This is all well and good if you have the money to spare, but think about your customers. If you increased your prices, every single year, by 3 or 4%, eventually they are going to consider going elsewhere. Particularly when they have sales people banging on their door day in and day out offering the same, or similar, products for less money.

If youhave been with the same insurer for a few years, you will have seen, in 90% of cases, an increase in premium. All insurers have a dual pricing philosophy, it is basic economics, to allow new customers a better price than a returning customer.

But now is the time for you to consider looking elsewhere. 2010 is proving to be a tough year, forget the big increases in GDP. Whilst these are good, most businesses are still trading well below their 2007 levels.

The one, and only way, for you to save money on your renewal, without losing out on cover, is to speak to a business insurance broker. Their sole role in the economics of UK plc, is to serve you, the insurance purchasing business. Whilst they may have agencies with insurers, they are legally in a relationship with you (should you choose to purchase a policy from them) and they must offer you the best type of product available for the most competitive price.

Whilst we cannot guarantee anything, we are fairly sure that if you have renewal documents sitting on your desk, you can get a better price within a few hours by speaking to an independent broker.

Insurers are facing an increasing number of claims from all types of cause and with personal injury claims, the settlement costs are increasing way in excess of inflation.

What this means in reality, is that they are realising that the prices they charge for your cover, depending on the type of trade, are not at an economic level. One of the products that have traditionally been under priced is restaurant insurance. Because there are so many restaurants in the UK, there has always been a new insurer that thinks they can move into this market, pick up lots of business and make money.

But, to move into this competitive market the one key selling point has always been price. Whilst insurers have always said that the product is more important than the price, they know full well that no-one is going to pay more than 5 or 6 % to get better cover.

So if you are looking for an alternative, because your premium has gone up, be very careful to ensure that you are getting like for like, if not better, cover. It is very important that you do not suddenly find that the premium saving of 10% you made is completely wiped out because you have a loss that is not covered.

The best way to ensure that you not only get a competitive price but decent cover, is to speak to a business insurance broker. A broker will search the market on your behalf and in many cases can get better deals than you could by going direct. You also have the benefit of one contact point, in respect of premium payment, cover changes and importantly, when you have a claim and want it settled as soon as possible.

The problem with this is that most of them continue to operate a dual pricing process. They are looking to gain single digit percentage increases on most renewals, but for new business they are prepared to pull out all the stops.

If you currently have any form of business insurance, when your renewal offer comes through from your existing broker or insurer (if you deal direct), you will find, in the majority of cases, that there are increases being applied. Times have been tough, and continue to be, for nearly every single type of business. With the planned central and local government cuts, which we have all been expecting, things are not likely to get any easier as UK plc tries to pay down it’s debt mountain.

So, what do you do if you are a retailer who has had no claims and you suddenly find your £600 policy is now up at £700 or £800? The answer is simple, get yourself a different quote. You need to speak to an independent business insurance broker who offers a one stop service. You don’t need to go to a comparison site, which then passes you through to an intermediary which then provides you with a quote. Go to one company that can offer everything, in particular a personal, quick and efficient service in the event of a loss.

Brokers are there to serve you, their relationship is with you the customer and they are legally bound to offer you the best product at the best price, that they have available. Therefore, unless you speak to an independent who can trawl the market for you, you are only going to get one quote. Brokers have a number of providers for most types of products, so they can try two, three or four insurers to offer you the best deal.

1) The business, whether a sole trader, ltd or partnership, actually owns the building that they operate from.

2) There is a full insuring and repairing lease in existence.

3) The business does not own the building, nor does it have an insuring and repairing lease but still arranges cover.

The question regarding option 3 is, whether this is the correct way of doing things. There are many basic principles and rules relating to insurance. One of these is that you cannot arrange cover on any property or person that you do not have a financial interest in, unless this is legally required.

For example, I cannot arrange commercial building insurance for the factory down the street, because it is nothing to do with me. If it burns down tonight, why should I benefit financially?

There are cases where an individual owns a building and decides to put this in a trust, related to their pension. In these cases, the individual may choose to rent the building to their own limited company.

This needs to be considered very carefully though. The reason being that if the limited company is in financial trouble at all, then there is the potential for the cover on the structure not to be paid or if there is a loss, the payment will only go to the limited company and it’s creditors may claim the settlement monies.

In these cases, the actual policy that covers the building should formally note the financial interest of the building owner. ie a policy for ABCDE Limited, should note the financial interest of Mr Joe Bloggs as the beneficial owner of the building. Therefore, in the event of a loss, to the buildings, that is covered by a policy, the payment will only be made to Mr Joe Bloggs.

If there is any doubt about this, you need to speak to a specialist, independent business insurance broker to make sure you have the right cover in place.

