This guide looks at business insurance essentials, including buildings insurance and contents insurance.
Protecting your property through business insurance falls into three areas. If you own your premises, you must buy buildings insurance to protect the physical structure. Your business insurance will also need to include contents insurance to cover what’s inside your building. And if they’re not already covered by these business insurance policies, there’s also a range of extras you can add to your business insurance cover.
Business insurance: choosing your buildings insurance
Buildings insurance will protect your business premises against a wide range of risks. Buildings insurance is usually the owner’s responsibility: if you lease your business the buildings insurance cost will probably be passed on to you as part of the service charge.
Use this business insurance checklist for tips on what to consider when buying buildings insurance:
- If you lease your premises check with your landlord to see who is responsible for buildings insurance and contents insurance.
- When choosing buildings insurance, work out the cost of rebuilding the premises (reinstatement value) and not the market value. Include any professional fees that could be involved in doing this when working out how much buildings insurance you need.
- Check what each business insurance policy includes. You can always add extra cover to your business insurance later.
Business insurance: choosing your contents cover
Buildings insurance only covers the physical building, so your business insurance also needs to include contents insurance to cover damage to or theft of stock and business equipment.
Here’s what to consider when adding contents cover to your business insurance:
- You choose between two types of contents insurance: replacement as new or indemnity. Replacement as new replaces damaged items that can’t be repaired or stolen items with new ones. Indemnity pays the current market value, deducting an amount for wear and tear or depreciation.
- Insure stock for its cost price – don’t include any profit you expect to make.
- As a rule with business insurance, cover against theft requires a forcible break-in and doesn’t include the dishonest act of an employee. Read our guide to business insurance to find out about protecting against such risks.
Adding on extras to your business insurance
You can add additional cover onto your buildings insurance or contents insurance. The following may be worth considering:
- All-risks: this business insurance extra covers accidental damage to your premises or stock.
- Business interruption: this business insurance product insures against higher overheads, increased running costs and loss of profit if you are unable to continue your normal business.
- Engineering cover: this business insurance pays for the repair and reinstatement of machinery, including computers.
- Glass: business insurance that covers the replacement of internal and external glass at your premises, including sanitary fittings.
- Deterioration of stock: business insurance that covers loss of perishable goods, for example food if your refrigeration equipment breaks down.
- Portable equipment: cover items like mobile phones and laptops against fire, theft and accidental damage when they’re not on your normal business premises with this business insurance.
How uSwitch for business can help
Let uSwitch for business work out exactly what you need. We’ll compare business insurance on your behalf to save your business time and money – and we’ll take care of all the paperwork too.
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