Archive for January, 2012

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Business from home insurance

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

For most business insurance policies, you do have to have a business trading address. Whether this is an industrial unit, an office, a warehouse, a retail premises or a serviced office, this is where the insurance policy applies.

If you work from home, then you are much more limited as to which policies are available to you. If you are looking for just some business computer equipment cover, you can usually add this to a household policy. Ten years ago the majority of home insurers would not cover this equipment unless it belonged to you in a personal capacity. Also, if you declared that part of your home was used for business purposes (including a home office) they would either not cover you or apply a loading.

In 2012 though, things have moved on, the odd laptop and smartphoen can be added, usually worldide if needed. But, you do need to phone your insruer and let them know that you will be using your home for a business purpose. What you do not want is a break in and the insurers to turn around and say that cover does not apply.

If you need more cover than just your business equipment, you need to consider a bespoke business from home insurance contract. There are a few insurers who still provide this cover and it is usually considerably cheaper than a more general commercial contract. The secret for this is to find a broker that is able to offer this type of contract, this is where businessinsure come in.

We have one mainstream UK commercial insurance that offers a bespoke business from home policy, with premiums starting from £100. It may well be that other covers will be required, this is why you need to speak to a broker about your individual demands and needs.

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Commercial building insurance – theft of lead claims continue to rise

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Having worked in the past for one of the largest insurers of Church and religious properties, theft of lead from roofs has always been a big problem. In the past, and I am talking about 20 years ago, the cost of the lead was never the real problem, it was the damage caused as a result of the theft.

In 2012, not a lot has changed, in that the damage caused by the actual theft far outweighs the cost of the actual stolen lead. But, the difference is that the lead is a lot more expensive per kilo than it ever was. So are all other types of metal, it is not just the non-ferrous metals, nowadays any type of metal has a better value than ever before. This is why people have even taken to stealing metal drain covers from the streets.

The two problems, with the consequent cost, is that the thieves tend to damage the property when they are stealing the metal. Then, the actual property owners may not find out about the theft until such time as a lot of water suddenly starts appearing through a ceiling or floor. The theft of the roofing metal could have occurred many weeks before, it is not until the first major storm occurs that the real damage happens.

The question is, what can be done to prevent these losses? We have had one commercial property owner who have had three theft losses in the last three years. The total cost to insurers is going to be in excess of £100,000. Each claim has resulted in a roof being replaced with a zinc coated metal. The cost of this is much less than lead and the theft attractiveness is lower. But, the thieves do not always understand what is and what is not a metal worth stealing. As a result of these claims, the insurers increased the excess (the amount the insurers pay) to £5,000 each and every loss. It is in in the insured’s interest to reduce the chance of a loss.

There is one option, that is both cheap and is actually effective. We have all seen the vans driving round with the stickers on the back stating that there are not tools kept in the vehicle over night. A couple of very cheap plastic signs can be added to buildings stating that, there is no metal on the roof. Insurers will not recommend this, but it could be a good way of stopping the thefts in the first place. The exact wording would need to be thought through, depending on each property, but it may be worth considering.

If you want a commercial building insurance quote, that will actually provide cover for theft of metal and the consequent damage, give Businessinsure a call to see what we can do for you. We are an independent business insurance broker, we have access to a number of insurers so can always look around to get you the right quote.

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

Why use a business insurance broker?

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

We have blogged before about the benefits of using a quality broker, whether for financial services or other products. In the UK we have been through a bit of a sea change in that we are more prepared than ever before to look around for products, direct, in the hope of getting a bargain.

Whilst this has undoubtedly been good for consumers, you do not always benefit in the long term from cutting out the intermediary. In my teens, when you wanted to go on holiday, the only option you really had (unless you absolutely knew what you were doing), was to go to a travel agent. Travel agents earned huge commissions from every step in the chain whether the airlines, coach companies or the hotels. Maybe complacency set in, but it became apparent to many individuals that if they could help you buy one part of the chain direct, you could save money. This is when the adverts started appearing about cutting out the middle-man. Usually, they were correct to work on this basis as you were not getting a great additional service, for the 25-40% extra that it cost to go through an agent. But, agents have learned and adapted and the deals plus the service from a good independent travel agent are without question.

