Growth
Guest post
As a business, there are a host of insurance costs that you need to suffer, just to keep you free from financial risk should a problem arise. Since most businesses use premises of some sort, they will need to make sure that they insure those premises.
Naturally, if you own the premises, insurance will be an essential cost. Just the same as insuring your residential property from theft, fire, and other risks, insuring your commercial property will be critical in alleviating the financial burden that may arise from certain risks.
However, even if you don’t own the property yourself, you may still need to pay the insurance on it. If you are leasing or renting any property from a landlord, you will most likely be required to arrange for a commercial building insurance policy. In about 90 per cent of cases, this will happen, whereby a commercial tenant is required to pay the landlord an amount, whether monthly or annually, to cover the bricks and mortar. Unfortunately, the landlord will generally choose the policy themselves, and may not necessarily look for the most affordable options. You, as the tenant will, however, be legally required to cover the costs on the policy that they choose.
In other cases, you may be able to go with a insuring and repairing lease on the property. In this situation, you’d be able to have greater control over the policy you choose, and will insure the commercial building insurance policy in your own name. The financial interest of the policy will, however, be under the name of the owner. As such, should a problem arise, such as a fire, the landlord will be compensated by the settlement, but you will not have to pay the potentially higher rates of insurance they choose. This situation tends to provide a greater degree of flexibility for you, giving you the chance to choose the policy yourself.
Another factor related to your commercial building insurance will be your office contents insurance. Once more, you don’t necessarily need to own the equipment that you use in order to have to insure it. For example, if you were renting a photocopier from a company, you would need to cover the insurance on that piece of equipment. If the equipment is damaged, for example by a fire, the rental company would get their compensation, and you wouldn’t have to suffer the costs of replacing the equipment yourself.
Naturally, there are various other business insurance needs that any business needs to consider. Primary among these will be things like employers and public liability insurance, as well as public indemnity insurance. All aspects of risk need to be considered when assessing your needs, and cover should be put in place to prevent any financial burden from arising as a result of any type of business issue.
So, whether you own the premises yourself, or you are simply leasing it from another owner, you will still need to cover the insurance costs involved in protecting it against damage, and other risks.