Archive for the ‘business insurance quote’ Category

Cheap business insurance – is this available in 2012?

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

Everyone knows that, in the vast majority of cases, you only get what you pay for. Take running trainers for example. If you are training for a marathon, you would be well advised to get yourself a pair of shoes with the correct grip, padding and durability that you will need for doing your three runs a week for six months. In fact, if you are starting out from scratch, the chances are you will need a couple of pairs by the time you cross the tape. When we say decent pairs, you are looking at £50 and upwards, as a minimum. If you went any cheaper then the chances of you getting across that tape diminish. So, you get what you pay for and you need a decent pair from a big well known brand.

Does this apply in the world of business insurance? Yes and no, is our usual standard answer. We quoted for a restaurant insurance package a few years ago. We saved the customer a few hundred pounds, and renewed the policy last year at the same premium of £725.00, even with the increased insurance premium tax.

2012 renewal came around and we agreed with the insurers, as it was claims free, that we could offer renewal again at £725.00. So, 2010, 2011 and 2012 were unchanged premiums and the cover was good. They were getting accidental damage, a decent excess and some other additions to cover that were not available in the open market. But, the customer had a quote from a competitor who, without naming names, have a reputation for offering cheap premiums, with low cover, high excesses and a questionable policy on paying out claims early. But, this is my opinion, from speaking to other customers. At the end of the day, we cannot denigrate a competitor without evidence, but we did ask the customer if they knew what they were getting. Their cheap business insurance quote, at £500.00, was just a bit too cheap. But they were happy to take it, against our advice.

This is where the difficulty lies, cheap business insurance is available, but at the end of the day, you get what you pay for and you will find out, in the event of a claim, that your cheap quote was cheap for a reason. In 2012, if you are renewing your business insurance, you should be expecting a few percent increase for index-linking. Any more, then you should be looking elsewhere, if you are looking around, come to Businessinsure and see what we can offer you.

Reasons for business insurance premium increases – part 2

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

We blogged yesterday about business insurance renewal premium increases and the effects of index-linking. This tends to take account of, in 2012, around 2.5 to 3.0% of any renewal increase. This is the only part of a renewal premium increase that you can either take or leave. It is applied by insurers to your sums insured to ensure that, over the years, they do not become inadequate. A small percentage change, year on year, makes all the difference as time progresses.

The second potential reason for an increase in your renewal is changes to your sums insured during the policy year. Let say that you are starting a new business, for example retail, and take out a brand new shop insurance policy. Being sensible, you are going to start out the policy with as little premium as possible, the potential is that you will start with a small amount of stock and this will grow over time, assuming your business starts to grow as well. When your sums insured are likely to be inadequate, you should speak to the business insurance broker that arranged your policy to get the amounts you are covered for increased. This is standard practice across any business. We have seen many businesses going the other way in recent years. As they start to tighten their belts a little, they decide to reduce the amounts of stock they are holding, because usually this means that cash is unnecessarily tied up.

But, as the businesses start to grow and grow again, they are goign to come back and increase their sums insured. All of this means that, during any one 12 month period of insurance, you may have sums insured for contents, buildings and stock that will fluctuate. Amazingly, we stil have some customers that increase their stock during the year and then complain when the renewal premium goes up.

The problem is that whenever a sum insured is increased during the year, it is only ever charged (or should only ever be charged) on a pro-rata basis. Therefore if your policy runs from 1st Jan to 31st Dec, you should only get charged 6 months worth of premium for cover increased on, or around, the 1st July. But, when it comes to the renewal, this will include twelve months worth of premium.

Whilst the index linking of around 2.5/3%, is something you have to accept, for mid term increases you can usually agree some sort of reduction at renewal. As with all business insurance quotes, renewals and changes, you need to deal with a broker who you can access quickly and easily over the phone to discuss any alterations or changes. Then, when the renewal comes around you can speak to the same person to discuss and agree your renewal premium.

Public liability insurance

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Public liability forms part of the law of tort. This relates to civil wrongs, as opposed to criminal wrongs. Someone that suffers a tortious injury is usually entitled to claim damages for injuries suffered. This is of course just a simplification, but it’s aim is to show that public liability is governed by parts of UK law. As with most aspects of the law, judgements are based, in the main, on a mix of two things. Firstly, existing legislation and secondly precedents that have been set. We hear in the news of some law dating back to the 18th Century, for example, that is still in force. If a judgement is pursued under this law, it is up to the judge to balance on the one hand an antiquated piece of legislation and on the other, any judgements that have been made based on that law. The intention being that, on balance, the law is equally applied to one and all.

