Insurance for the high street to protect all that matters to them, their stock and contents, the shop front and their ability to trade, plus protection for legal matters and slips and trips from customers.
Key Points of Cover
- Stock, contents and cover for the building if needed
- Business Income protection
- Legal expenses
- Public and Employer Liability cover as standard
- With many other packaged enhancements
Buildings Insurance
Cover can be included for the physical building of the shop or salon, as long as the policyholder owns the property. Cover can be extended to include subsidence, heave or landslip cover, and will cover a wide range of All Risk perils from Fire and Theft to flood, water and storm damage.
Tenant Improvements
Tenant improvements allows a tenant that has improved the building they have rented to cover the improvements made. For example a tenant may have rented a shell, but then put in place internal decorations and enhancements to improve the appearance of their unit. This would be insured under this section. Like Buildings cover, cover will include a wide range of All Risk perils from Fire and Theft to flood, water and storm damage.
Shop Front and Glass
Glass cover is usually considered part of the property owner's insurance, so if you don’t own the building you may want to talk with your landlord to ascertain what you are liable for and what is covered by commercial property insurance. An optional cover you might want to consider though is ‘shop front’ insurance. Whilst your landlords’ policy may cover the glass, you may still have signs and window set ups which can be expensive to replace if damaged. Shop front insurance will provide cover for these elements.
Business Interruption
This cover protects against any loss of gross income due to a break in commercial activity following an insured material loss at the premises. For example, a flood damages your premises, and you are unable to trade for 8 months. This section would provide cover for lost income in that period. A degree of Business Interruption cover may be included as standard, please refer to the quote documentation.
Deterioration of Stock (Frozen Stock)
As with most machinery, refrigerators and freezers are subject to wear and tear, and they also have wires that could accidentally be knocked, or be subject to a power cut. There are a number of reasons why a freezer might suddenly stop working but not be classed as an ‘insured peril’. This section looks after claims for the refrigerated/frozen food in that freezer when it stops working. For some businesses this might be thousands of pounds of stock. This section would then protect you if the freezer fails, and the contents of the fridge/freezer are lost.
Money Cover
This can provide protection for loss of money, whilst on the premises during business hours, overnight in a safe, or whilst in transit to the bank.
Unspecified Contents
Unspecified contents will cover all of your contents, so everything that would fall out of the property if you were to turn it upside down. For example, fridges, freezers, tables and chairs etc. The exception is stock, i.e. goods that you sell to your customers. This is covered in the next section; Stock and Target Stock. Unspecified contents cover would protect the policyholder against a wide range of All Risk perils from Fire and Theft to flood, water and storm damage.
Stock Cover
Stock is deemed to be anything that is sold by the business, for example Fruit & Veg in a grocers. The cover in this section should be enough to cover the maximum stock held at any one time. As per other sections, this section would protect the policyholder against a wide range of All Risk perils from Fire and Theft to flood, water and storm damage.
Target/Specified Stock
This is simply an extension of the Stock cover section, however this covers more specific stock, usually because of a higher theft attractiveness rate. I.e. Wines & Spirits, Cigarettes & Tobacco, Clothing or Mobile Phones. It is vital that this type of stock is included in the right section, to ensure Insurers will pay claims out as required. If in any doubt always check.
Employer Liability
In a similar way to Public Liability, this is to protect you against claims from your own employees. This is a legal requirement, so should always be carried when staff are employed, even if volunteers or family members.
Terrorism
Extends policy cover to include the damage from a terrorist act.
Legal Expenses
This section provides support with legal fees when taking legal action against a third party, should cover be required you should let your adviser know.