The important part of this statement is that you are able to compare prices. If you have ever entered into one of these websites, it can be difficult to accurately compare the product and the service you will receive, alongside the price. Most of these sites have a little click box that allows you to compare the main parts of the cover. For home, travel and car this is just about acceptable, depending on how many aspects of the cover are compared. The one thing that is missing is customer reviews of the insurer offering the product, maybe, just maybe this will come one day.

When you look to compare business insurance, this can be more difficult. There are a few websites that do offer this service, but it can really only relate to the lower end of the market. This usually only works for small public liability insurance policies. If you are getting into the realms of commercial combined insurance, these website are not suitable and will only offer you a limited service. Usually along the lines of, we do not offer this product. This is where you need to speak to a human being. You do not need to have a face to face conversation, dealing with a broker, such as Businessinsure, over the phone is just as workable. With modern technology and the ability to email documents within seconds, this can sometimes be a better way of getting this service.

If you are looking to compare your business insurance renewal, or new business quote, why not give businessinsure a call to see what we can do for you today, you have nothing to lose.

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.

If you work from home, then you are much more limited as to which policies are available to you. If you are looking for just some business computer equipment cover, you can usually add this to a household policy. Ten years ago the majority of home insurers would not cover this equipment unless it belonged to you in a personal capacity. Also, if you declared that part of your home was used for business purposes (including a home office) they would either not cover you or apply a loading.

In 2012 though, things have moved on, the odd laptop and smartphoen can be added, usually worldide if needed. But, you do need to phone your insruer and let them know that you will be using your home for a business purpose. What you do not want is a break in and the insurers to turn around and say that cover does not apply.

If you need more cover than just your business equipment, you need to consider a bespoke business from home insurance contract. There are a few insurers who still provide this cover and it is usually considerably cheaper than a more general commercial contract. The secret for this is to find a broker that is able to offer this type of contract, this is where businessinsure come in.

We have one mainstream UK commercial insurance that offers a bespoke business from home policy, with premiums starting from £100. It may well be that other covers will be required, this is why you need to speak to a broker about your individual demands and needs.

In 2012, not a lot has changed, in that the damage caused by the actual theft far outweighs the cost of the actual stolen lead. But, the difference is that the lead is a lot more expensive per kilo than it ever was. So are all other types of metal, it is not just the non-ferrous metals, nowadays any type of metal has a better value than ever before. This is why people have even taken to stealing metal drain covers from the streets.

The two problems, with the consequent cost, is that the thieves tend to damage the property when they are stealing the metal. Then, the actual property owners may not find out about the theft until such time as a lot of water suddenly starts appearing through a ceiling or floor. The theft of the roofing metal could have occurred many weeks before, it is not until the first major storm occurs that the real damage happens.

The question is, what can be done to prevent these losses? We have had one commercial property owner who have had three theft losses in the last three years. The total cost to insurers is going to be in excess of £100,000. Each claim has resulted in a roof being replaced with a zinc coated metal. The cost of this is much less than lead and the theft attractiveness is lower. But, the thieves do not always understand what is and what is not a metal worth stealing. As a result of these claims, the insurers increased the excess (the amount the insurers pay) to £5,000 each and every loss. It is in in the insured’s interest to reduce the chance of a loss.

There is one option, that is both cheap and is actually effective. We have all seen the vans driving round with the stickers on the back stating that there are not tools kept in the vehicle over night. A couple of very cheap plastic signs can be added to buildings stating that, there is no metal on the roof. Insurers will not recommend this, but it could be a good way of stopping the thefts in the first place. The exact wording would need to be thought through, depending on each property, but it may be worth considering.

If you want a commercial building insurance quote, that will actually provide cover for theft of metal and the consequent damage, give Businessinsure a call to see what we can do for you. We are an independent business insurance broker, we have access to a number of insurers so can always look around to get you the right quote.