Public liability is the same. In theory, you can only be held liable if there is some proof of negligence. There are certain cases where you do not even need to be proven to be negligent, but mainly there has to be proof. Whether we all think it is for the good of the country or not, the UK was opened up to make it easier for the person in the street to pursue valid legal action. Certain solicitors have taken this just a bit too far. Again, we read in the news of some action that has been taken which 99 people out of 100 would say is just a joke but they are successful. This is why businesses need to have public liability insurance. There is no legal requirement, usually, to have this cover in force.

However, it is another one of our sensible and prudent covers to have. One of the main benefits of having this cover, is that the spurious claims can also be covered. What this means is that if you have a formal claim made against you, your insurers will deal with this and decline it on your behalf. We see the solicitors letters on a regular basis and if you are happily running your business and then receive a 28 page letter accusing of you x and asking you to prove y and respond by z, it can be very daunting and intimidating. Sometimes deliberately so. This is where you want the reassurance of having a robust policy in place. The other thing you want, and we can offer you, is a good business insurance broker that you can pass everything to and to deal with on your behalf.

Comparing business insurance quotes (the easy way)

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Many years ago, our European neighbours used to laugh at us because, as a nation, bartering and haggling did not come naturally to us. The only time we used to do his was on our annual foreign holidays. We used to go to the markets and shops and try and haggle the prices down. We used to feel quite good about the fact that we had knocked a few pesetas or drachmas off something that we really didn’t need.

Fast forward to 2011 and the aftermath of the recession in the UK. In 2006 everything seemed rosy, unlimited credit was available to one and all, you only had to pick up the junk mail through your letter box to get your hands on a few thousand pounds. In the back of everyone’s mind, we knew that it could not go on. The doom mongers, who are so smug nowadays, said the obvious, this is not going to go on forever. Then it stopped. You actually had to prove you had a good business model or could actually pay a mortgage before someone gave you a loan. Even Gordon Brown, remember him?, must have realised that our growth was based on accessing credit more than anything else. 2008 turned into 2009 and nothing changed, we hit recession and UK plc went through some real pain and you know, it is still there. We have a terrible headache, sore limbs, aching back and the prognosis is that we are going to have to wait at least three to five years before the pain eases.

What does this introduction have to do with business insurance quotes, I hear you ask? A sensible question of course and the answer is, that we are actually having to spend a lot more time looking around for alternatives. Haggling and bartering has been replaced by the word comparison. The beauty of it all is, that you do not actually have to do the comparisons yourself. You have two choices. You can go online and use a software comparison tool. This is fine for physical products, one pair of trainers is the same as the identical pair in the other shop, just cheaper.

But when it comes to looking to compare business insurance, do you want to sit there and do all of the work yourself? Or do you want to speak to an independent professional, whose job is to look around on your behalf? Online comparison software does work, but for an important financial service, such as insurance, you cannot always buy on price, price, price. A broker will, more than likely, save you money and probably get a better price than a comparison site. The good thing is though, that you will also be safe in the knowledge that they have sold you the right product as well. If, and it is rare, they have not, you have the full force of Financial Services Authority legislation behind you.

Warehouse insurance – what is a stillage warranty?

Saturday, December 17th, 2011

Commercial insurance companies have made great strides over the years to make their policy wordings easier to read and understand. It may be easy to criticise parts of their policies for being long winded, but at the heart of it all is that the policy is a legal contract. Day in day, day out, these policies are relied on and referred to in courts of law up and down the land. Therefore, they have to be robust enough to be understood, fairly, by both parties. Sometimes though, you do just need a bit of help in explainin the terms.

All policies have terms, conditions, warranties and excesses. There are some things that you need to do, some that the insurers need to do, in the event of a loss.

If you have warehouse insurance, then you may find your quote or policy is subject to a stillage warranty. Without access to a good dictionary or Google, it is difficult know what this is. Stillage is an old shipping term, related to storing things on a pallet or pallet with sides.

