. The vehicle cover will not include stock being carried, this must fit onto yoru business insurance policy.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance advice, business insurance broker, restaurant insurance | Comments Off

Shop front glass cover under your business insurance policy.

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

We have just had a long standing shop insurance customer notify us of their first glass claim. It is a single location shop, in an open precinct, with two large windows and a door in the middle.

One of the windows has cracked, it was noticed Wednesday morning and we worked on the basis that it was either accidentally or maliciously damaged, and notified insurers accordingly. Now, anyone who has had to replace a small piece of glass at home, could possibly have done this for £50 or £60 (not double glazed). The shop front window in question is going to cost £1,500 to replace and that is before the sign writing is taken into account. This is the cheapest of 3 quotes they have obtained.

They have a business insurance policy from one of the larger insurers in the UK. The good thing is that their policy is unlimited on glass and has a £1,000 limit for sign writing. Their excess is only £100 so, it is not going to be too painful for them.

We have another insurer that has a range of products. Their shop policies, whicj we do not use, have a limit of £500 for glass, including sign writing and the excess is £250. You can see why we do not use them for this product.

The problem is, that many brokers when faced with a quote request are asked to get the best price possible. This can mean going to the insurers with the most basic cover. It can be difficult for a broker to try and offer the bets service to a customer (ie the best cover), knowing full well that they will go to another broker, or direct, and get a cheap as chips policy that will not deliver in the event of a claim.

We ask you therefore just to double check whether you have sufficient and suitable glass cover in place. Your windows may not cost quite so much to replace, singly, but it is not unheard of to have more than one window smashed.

Posted in business insurance, shop insurance | No Comments »

Employers liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

Many of us in the business insurance industry, who have at some point in our careers studied for exams, will give a small shudder when we see the above phrase.

This, as well as the Road Traffic Act, is one of the pieces of legislation that we had to learn, not quite inside out, but it seemed that to be as near as damn it. It is one of the cornerstones of our industry and, as well as third party motor insurance, the main type of cover that you must have, by law.

But who actually needs to have employers liability insurance and what happens if you do not have it in place?

We talk about the 1969 act, but there were numerous acts before and many revisions afterwards, but this was the one that made it compulsory. An employee, as far as a commercial insurance policy is concerned, is one of the widest definitions you will get. An employee does not have to be on the payroll, they do not have to have a contract of employment and they do not have to have worked with you for any length of time. I could ask my next door neighbour to give me a hand moving a desk and potentially, if they were injured, I could be faced with an employers liability claim. Why? Because they were working under my direction and control. Even though they were volunteering they will still fall under the definition of an employee. If you have a school child doing work experience, they are automatically covered.

But what happens if you do not have the required cover ( a minimum limit of indemnity of £5,000,000 in respect of each and every claim or event)? You can, although we have never heard of it actually happening, be fined £2,500 per day that you do not have cover. This is obviously designed to be a last resort and nothing else. If Health and Safety pay you a visit and you do not have the cover, they will tend to give yo a few days grace to get some cover in place.

If you are stuck as to whether you need this cover or not, speak to a friendly business insurance broker and we will help yo decide if you fall under the requirements of the act or not.

Tags: employers liability insurance
Posted in business insurance, business insurance advice, business insurance broker, employers liability insurance, employers liability insurance act 1969 | No Comments »

Business from home policies

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

Most of the largest brand name companies in the world can trace their roots back to small, single location start ups. Either they started out small and grew themselves, usually this is for the larger retail groups. Or, they are a combination of many smaller businesses they have bought or amalgamated with over the years.

Very few businesses hit the ground running with many different locations. Where this happens, it is more than likely to be a buy out of an existing business, maybe one that has gone bust and the remnants are being bought.

Those that start from home will still have a requirement for some form of business insurance. Whether it is basic liability cover or cover for assets and stock, you will always be looking for the best deal. Why? As someone who has started a business from scratch, using all my savings, the risks are high and you want the costs to be low.

But, there are some costs that you simply cannot do without, one of these being protection for your business. What you need to do is to look around for a business from home insurance policy, if as a lot of businesses do, you start to trade from a home address initially.

The beauty of these policies being that they recognise that as you are trading from home, the property is occupied, looked after and maintained a lot more than if you had a warehouse down the road. You get discounts, over an above what you would get for a commercial property. A business from home policy, say for a computer consultant or other “office” type trade, can be purchased for around £100 per annum. This will include public liability, employers liability and, if required, some cover for business assets including portable computers.

The secret is to find the right place to get these products. This is where you need to use a broker. Please don’t be sucked in by the cheap prices from the comparison sites, speak to a broker and get some professional advice you can rely on.

Posted in business from home insurance, business insurance, business insurance advice, business insurance broker | No Comments »