Whilst this has undoubtedly been good for consumers, you do not always benefit in the long term from cutting out the intermediary. In my teens, when you wanted to go on holiday, the only option you really had (unless you absolutely knew what you were doing), was to go to a travel agent. Travel agents earned huge commissions from every step in the chain whether the airlines, coach companies or the hotels. Maybe complacency set in, but it became apparent to many individuals that if they could help you buy one part of the chain direct, you could save money. This is when the adverts started appearing about cutting out the middle-man. Usually, they were correct to work on this basis as you were not getting a great additional service, for the 25-40% extra that it cost to go through an agent. But, agents have learned and adapted and the deals plus the service from a good independent travel agent are without question.

We have seen the same with business insurance. Certain insurers decided that they could offer their products direct to the business community, cutting out the broker. But, many of them have now done an about turn and decided only to work with the business insurance broker market. Why have the done this? Because the insurers cannot be all things to all men.

This morning I have had an enquiry from a company importing electrical stock (marine cover required), storing the stock (warehouse insurance required), installing the stock (public liability insurance required) and advising customers on installations, separately for a fee if required (professional indemnity insurance required). Now, that is not a strange example but there are very few insurers that could happily provide all the cover. As a broker we have to look around to get marine cover from one insurer, storage and liability risks from another and professional indemnity from a third. Why do we do this? To give you, the customer, the best deal. It may be easy to question what a business insurance broker can add to the equation, until you have tried to go direct for all of these individual products you really will never appreciate what a broker will do.

The information that is required, is your PAYE reference number. Many years ago, you used to have a bright yellow booklet, almost like a cheque book. Each month, if you participated in PAYE, you sent a cheque to the Inland Revenue for your contribution to PAYE. You do still get these issued in come cases, but most payments now are done online. On this booklet, or in your online account, you will have a business specific reference number. This is usually three digits, followed by a / then any number of digits and numbers, up to 7 or sometimes 8 in total.

This is the number you are required to provide, usually to your business insurance broker, in the first instance. From the 1st April 2012, this is something that you either must provide, or confirm you are exempt, before your employers liability insurance is renewed, or incepted as a new policy. The question is, is this a legal requirement, or another one of the industries nice to haves?

It is no a legal requirement, but you do have to provide it. What this means is that it is the insurers that have signed up to be members of the Employers Liability Tracing Office. If your insurer has not signed up to this, they can still offer the cover, and you do not have to provide the reference number. But, it is thought to be very, very unlikely that come the 1st April any commercial insurance companies that offer EL cover will not be requesting this information.

You do not need to worry though. With a limited company, we can find out a lot of information from companies house and other websites that offer details about registered companies. But, there is no such way of finding information on partnerships, sole traders, charities and other organisations that may employ people. All the industry is trying to do is build up a database of information so that, in years to come, if you need to trace who your employers liability insurance company where, at any given moment in the past. It is to be used confidentially, insurers will not share this information and will only use it for the purpose it is intended, to protect employees, or ex employees, that have suffered an injury, illness or diseases that should be covered under a standard employers liability policy.

We had one theft where £50,000 of scrap steel was stolen from a building over a Bank Holiday weekend. The neighbouring building was broken into and the internal walls were broken down. A fork lift was then used to transfer the scrap stock over three days. As it was of such low value, being scrap, they had to move a fair chunk of it over three days, in order to get the £50,000.

Overall, the cost of the claim was nearly £80,000. There was the cost of metal, the cost of the repairs to the internal walls and the cost to the fork lift that was ruined after they managed to hot wire it. Given the state of the fork lift, I don’t think they passed their fork lift driving course. Unfortunately the load bearing wall didn’t collapse blocking their path but they must have had fun driving the fork lift over their veritable assault course.

What this means is that for most metal thefts, the consequent costs are the expensive ones. An additional 60% of this claim was made up of the othe damage. If you keep any sort of metals, make sure that you have a suitable warehouse insurance policy to cover this for you.