They have significant sums insured and we have always got them the best deal, with year on year decreases because of a no claims discount. This year though, they have an alternative quote that was 20% less. They called us up and told us this and quite rightly said that they could not afford to say no. They had given our renewal quote to the other specialist business insurance broker, who had said (but would not confirm in writing) that they were offering comparable cover.

As the customer is long standing, they emailed through the quote. Unfortunatley the differences in the cover were staggering. The sums insured were less than hald, there was no legal expenses insurance and the excess was £500. It is quite obvious why they would not put this in writing.

We discussed this and they reduced some of our sums insured but realised that they were basically being conned.

If they had not spoken to us, they could have gone ahead with the cheaper quote and lost out big time. When you get to your renewal, speak to someone like Businessinsure. We will always quote like for like wherever possible and if there are any glaring differences, we will let you know.

We work here to a target of between 14 and 21 days prior to renewal to either have all your documents sent to you, or to give you written confirmation of your renewal terms. When your policy falls due for renewal, you may want to look a bot closer at who is actually offering this to you.

Consolidation in the business insurance broker world is rife. Going back only four or five years and there were in excess of 3,000 brokers. Then, some larger companies started to buy up smaller outfits and this number has now reduced to around 2,000. You may find that your offer is from a different company that has swallowed up your previous business.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Usually, it just means that you are being serviced from a different business in a different office by different people using different systems. Which can add up to you not getting the personal service that you have always been used to. If you want to be able to speak to the same person whenever you call, then you may want to consider moving your business elsewhere.

The difficulty is, that you don’t want to be over insured. Anyone in business can think about every single eventuality that could occur to them and decide to take out a policy, or cover, to protect them. If you have lots of spare cash, then this is something you should consider. But, in reality this is not the case. Businesses do not want to spend 5-10% of their income on insurance.

A typical business, not doing anything that is too major or high riks, should look at spending around one half to one percent of their turnover on policies.

You may have found that over the past 12-18 months, any policies that you did have were being renewed at higher, or unchanged rates. The reason being that insurers are finding things just as tough as every other business. They are looking to increase their premiums, to help pay for losses.

This is why, if you have a policy that is due for renewal, you should always speak to a business insurance broker to see what they can do for you. They cannot guarantee to beat every single business premium out there, but we can guarantee that in more than 3/4’s of cases that they will offer you a better deal with no reduction in cover.

You either have to pay the excess directly to the insurers, or they deduct the amount of the excess from a claim. If you have every had insurance for your car, you will be well aware of the fact that excesses apply. Usually when you start to drive or a re a young driver learning, you will have a higher excess. The reason being that insurers feel that you are more likely to have a claim.

The same can be said of different types of insurance cover. You are more likely to have a claim on your business insurance shop policy for a smashed window that you are for, say, legal expenses. Most insurers therefore apply a much higher excess for this level of cover.

The thing is, you need to shop around not just for a cheaper policy, but also one that offers better cover. Anyone with a modicum of computer skills and a telephone can get a cheap quote. But, if it is at the expense of cover and with higher excesses, then it really is not worth it.

Shops and retailers are having an awfully tough time, there is one way though that you can save money. Speak to an independent (this is very important as they will work with many different insurers) business insurance broker and they will get you two things. Good cover at the cheapest premium they can.

What you don’t want to do is to over-insure yourself and find that a significant chunk of your profit margin is being spent on financial protection. Of course, on the other hand you do not want to scrimp on your cover and find out that none of the claims you have are covered, or the excesses are so high that it really is not worth having the cover in the first place.

There is, you will be pleased to know, an answer to this conundrum, if you are stuck in the same position. Speak to a business insurance broker about what THEY think you need, as far as cover is concerned. We do this day in and day out and whilst we are not 100% perfect (99.99% is enough).

We know what you need and who to go to for the best prices and the best cover.

You do need to think carefully, and review the policy wording, to see exactly what cover is provided. Usually, insurers will provide this as an “add on” cover. This is something that is usually included free of charge within the overall package policy. Because it is free, the limits of cover provided may not be that high. A usual limit would be around £2-£3,000 any one load.

If this limit is insufficient, you need to speak with your business insurance broker and get them to provide you with costs to increase this. Think about the busiest times of your year and then consider how much you could possibly have in any one of your business vehicles. It does not have to be in a van or car owned by the business, any vehicle being used by an employee of the business is usually covered.

Things to watch out for are whether there is a limit of the total loss. What this means is that if you have a few vehicles out on the road at any one time, the potential loss is a simple sum of the number of vehicles multiplied by the amount of stock in the vehicles. Whilst the likelihood of having two or more vehicles broken into on the same day, the risk is there. You  need to make sure that the aggregate loss limit is higher than the single vehicle limit.