We have seen the same with business insurance. Certain insurers decided that they could offer their products direct to the business community, cutting out the broker. But, many of them have now done an about turn and decided only to work with the business insurance broker market. Why have the done this? Because the insurers cannot be all things to all men.

This morning I have had an enquiry from a company importing electrical stock (marine cover required), storing the stock (warehouse insurance required), installing the stock (public liability insurance required) and advising customers on installations, separately for a fee if required (professional indemnity insurance required). Now, that is not a strange example but there are very few insurers that could happily provide all the cover. As a broker we have to look around to get marine cover from one insurer, storage and liability risks from another and professional indemnity from a third. Why do we do this? To give you, the customer, the best deal. It may be easy to question what a business insurance broker can add to the equation, until you have tried to go direct for all of these individual products you really will never appreciate what a broker will do.

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Employers Liability Tracing Office – is this legally required?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

If you have any business insurance policy, which includes employers liability, you may find that you have been requested to provide certain information by your insurer and/or broker.

The information that is required, is your PAYE reference number. Many years ago, you used to have a bright yellow booklet, almost like a cheque book. Each month, if you participated in PAYE, you sent a cheque to the Inland Revenue for your contribution to PAYE. You do still get these issued in come cases, but most payments now are done online. On this booklet, or in your online account, you will have a business specific reference number. This is usually three digits, followed by a / then any number of digits and numbers, up to 7 or sometimes 8 in total.

This is the number you are required to provide, usually to your business insurance broker, in the first instance. From the 1st April 2012, this is something that you either must provide, or confirm you are exempt, before your employers liability insurance is renewed, or incepted as a new policy. The question is, is this a legal requirement, or another one of the industries nice to haves?

It is no a legal requirement, but you do have to provide it. What this means is that it is the insurers that have signed up to be members of the Employers Liability Tracing Office. If your insurer has not signed up to this, they can still offer the cover, and you do not have to provide the reference number. But, it is thought to be very, very unlikely that come the 1st April any commercial insurance companies that offer EL cover will not be requesting this information.

You do not need to worry though. With a limited company, we can find out a lot of information from companies house and other websites that offer details about registered companies. But, there is no such way of finding information on partnerships, sole traders, charities and other organisations that may employ people. All the industry is trying to do is build up a database of information so that, in years to come, if you need to trace who your employers liability insurance company where, at any given moment in the past. It is to be used confidentially, insurers will not share this information and will only use it for the purpose it is intended, to protect employees, or ex employees, that have suffered an injury, illness or diseases that should be covered under a standard employers liability policy.

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Business insurance, metal theft and other damage

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

Over the past few years, we have all seen reports in the press about the increase in thefts of metals. Business insurance companies only ever used to be worried about non-ferrous metals, such as brass, copper, lead and aluminium. Nowadays though, all types of metal appear to fair game to the sticky fingered members of our communities.

We had one theft where £50,000 of scrap steel was stolen from a building over a Bank Holiday weekend. The neighbouring building was broken into and the internal walls were broken down. A fork lift was then used to transfer the scrap stock over three days. As it was of such low value, being scrap, they had to move a fair chunk of it over three days, in order to get the £50,000.

Overall, the cost of the claim was nearly £80,000. There was the cost of metal, the cost of the repairs to the internal walls and the cost to the fork lift that was ruined after they managed to hot wire it. Given the state of the fork lift, I don’t think they passed their fork lift driving course. Unfortunately the load bearing wall didn’t collapse blocking their path but they must have had fun driving the fork lift over their veritable assault course.

What this means is that for most metal thefts, the consequent costs are the expensive ones. An additional 60% of this claim was made up of the othe damage. If you keep any sort of metals, make sure that you have a suitable warehouse insurance policy to cover this for you.

