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.

During 2006 to 2008 as the recession kicked in, we started to see even these new companies not picking up quite the market share they wanted. They had to price ever more cheaply to even get some business on the books. All commercial insurance companies, whether they like it or not are in a cyclical industry. The more the competition the cheaper the prices until we get to the bottom of the cycle, or near to it. When we are at the bottom of the cycle, the insurers do one of two things. They either exit the market or they increase their premiums.

We are just starting to see the bottom of the cycle approaching. Of the five or six insurers we have agencies with, 2 have exited the market and the others are starting to get tough on the business they accept. We have one insurer that will not accept any Indian takeaway insurance or kebab takeaway insurance business. This is purely because their loss ratios are higher, whether this is because their windows get smashed or there are fires.

We do still have good markets to approach thankfully. If you need a quick, cheap quote, give us a call today.

The same can be said of most types of policy, but takeaways tend to have quite big differences in the range of premiums quoted. If we look at commercial property owners insurance, we could get a dozen or so quotes, for the same building, from different insurers. The premiums could range from £800 to £900. The prices tend to be very, very similar.

Whereas for takeaways, insurers that want the business will quote, for example £750 and the premiums from the insurers that really do not want the business will go up to the £2-£3,000 mark. This is just to show that the differentials are much more marked.

This is where you need a business insurance broker to find the best quote for you. Do not go direct as all you will get is the one price from the one insurer. As a broker, our role is to provide a service to you, the ultimate policy purchaser. Initially, that service is only providing a quotation. However, we have make sure that we are doing the right thing and offering you the best policy we can get at the most competitive price. It may well be that a cheaper quote offers lesser cover, or higher excesses, but we need to point this out to you.

Again, if you go direct, how do you know you are getting the best price and the best cover? Quite simply, you do not. To answer the blog question, the key to getting a good quote is to go to a good broker. A good broker for takeaway insurance is one that has a number of different insurers available to provide these types of policies. When getting a quote, why not ask them how many different insurers they will approach on your behalf? If it is one or two, then this is not enough, five or six and you at least know that you are going to have the market covered.

The difference between policy A, policy B and policy C may not, at first glance, seem that much. The prices may be similar, the excess may look around the same (average would be £250 all claims and £1,000 for subsidence).

But, with takeaway insurance in particular, one of the biggest sources of claims is damage to shop front glass and signage, including canopies. What does this mean? Well, certain insurers only include this cover if you ask them to put in a particular amount. So, you need to add up the cost of all the shop front glass, all the signs and any canopies that you have. If this would cost £2,000 to replace, then you need to add this amount to your cover. The cost per £1,000, because this is where the losses occur, can be up to £70 or £80, which is quite a lot when you compare this as a percentage rate.

But, you do need ot sit there yourself and work out what the potential is of your signs being damaged by storm or even by vandalism. Wherever you are in the country, we would hazard a guess that the chances of this happening are much higher than you would want to accept. Although we have had the cold weather, we have bene relatively lucky over the past few months in that pure storm losses, caused by wind, have been very low.

As the months go by between now and Easter, we will start to see the frequency and severity of storm losses increase. Not dramatically, but enough to make it worthwhile checking whether you have adequate cover.

So, they were not just looking for the proverbial cheap quote. What they wanted had to be cheap and quick, and they asked for wide cover. But, the point about this blog is not (just) to promote out services.

The issued the customer had was that a “local” high street business insurance broker had offered to get this sorted out. However, when push came to shove, the service was not up to scratch.

What this means is that the takeaway tried to use a local company, thinking that this would get them the better service. But it failed miserably. We are based in Perth, Scotland and the customer was in Birmingham. Local does not make any difference whatsoever. You just need to find the right company that offers the right products and service. Don’t make the assumption that because a broker is round the corner that they can offer you what you want. Sometimes a broker on the internet, that is miles away from your business, is the one that can offer what you need.

Make sure though that the broker has their own individual Financial Services Authority authorisation and regulation. If they do, thye can give you a six digit number which you can check on the FSA website.

This can be a difficult question to answer and one that you need to consider carefully. To an outsider, one policy can be exactly the same as another. For many companies, this can be acceptable. However, for others you can get a much better alternative cover, by getting a policy that has been designed specially.

For example, takeaway insurance policies are loosely based on a sho or retail insurance policy. They have similar risks, windows can get smashed, peopel can trip on the premises and employees can get injured. However, there are particular risks that are associated with takeaways and restaurants that are not related to a standard clothing shop, for example.

Go to any takeaway on a Friday or Saturday night and you are more than likely to see a delivery driver hovering around with a cool box, waiting to take the next delivery. What happens if they injure someone or spill food on someones hall carpet (this has and does happen quite regularly)?

A normal shop policy will not necessariluy cover this, whereas a specialist policy should have this cover included. Whilst it is not always your job (as there are specialists to do this for you), one thing you should do is to consider all of the business risks that you face and think whether you have a suitable policy to cover you.

