Archive for the ‘internet retailers insurance’ Category

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/

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Internet retailers insurance

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

You may be surprised to know that there is not a commercial insurance company in the UK that has a bespoke, suitable, product for internet retailers.

Most of them will either cover this on a retail or shop policy, or a commercial combined insurance package. There are even some main stream, big brand, insurers that do not even provide cover for internet retailers. They are not even able to give one concrete, solid reason for why they do not want to provide cover. Some of their staff think that it poses an increased business interruption risk and others tell us that the stock is at an increased risk of theft.

As things stand, as we go through the second half of 2011, we have to work with the tools we have available. We can provide cover for you, but we ask and work with insurers to get these risks quoted on their retail or shop package policies. The reason being that these policies are packages and contain various covers which are suited to different trades. Therefore you can get cover for stock, contents, portable equipment ie laptops and smartphones, business interruption, goods in transit and the various liability covers.

We just need to make sure that the insurer is fully aware of all aspects of the trade that you are undertaking. One of the key points to consider for internet retail insurance is that your stock is more than likely to be held elsewhere, instead of at your home address.

Many businesses start from home and grow, as they grow they run out of space and it is now the norm to take a small storage unit at a different address. You need to make sure that your policy covers you at not only your home, but also your secondary business address, if there is one.

The best way to get this type of policy, and be confident that it provides you with what you need as far as cover is concerned, is to speak to a business insurance broker. Please do not try to get this sorted out online because the chances are that you will not get a confirmed quote as soon as you declare there are two different risk addresses and neither of them is a shop.

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

Office insurance – stock holding

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Online retail insurance policies prevent a bit of a difficult choice for some insurers. In the olden days, they had shop policies that were designed for high street premises or locations with a “shop front”. As the internet continues to grow, we are seeing more and more growth in the online retail area. We are not in any way saying it is easy to trade in this manner, but if you want to set up a website to trade online, for less than £100 and a few hours work, you could technically be up and running.

If you trade from home, you can usually get a home business insurance policy that covers your stock and liabilities. However, many internet retail businesses now operate from small office premises. Whether this is a sign of the recession (in that there are more office premises up for rental) or not, we can’t tell. But we are getting more and more quote requests for businesses that run a retail website, trade from an office and keep thousands of pounds worth of stock in that office.

So, do we quote it under a shop or office insurance policy? It all depends on the nature of the stock, the security and how much stock is stored. We need to be careful that you not only have cover for the stock itself (ie theft, fire, flood etc) but in addition you get the required liability cover.

We had just such an enquiry where the customer was selling fancy goods, glassware and trinkets. They said that there was no liability risk, but if we did not at leats recommend that thye took out products liability cover (which they did) then we are failing in our service to them.

Most insurers are happy to cover these types of risks under both retail and office contracts. If you are looking for a quote, please call us to discuss.

Posted in business insurance, internet retailers insurance, office insurance, office insurance quote, online business insurance quote, shop insurance | Comments Off

Internet retailers insurance

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

In the good old days if you were selling B2C, business to consumer, you would do this in two ways. Either through a traditional shop or, to a lesser degree, via mail order.

As far as insurance was concerned, you would get yourself a commercial combined (mail order) or shop insurance policy. It was fairly simple, if you operate from a shop front type premises, then nearly every single commercial insurer in the land would have some form of shop policy.

But, as we moved into the mid 1990’s, post dot.com boom and bust, the world settled down a bit. It was easier to set up a website to start selling whatever you wanted. In 2011, for less than £30 you can get yourself a domain name and a website with shopping cart. There is a small issue as far as getting a suitable policy though. Not all shop policies are suitable to provide internet retailers insurance.

If you are looking for this type of quote, we have a number of different insurers available to us who are happy to provide this type of cover. What you need to make sure is that your schedule notes exactly, and we mean exactly, what you do. Therefore, in the event of a loss you do not have an insurer saying that you did not declare the correct information.

As we always say, you are better speaking direct to a busines insurance broker. Do not rely on a policy sold over the net to provide the cover you need, when you need it most, after a loss.

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Internet retailers insurance

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

As we approach Christmas in 2010 (doesn’t time fly…) we are starting to see the usual reports in the press of how much business is transacted at this time of year over the Internet. As businesses become much more savvy to the benefits of not only dealing in a traditional retail way (ie from a shop front premises) there is more a requirement away from traditional shop insurance.

Business insurers will normally, if you approach them for a quote for a shop, they will insure this under a standard package policy. But, if you are a “pure” internet retailer, then you may not be ideally suited to be covered under a shop policy. The reason being, that the commercial insurance companies want to know exactly what you do. Many policies will specify that you operate or trade from a shop location for the cover to be effective. If it transpires in the event of a claim, that you trade from, say an industrial estate, office or home, then you could find an insurer starts to question whether a claim should be paid.