An insurers stillage warranty should really be called a….storing stock away from the floor…..warranty. This is all it really is. In he event of a light flood, or burst pipe, even if the bottom few centimetres of stock are damaged, wet, you normally have to chuck the whole lot. A stillage warranty will not prevent a major flood from destroying your stock but it’s aim is to prevent damage by a light water damage. What it says, is that your stock must be stored on pallets or shelving at least 10cm, 15cm or some other defined height from floor level.

Please check whether this applies to your cover because insurers may turn round and repudiate, or turn down, any claim you may make for water damage.

It is funny, I have just gone through the spell check and guess what, stillage is not recognised! This is where the benefits of getting a business insurance quote from a broker shine through. If you go online and get a quote at 2am, are you really going to read through 15 or 20 pages of terms and conditions? Or, do you deal through a broker who really should point out in a summarised two or three page quote what terms, conditions, warranties and excess apply.

Getting a business insurance quote – what options are there?

Friday, December 16th, 2011

In the early to mid 1990’s, if you were looking to get a  business insurance quote, you were fairly restricted in where you could go to get your quote and also how long it took. Whilst insurers where happy to work on a direct basis for car and home cover, they were n0t so keen on doing the same for commercial.

I remember working for a large insurer in the early 90’s, many were just putting a tentative toe in the water to get car and motor policies sold direct, because Peter Wood and his Direct Line model had blown everything away with how successful it was. However, a lot of the insurers still had very strong broker relationships. Brokers were up in arms that insures had the audacity to cut into their market share. To be fair, and most brokers from the time will agree, it was always going to happen. What they did not expect was that insurers would start to deal direct with members of the public and business owners. Over the past ten years though, many insurers have tried to attack this market and guess what? They have gradually failed.

We are not trying to say that being a broker is complex, but there are differences between all of the products. For example, anyone looking for a wholesalers insurance quote is not going to find this online, via a quote engine. A quote engine is where you do all the work, put all the answers in, the system makes a whole load of quite important assumptions  and then throws you up a cheap price at the end. Usually there is not much thought to the type of policy you are going to get, they flog it just on price.

If you want the right product, with a bit of free advice about the cover you get, then you really need to speak to an independent business insurance broker. This is your only real option. You do not have to deal with the broker direct, face to face. Companies such as Businessinsure act independently, but over the phone and the internet. Instead of doing the work yourself, let us do it for you.

Christmas special offers for business insurance?

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

There are certain industries, Christmas tree and cracker suppliers being two of the obvious ones, that are a bit busy at this time of year. Come January, they can breathe a small sigh of relief, hopefully have a bit of a holiday and then build up to 2012. Other industries, particularly financial services, tend to quieten down at this time of year. There are not many people looking for a business insurance quote at this time of year. But, this does not mean to say that there are not people out there looking.

For Businessinsure, we had rather humble beginnings back in 2001. Gradually, as we have grown we know which months are busier, for us. The least busy is December, which in a way is quite good because we can deal adequately with the weather related claims that we tend to get from December through to February/March time. But, even with this being a quieter month, we are still busy if you get my drift. With talk of exiting recessions, entering recessions, double dip recessions, flat growth, negative growth, no growth and some growth, everyone with an ounce of sense is looking to re-price every product and service they buy.

Staff are, and always will be the be all and end all of the financial services industry. As a business insurance broker, we rely on our staff. We have actually done well in the past few years, with continued year on year growth. We have read reports in the press of other brokers reducing pay for staff. This has to be the absolute last measure because, believe it or not, it is not the staffs fault that times are tough.

So, if you are following the model we have, which is to ensure that your staff are hopefully OK, then you may need to look at other areas where you can save money. If you have a business insurance renewal due in December, believe you me, now is the time to get this quoted. If you are profitable, on the insurance front, then there is a broker out there (why not try Businessinsure…..) who can get you an absolutely cracking deal. We are getting daily calls from the commercial insurance companies looking for new business as their year ends are fast approaching. Now is the time to bag yourself a bargain.

Office insurance – trade all risks

Monday, December 5th, 2011

As the business insurance market continues to be tough, we are seeing a slightly worrying trend with the way alternative quotes are being provided. There are some people who think that a broker does not add sufficient “service” to warrant the commission that we receive. As an alternative, some people are going to the websites that “offer” to compare business insurance.