You will find though, particularly in England and Wales, that under the terms of you lease (if you are renting the building) that you are responsible for the cost of damage caused to the shop front glass.

This happens in around 90% of commercial, retail, leases. If someone chucks a brick through the window, it is up to you to get it repaired. If someone drives a car into one of the walls, then this fall under the landlords commercial building insurance cover.

You do need to be very aware of two things. Firstly, that if a window is broken “out of hours” the local police have every right to appoint a glazier of their choosing to come and do emergency repairs. When you add up the call out charge, the boarding up and clearance costs, this can be many hundreds of pounds for a very small window. Secondly, and more importantly, some of the cheaper takeaway or restaurant policies you can get in the market today, either do not have glass cover or the sum insured is so woefully low, it is not worth having.

Make sure that you business insurance policy (whatever your trade) has suitable cover and that the sum insured is high enough and the excess is not too extortionate. For example, for every standard window that is about the height of an average person and as wide as they can stretch their arms, you are looking at £500 as a sensible sum insured.

Stand in the street and look at your windows and doors and when you use this rule of thumb, even for standard glass, you are looking at a minimum figure of £2,000 and upwards. Check your policy, you may be shocked to find out that you only have a sum insured of £500 and the excess is £250, so it really is not worth having the cover at all in the event of all your windows going.

The big question is, who do you actually go to for a quote? If you have a couple of spare weeks, you could approach the first three pages worth of companies on the search engines. But hey, in reality this is not really going to happen. The usual scenario is that you get your existing renewal through, which has increased, and you say to yourself you must do something about this. Then, two days before renewal you realise you haven’t done anything and then it is a mad panic to get an alternative sorted out.

To decide who to go to, you need to think of a few things. Firstly, do you need to have a local business insurance broker dealing with your cover? If so, this would surprise us as in 2010 you can deal with a broker anywhere in the country and still get a similar service. If you do need a local one, then search for the correct insurance related phrase, but put in your town as well. This should throw up the main ones operating nearby.

Secondly, do you want absolute basic cover (not recommended) or the level of protection that a professional adviser thinks you should have. If you want the latter, then you need to speak to a specialist, maybe one that can offer separate, specific, takeaway, restaurant and fish and chip shop insurance quotes. If you speak to a company that tries to offer a basic commercial policy, you should spend a bit more time looking for a more specific one. The reason being that if an insurer has a bespoke policy, then they will know and understand the market better.

Lastly, check on the instalments. You may have a competitive quote, but if you add in an excessive monthly instalment chsarge of 8, 9 or 10%, the competitive quote may cost you more money.

In summary, you need to spend as much time as you can possibly afford getting a quote. Whilst you can get one at the last minute, you should try and set aside some time before renewal to sort this out.

The reason for this is that you can be faced with a commercial insurance company that wants to be a player and needs to have a policy for every type of customer. But, what they really want is the good, profitable business and takeaways can, at times, be very unprofitable.

So, you have some companies that simply price themselves out of the market. On the other hand, you will have others that either a charge a makrket, ball park, rate or they just come in with an exceptionally cheap quote.

Although we are still feeling the pinch of the worst recession in living memory, you should not scrimp and saving on your insurance. What happens if, as most takeaways do, you have delivery drivers?

They will have their own car insurance, unless you provide a fleet of vehicles. But, what about the damage they may cause at someones home during the delivery? Yes, it is unlikely, but if it does get to the stage of a claim, then this is because there has been serious damage. A spilled curry on a carpet is going to set you back hundreds, if not thousands of pounds.

The cheapest policies may either not provide you with this cover or they may have such a high excess, it is not worth having anyway. This is when you need to make a decision, do you need to save £50 or a £100 when the cover may not be quite up to scratch?

The answer is of course no. Try and get your policy on interest free monthly instalments and spread the cost, this way it may not seem quite so bad.

No-one can, or will, expect a policy to pay out on every single claim or loss. The whole point of insurance is that it provides you with financial protection in the event of an unforeseen loss.

If you can reasonably foresee that a loss will occur, then technically it is not covered. If you think of commercial building insurance, if you do not maintain your property and the roof has cracked, holes and all sort of vegetation growing out of it, if there is a water leak into the property then insurers can, quote rightly, turn down the claim for lack of maintenance or care.

As far as takeaway insurance is concerned, this cover is based on a policy wording as well. One area of essential cover is for frozen food. Most takeaways wil have stock that is refrigerated or frozen. If there is a break down of this freezer than it can cause a loss of stock.

Most insurers we deal with offer a limit of £1,000 or £2,000 for this section, so it can be a big loss. But, please read through your terms. Nearly all insurers insist on the freezer being less than 5 years old. The reason being that it can be reasonably assumed that an older freezer may fail. If this is the case, and you have a good quality freezer over 5 years old, then your insurers may provide cover if you can prove that you have the freezer annually inspected and maintained.