As a business insurance broker we would be failing if we offered people super cheap quotes, but then for example hid in the small print that they have a £2,500 excess. If you look long and hard enough you can always find a cheaper quote. If you have the time you can end up playing one broker against another against a direct insurer and so on. But, your cheap policy may not provide the cover you need, it may have onerous or unfavourable terms or conditions and ultimately the service may be very poor.

An insurance policy is strange, in that it is something that you know you need, but don’ want to ever have to use. As you don’t ever want to use it, you don’t really enjoy paying for it. But, with more and more claims being submitted, for varying reasons from increased crime, due to the recession, increased flooding, due to the changing climate and increased water damage, due to the terrible winters we have just had in the UK, now is the time to get yourself a policy.

You don’t need to search for a cheap quote, any business insurance broker worth their salt can get you a decent enough quote, if you have been claims free or not made many claims in the past three or five years. Some brokers are complacent though. They think they can just offer you the same insurer, year in year out, with an increase being applied at every renewal.

If this is the case, you really should make the effort to look for an alternative in 2011.

So, you have got your cheap quote and decide to proceed with cover. So, at what point do you find out that teh cover is not quite as good as it could be? We need to point out here that you can find a good insurance quote with good cover on the net, but you sometimes need someone with a trained eye to help you decide which quote to go for.

So, going back to the cover. As you are not being advised by a business insurance broker, it falls upon you to read through the whole policy schedule and wording to ensure that it is giving you the financial protection you are looking for. This usually means that you find out how good the cover is at exactly the point you need it to help you, when you have a claim. This is when you may find out that you either have a high excess, you have an onerous condition to comply with or worse still, you have no cover at all.

For example, many policies will allow you to have a flat felt roof, say up to 50 square feet or 10 square metres. This is usually hidden deep in the wording. But, if you have a flat roof and the area is in excess of this, even by a few percent, there is the potential of a claim being repudiated.

Speak to a broker though and when they ask about the type of construction, they will go into greater detail asking what type of materials the roof is, the size of any non-standard proportions, the age, when it was last replaced and whether you have a maintenance process in place. Based on all of these questions, they should then get you a quote that will provide cover, based on the construction details you have declared.

Of course, you know what is coming next. This can be a double edged sword. If you get somehting too cheap, then you will probably end up paying for it in the long run. Think about clothing, get yourself a cheap coat or pair of shoes and you will realise soon enough why the product was so cheap, probably because it was not fit for purpose.

Get an insurance policy that is considerably cheaper than everything else in the market, have a claim and then you may realise that you have a higher excess or worse still, no cover.

What does exist, in abundance, is what we like to call competitive business insurance. There are a range of prices from different insurers for the same risk. What you want is one of those that is at the bottom end of the price scale. Just because the price is low, does not mean it is bad cover. If you get the quote from a broker, what you really need to do is to ask them to tell you about any increased excesses, cover restrictions or onerous terms, conditions or warranties.

The brokers job is to offer you the best product at the best price, if there are any gaps, they need to notify you of this. We had an enquiry recently for a takeaway insurance quote. The market was quoting in excess of £1,000, but one insurer came back and quoted around £700. The difference being that they were not prepared to offer shop front glass cover. We advised the client and provided them with two quotes. As they had external roller shutters and they were not on a busy high street, they decided to go with the cheaper quote, excluding glass. As part of the process though, we made sure that they were fully aware of the cover restriction on the cheaper quote.

This is where a broker will help you. If you visit a website that offers (and we choose the term loosely) to compare business insurance, they do not always make it abundantly clear what the differences are. Sure, they will give the opportunity to view a key facts document or policy wording, but you want a human being to discuss this with you, whether it is face to face or over the phone.

Of course, as soon as you put the word cheap at the beginning of any product or service there is always the risk that you will get something that doesn’t quite deliver what you want it to.

Thankfully, when you are looking around, say for a small business insurance quote, you will find that you can get something cheaper that also offers the same levels of cover as the more expensive policies.

But how do you get this, sometimes, mythical better product at a cheaper price? Simple, speak to an independent business insurance broker. Why should you do this? The reason is that a broker, by definition, is there to help you and act for you, the business insurance purchasing customer. They do not act for the insurer. They may well be remunerated by commission from the insurer, but the legal relationship is that they have to, and do, serve you.

Set yourself a few hours when business is quiet, dig out your documents and make the decision, in 2010, that you will find a better premium to save yourself some money.

But, if you are prepared to accept something that is slightly cheaper (ie not the absolute rock bottom price) then you may get a a product or a service which is not of such a lower quality.

When looking for cheap business insurance, you do need to be careful. It is not the same as buying a cheap tv, where the £50 difference in price may only mean that the cheaper one needs replacing 6 months earlier or the remote control does not have quite so many functions.

For example, you may be looking for cheap restaurant insurance, your policy may, if you get one too cheap, not provide you with all the cover you require. When you are talking potentially £50,000 worth of trade contents which may not be insured correctly, or at all, then you do need to thinks very carefully about the quality of the policy.

One way to save money, is to buy a “package” policy. Most UK commercial insurance companies prefer to insure certain types of industry. For the ones they want to insure more of, they will spend time and money designing and creating a specialist insurance package that includes purely the covers needed for that trade. For your restaurant or takeaway this will be the best way to get the cheapest price, whilst not forgetting that you do need some decent cover at the some time.

If you went from being employed by someone else to running your own business, it is like night and day. Sometimes, not for good reasons.

One aspect of running your business that can be difficult to keep track of is the continuous spending that seems to go on. One of your major costs is your financial protection, in the form of insurance. Depending on the size and scale of your business, the cost can be huge.

We do get calls from people asking for cheap business insurance, and it is not a myth, you can, if you look around enough, get a decent premium.

You do need to be very careful though to ensure that this does not equal poor quality cover. Everyone knows that quality is what counts, but quality costs.

Rather than spending your time searching around you can speak to an independent, professional, business insurance broker. For them to provide you with an estimate, or quote, they do not charge and they are legally obliged to offer you the best price and cover they can obtain.

So, instead of trying to fathom out the differences between various quotes, let the broker do the donkey work for you.

Most policies are annually renewable, therefore insurers want to insure a business not only for the first year but the second, third, fourth and so on.

The difficulty that they face is, just the same as you were once “new business” to them, you can look around and become a new customer to someone else.

You would hope therefore, that if you do not look around and are happy to renew with your existing insurer that they may make you a special deal to keep your business. This, however, is not always how things pan out.

When looking for a business insurance quote, you may go to two or three different companies. When one of them gets your business they don’t necessarily rule out price increases in years 2, 3, 4 etc.

The basic principle of insurance is that the premiums of the many pay for the claims of the few. Eventually, your time will come for a claim and you will be paid out. But, insurers have been suffering from years of increased competition, increasing claims costs, reduced customer base (because of the recession) and reduced investment costs. They need to raise their revenue and the only way they can do this is with their extremely wide “broad brush”.

Everyone’s prices go up, whether you have been with them for years and years claims free, you will still have to pay more.

There is a silver lining though, if you look carefully and speak to a good business insurance broker, you will be able to find a better deal. The deals are out there, it is just a case of finding them.