Why would this be? The reason is, that an insurance contract is that, a contract between you and the insurer. The contract is based on the facts that you declare to them. If the facts are incorrect, they could say that the risk was mis-represented and that they need to reconsider whether the policy remains in place.

You should therefore insist that you either have a bespoke policy, for your trade, or you have the business description specifically amended to note that you are an Internet retailer. It is only a small change, that should not cost you any extra premium, but it is an important one.

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Retail insurance – not from a shop premises

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Most business insurance companies in the UK, have packaged policies for different types of trade. When we say packaged, this is similar to your car insurance. A car policy has a package that can include the vehicle itself against damage, the contents of the vehicle against theft, the windscreen and third party liability if you hit someone else.

Businesses are the same, you will have a package that covers the assets and stock, including buildings, liabilities, money, legal expenses etc. Some insurers have had these packages in a similar guise for years. One of these is retail insurance, or shop insurance. For the last forty or fifty years the policies have not changed dramatically with the one main point about them is that insurers only want to insure “traditional” shops. But, the retail world has evolved and embraced the Internet more so than many other industries.

A good percentage of retailers do not have a shop, with a glass frontage, and a serving area for customers. Those that operate as internet retailers tend to trade from either home, an office (with a fulfilment house supporting them) or an industrial estate.

Some insurers feel that they represent not only different, but increased, risks of loss. There are only two areas we can really see this having an affect. One is that they may be on an industrial estate which will be empty at night and weekends and the other is that if there are problems with phone/broadband lines, they could have an interruption to their business. Aside from this, the risks are much better. You do not have windows to smash, the security tends to be better, the stock is more secure, you do not have customers coming in and a whole host of other reasons.

If you are finding it difficult to get a competitive policy from the various “quote comparison” sites, call a broker and speak to a human being about your insurance. You will be amazed at what sort of deal they can get for you.

Posted in business insurance, commercial insurance, internet retailers insurance, online shop insurance, retail insurance, shop insurance, shop insurance quote | Comments Off

Non domiciled UK business insurance companies

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Many years ago, around 1999, with great fanfare it was announced that business insurance companies, within the EU, would be able to trade across borders freely. Theoretically we were told that a business, for example in France, could arrange a policy with a UK, German, Belgian etc insurer.

Those of us in the industry were or course sceptical that this sort of thing would not happen in practice and of course, we were right. Technically this sort of cover can be arranged, an umbrella policy, but it only applies to the largest companies that have the ability to deal with specialist brokers who arrange cross border policies.

But what about the half million pound turnover business that is looking to extend their internet retail insurance policy to cover products sold across the EU? This is slightly more difficult, but it can be arranged.

If you look into the deepest, darkest depths of your policy wording, you will more than likely find an exclusion for products sold outside of the UK. What this means is that if someone, in Italy, buys a product from you and makes a claim (due to the product causing some sort of damage) then you may not have the cover.

As a broker, one of the questions we ask all retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and suppliers is if they sell products outside of the UK. Many will say no, but if the chance presented itself, then of course they would sell.

It is in exactly these circumstances that you need to get professional advice. You cannot get cover from a non-domiciled (ie not trading in the UK) insurer that would satisfy employment liability legislation. So you need to make sure that you have cover with a UK based insurer, which can include an overseas insurer that is authorised to trade here. But you need to make sure that any products liability claims are covered. Usually they will be but the wording will say that any action must be pursued through a UK court and subject to English or Scots law. This is acceptable, because the insurers will of course prefer to deal with the courts they are used to, ie ones based here.

As with all types of cover, whether you think you need advice or not, you should speak to an independent broker to consider all of the options to make sure your business is best protected.

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Internet retailer insurance

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Think back to the dot.com boom of the early 2000’s. You may remember the news being filled with numerous new start up companies that were simple selling products over the internet. One I do remember, which received obscene amounts of money in funding, was a pet food supply company. All they were doing was setting up a website and selling pet food in bulk.

Back in those days though, this was a huge achievement. They thought the world was their oyster (or lobster as Del Boy said at the time!). But, they failed because not enough people had internet access and many people still went to a pet shop or Tesco, Sainsbury or Asda for their products.

Nowadays though, in 2010, you can set up a website, with a shopping cart, payment software, email addresses and everything else required for less than £100. So, more and more people are setting up in business and at the same time, looking for small business insurance, to cover their stock and liabilities.

Many commercial insurance companies still have a very old fashioned view of this insurance and will only provide quotes on a warehouse insurance policy. This is laughable, as it is a much more expensive way of doing things. The only difference between an internet retail insurance policy and a standard shop insurance one is that there is not the foot fall of customers.

We understand the needs and concerns of these types of businesses and do have a panel of insurers that are more than happy to quote these businesses on a package contract, which offer significant premium savings for you.

If you do need a quote, cal us today to see what we can do for you.

Posted in internet retailers insurance, online shop insurance | No Comments »