We are brokers for a lot of offices. Offices are ideally suited to dealing with their insurance, remotely, through a broker such as businessinsure. Over the 1o years we have been trading, a double digit percentage of our client base has been office package insurance. We have found that the competition for this part of our business is getting tougher and tougher. We are thankfully holding our own, but when an existing client goes on the net to look for their existing insurance renewal premium to be bettered, some of the websites do not offer like for like cover. We are faced with the phone call along the lines of “you have quoted me £x but I have a quote online for £y”. When we ask the customer to allow us the opportunity of looking at their alternative, we find out that it is not on the same basis. 

The biggest difference is that many of the alternative quotes do not include the all risks items. These are the electronic pieces of equipment that you take with you out and about and the same pieces of equipment that people drop, crack, spill coffee on and get stolen. They are the biggest source of claims. But, you would be amazed at the amount of quotes that do not include this. Whatever type of cover you have, you are more than likely going to need this type of cover. Particularly office insurance. Yes, you may be able to get a cheaper quote but you really do need to check that it is on a like for like basis. We have even had a claim for an ipad that was dropped in the bath, paid within four days by the insurers. Now, does your policy provide for that sort of cover?

Looking for a business insurance quote, can you still get a decent premium and cover?

Friday, November 18th, 2011

We have a customer, who has a number of businesses insured with us. One of the businesses suffered two losses in the past twelve months, which the insurers put a reserve against, of £30,000 for the two claims. When an insurer receives a notification of a claim, particularly a liability insurance claim, they have to estimate what it would cost them. As claims take weeks, months and years to settle, they need to know whether they are making losses in the current year or not. History is littered with insurance companies that thought they could be tighter on their claims only to find out that the liability ones that they under-estimated come back to haunt them.

I therefore explained to the client that these two losses, added to the one they had three years ago, meant that insurers were looking to apply an increase. The increase was 50% and was subject to them adhering to risk improvements following the survey. The client was not happy and asked us to re market. I had to explain that there was simply no point, even with the 50% increase their premium was still fairly good and with their claims experience other insurers would either not quote or would be way over the top, deliberately, so they did not pick up the business.

Their question was, why can you not get me a cheap business insurance quote? My answer was that I had got this for them. You have to take the rough with the smooth I’m afraid and if an insurer is still happy to insure a risk, after losses at this level, they are entitled, in my opinion, to apply a rate increase. The customer has said they are going to market their business to other brokers. It may well be that they find a cheaper quote, but if they do not fully declare the losses (as I fear they may) then in the event of a future loss, if the insurers find out their claims history, then they are going to be out of pocket by a great deal.

Multi location business insurance – policy or policies?

Monday, October 10th, 2011

Where a business has more than one location, they have a choice of either taking out a single policy, to cover all the locations together, or separate policies. The question is, is there any benefit to taking out the single policy or not?

It really depends on whether you want to have one single policy, with one single renewal date and, the worst of it all, is one single premium payment. You can of course pay the premium in instalments of course.

The multi location policy would normally be more suited to a portfolio commercial property insurance policy. If an individual or a business owns more than three or four properties, it can be a bit time consuming to work out all of the individual renewal dates and go through the detailed review process at many different times throughout the year. Having worked at a large insurer that concentrated on the leisure industry, we used to deal with the large public house estates. These numbered in the hundreds and thousands.

Whereas for the smaller businesses, it can be better to have individual policies. You do not always tend to get a bigger saving by combining all of your locations into one policy. If you are careful and speak to a decent broker, they can get you good deals for all types of location. The one point you need to be aware of is claims.

The more properties you own, of course the more likelihood there is of a loss. You need to declare to your insurers every single loss, or claim, whether insured or not. Therefore, if you own three buildings and have three separate policies, at each renewal you need to declare to each insurer of each risk, the claims that you have suffered on each property.

If you have a portfolio policy, you do not need to think about this as there is one insurer for all the properties. But, one claim may adversely affect the pricing for the whole policy. Whereas, with three separate policies if you have a claim on one, and declare this to the other insurers then they may not take this into account as it happened at another location.

As we always say, and always will say, the best way to decide the way forward is to speak to an independent business insurance broker. They will let you know the options available. If you try a website that “offers” to compare business insurance, you will never know the different options available.