This long introduction is purely to show that insurable interest can apply to physical property that you do not own. The same applies to shop insurance. You can insure, on your shop insurance policy, parts of the building that you do not own. You will find, in the over-whelming majority of cases that you will be responsible for the shop front and the glass. If you have a full insuring and repairing lease, then you may be responsible for the buildings insurance as well. In the main though, you will need to insure the shop front glass.

Your commercial landlord will have a policy in place for the bricks and mortar, but not necessarily for the shop front glass. Shop front glass claims are numerous and you will find that the commercial building insurance policy may either not cover the glass or have a high excess. Also, if you have your own sign writing or lettering on the glass, then this is not the landlords responsibility. It is down to you to ensure that your shop policy provides you with a) adequate cover and b) a sensible excess.

By adequate cover, we mean the sum insured must be sufficient, you should either have an unlimited sum insured (which, whilst available, is rare) or a sum insured that is sufficient to replace all of the glass in the premises.

As always, if you do not have this cover speak to an independent business insurance broker. If you are through a broker and do not have this cover, change your broker!

They know, for example, if they insured 500 fish and chip shops, they could expect 10-15% of the businesses to claim in the first year. They can also work out, fairly well, what the losses are likely to be and what the costs are. But, and it is another big but, dozens of years of statistics are never guaranteed to be right. Most years they are, but then we have a couple of bad winters as we did at the end of 2009 and 2010 and with the thousands upon thousands of burst pipe claims we had, the statistics are blown out of the water. Overall though, all business insurance companies can work out what they will make money on and rate accordingly.

This is why insurers, if they want to cover them, will charge higher premiums for unoccupied, or empty, buildings. Over time they suffer more losses from buildings that are empty. Therefore, they charge higher premiums and provide restricted (fire, lightning, earthquake, explosion and property owners liability) cover for these types of risks.

One downside of looking for a quote is that it may take longer, for certain insurers, to provide a quote. Some may not even quote until they have undertaken a pre-cover survey, which can take days and days. Others may need you to provide recent photographs which they will need to review before offering terms.

As ever, please always, always speak to an independent business insurance broker for a range of quotes.

Here at Businessinsure, for most types of empty (commercial, residential and mixed) buildings, with a sum insured of less then £1,000,000, we can offer terms on the same day you request them. There are of course scenarios where we cannot meet this, but overall, we aim to provide a written quote via email, on the same day you ask us to.

One trigger for this has been the build up to the recession, the recession and it’s aftermath. When cash is tight and also king, more businesses are prone to make claims than to absorb the costs themselves. A second trigger has been the availability of legal expenses insurance. Many business insurance policies now include an element of commercial legal expenses cover as standard. It is therefore easier for businesses to pursue action, in the knowledge that they have cover in place to pay for the legal costs associated with this.

It is therefore important that you have adequate cover in force to protect you against such claims. For most office insurance policies, the legal expenses cover is included as standard. Overall limits of indemnity are usually around the £50,000 to £100,000 mark. In addition to legal expenses cover, you need to make sure that you have adequate liability insurance, both public and products liability. For most offices though, the fees or turnover are earned as a result of services that are offered. A physical product is not always provided. In these cases you need to consider, carefully, whether there is a need or requirement for professional indemnity insurance. Most of the standard package contracts will actually exclude this cover.

There are a few, and we mean few, insurers that will offer all of the covers under one contract. However, in reality it is much more competitive to get one contract for the office and one for professional indemnity. PI cover is for your professional negligence. Public and products liability operate where these is evidence of physical damage or injury. For example the computer that catches light or the person that trips over. Professional indemnity need not have evidence of a physical loss, but a financial loss. You provide advice, for a fee, and someone suffers financially if this is incorrect.

If you are worried about whether this is a requirement for your particular business, then you speak to an independent business insurance broker and get their opinion on whether this is a requirement for your business or not.