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

Shop front glass cover under a business insurance package

Friday, January 20th, 2012

One of the basic principles we all learn about when we start our business insurance careers and/or examinations is insurable interest. You can only insure something in which, or to which, you have an insurable interest. There are reams and reams of learning and study material on this. It is often mis-interpreted though with people thinking that this means that you can only insure something you own. This is not the case though as insurable interest can apply in many, many ways. For example a mortgaged property is owned by you, but another party has a legal charge against this property. Although it is yours to sell as you wish, if you decide not to pay the mortgage, in can be repossessed because you do not have full title. The deeds are held by the mortgage company until you have paid the debt owed.

This long introduction is purely to show that insurable interest can apply to physical property that you do not own. The same applies to shop insurance. You can insure, on your shop insurance policy, parts of the building that you do not own. You will find, in the over-whelming majority of cases that you will be responsible for the shop front and the glass. If you have a full insuring and repairing lease, then you may be responsible for the buildings insurance as well. In the main though, you will need to insure the shop front glass.

Your commercial landlord will have a policy in place for the bricks and mortar, but not necessarily for the shop front glass. Shop front glass claims are numerous and you will find that the commercial building insurance policy may either not cover the glass or have a high excess. Also, if you have your own sign writing or lettering on the glass, then this is not the landlords responsibility. It is down to you to ensure that your shop policy provides you with a) adequate cover and b) a sensible excess.

By adequate cover, we mean the sum insured must be sufficient, you should either have an unlimited sum insured (which, whilst available, is rare) or a sum insured that is sufficient to replace all of the glass in the premises.

As always, if you do not have this cover speak to an independent business insurance broker. If you are through a broker and do not have this cover, change your broker!

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

Unoccupied commercial building insurance – quote to cover, how long?

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Unoccupied commercial building insurance is a type of cover that is normally available from most insurers. There are various reasons for this. Over time most insurers keep and build up huge databases of the statistics associated with all the different types of cover they provide. This means that they can work out, very accurately, for the different types of policies.

They know, for example, if they insured 500 fish and chip shops, they could expect 10-15% of the businesses to claim in the first year. They can also work out, fairly well, what the losses are likely to be and what the costs are. But, and it is another big but, dozens of years of statistics are never guaranteed to be right. Most years they are, but then we have a couple of bad winters as we did at the end of 2009 and 2010 and with the thousands upon thousands of burst pipe claims we had, the statistics are blown out of the water. Overall though, all business insurance companies can work out what they will make money on and rate accordingly.

This is why insurers, if they want to cover them, will charge higher premiums for unoccupied, or empty, buildings. Over time they suffer more losses from buildings that are empty. Therefore, they charge higher premiums and provide restricted (fire, lightning, earthquake, explosion and property owners liability) cover for these types of risks.

One downside of looking for a quote is that it may take longer, for certain insurers, to provide a quote. Some may not even quote until they have undertaken a pre-cover survey, which can take days and days. Others may need you to provide recent photographs which they will need to review before offering terms.

As ever, please always, always speak to an independent business insurance broker for a range of quotes.

Here at Businessinsure, for most types of empty (commercial, residential and mixed) buildings, with a sum insured of less then £1,000,000, we can offer terms on the same day you request them. There are of course scenarios where we cannot meet this, but overall, we aim to provide a written quote via email, on the same day you ask us to.

Posted in business insurance, unoccupied building insurance, unoccupied buildings insurance, unoccupied commercial building insurance | Comments Off

Office insurance package policies along with professional indemnity

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Anyone in business nowadays knows that individuals, customers and even suppliers are becoming more litigious. The law has been changed in recent years to make it easier for members of the public to pursue a claim against anyone they see fit. We have all had to see or listen to TV or Radio advertisements enticing you to take action against others. Although there has been a huge growth in the claims by individuals, we are also seeing increased activity from on business claiming against another.

One trigger for this has been the build up to the recession, the recession and it’s aftermath. When cash is tight and also king, more businesses are prone to make claims than to absorb the costs themselves. A second trigger has been the availability of legal expenses insurance. Many business insurance policies now include an element of commercial legal expenses cover as standard. It is therefore easier for businesses to pursue action, in the knowledge that they have cover in place to pay for the legal costs associated with this.

It is therefore important that you have adequate cover in force to protect you against such claims. For most office insurance policies, the legal expenses cover is included as standard. Overall limits of indemnity are usually around the £50,000 to £100,000 mark. In addition to legal expenses cover, you need to make sure that you have adequate liability insurance, both public and products liability. For most offices though, the fees or turnover are earned as a result of services that are offered. A physical product is not always provided. In these cases you need to consider, carefully, whether there is a need or requirement for professional indemnity insurance. Most of the standard package contracts will actually exclude this cover.

There are a few, and we mean few, insurers that will offer all of the covers under one contract. However, in reality it is much more competitive to get one contract for the office and one for professional indemnity. PI cover is for your professional negligence. Public and products liability operate where these is evidence of physical damage or injury. For example the computer that catches light or the person that trips over. Professional indemnity need not have evidence of a physical loss, but a financial loss. You provide advice, for a fee, and someone suffers financially if this is incorrect.

If you are worried about whether this is a requirement for your particular business, then you speak to an independent business insurance broker and get their opinion on whether this is a requirement for your business or not.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance advice, business insurance broker, office insurance, office insurance quote, professional indemnity insurance, professional indemnity insurance quote | Comments Off

Takeaway insurance policies and motor

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

If you are looking for a takeaway insurance policy, we can provide you with a quote for any type of business package. Our policies cover all types of fast food, including fish & chip shops and kebab takeaways. If you have seating as well, you just need to declare this so that insurers are fully aware of exactly what risk they are insuring.

The one cover we cannot provide is the actual motor insurance for delivery vehicles. This is the third party motor insurance risks, not the public liability insurance relating to the deliveries. This normally falls under the relevant takeaway package, as long as it is correctly declared. If your delivery driver drops takeaway food on someones carpet, for example, then this would be picked up under the public liability. There is usually an excess, which is the amount you will need to pay towards any claim. Some insurers have an excess of £100, whereas many have theri thrid party property damage excess up at £250.

As we have said, this is covered under the takeaway or restaurant insurancepolicies public liability. The driving of the motor vehicle is not covered and is not somehting that Businessinsure have any markets for. If you are looking for the motor insurance, then you need to approach a business car insurance broker. Whilst we can cover vans, lorries, business cars and the like, we cannot get quotes for those undertaking fast food deliveries.

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Online retail insurance – where can I get a quote

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Most UK business insurance companies separate the different types of trade they will cover into different segments. Each of these segments, if the business is substantial enough and the insurers cover enough, will probably warrant a separate policy. They will produce a base policy, which can be used to underwrite each individual type of trade. Rocket science is not involved in the names, you end up with commercial property owners, pubs, shops, hotels, restaurants, offices and takeaway package policies to name but a few.

These types of policies have been around since the 60’s and 70’s. This is when insurers realised it was not only easier for them (to offer trade specific contracts) but also led the individual tradespeople to think (rightly) they were being covered by a policy designed for them.

Hwoever, as time has moved on not all insurers have moved with the times and internet retail insurance is one of the prime examples. Most of the shop, retail or retailers policies are only available for the traditional high street retail type outlets. Heaven forbid if you actually sell from a website only and do not keep your stock in a shop premises. To us, as business insurance brokers, the risks are broadly the same. there are of course differences. There is less likelihood of a public liability insurance claim when you have no customers stepping foot on your premises. On the other hand, there may be an increased product liability risk if you are an internet retailer. You are more likely to be selling goods around the world than you would be from a shop.

In many cases, you have a combination of the two. You have a traditional shop premises that has decided to supplement their sales with an internet retail business, this sits side by side the traditional shop. When you are looking for cover, many of the underwriters will not cover anything other than a pure shop on a shop policy. If you ask them for a quote to cover all of your business activities, they may put this on a commercial combined insurance contract, which may have higher minimum premiums.

At businessinsure, we are not saying we could save you hundreds and hundreds of pounds, but as an internet business ourselves, we understand that there are different needs and wants than a traditional shop. You may even trade from home and keep your stock at a different address or even in your garage. We can cover these types of business. If you keep your stock at a fulfilment or pick and pack warehouse, we can cover these businesses. If we can’t, we will do all we can to point you in the right direction to find a quote/

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

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