When Did You Last Review Your Business Insurance?
Let’s just imagine you arranged your business insurance a few years ago. Since then, you’ve added two team members, bought new equipment and your turnover has grown.
But the insurance? That’s been quietly renewed in the background each year.
It’s an easy situation to find yourself in. The problem is that while your firm keeps changing, your cover may not be changing with it.
That can leave a gap between the business you insured and the one you’re running today.
What has changed since you arranged your cover?
Start with the firm as it stands now.
Think about what has changed since your insurance was arranged or last properly reviewed:
Have you bought new vehicles, machinery or equipment?
Has your turnover or stock level increased?
Have you introduced different products or services?
Has your team grown or changed?
Have you moved or altered your premises?
Are you more reliant on technology and digital systems?
No single change necessarily means your insurance needs to change. But taken together, they can mean your current operations look quite different from those your existing cover was based on.
Are you only thinking about physical assets?
Buildings, vehicles, equipment and stock are usually easy to identify. Some business risks are less obvious because they relate to your ability to keep operating when something unexpected happens.
For example, what would the financial impact be if an owner, director or another important member of the team was unable to work for an extended period?
Could the firm continue meeting its commitments if an insured event interrupted trading?
Depending on your circumstances, an insurance adviser may suggest considering areas such as key person insurance, business interruption insurance or cyber insurance. Firms with multiple owners may also want specialist advice on insurance relating to ownership or succession arrangements.
Not every type of cover will be relevant to every firm. The point is to understand which risks could have the greatest financial impact on yours.
What would be hardest for your firm to absorb?
Instead of looking only at a list of policies, consider the consequences of something going wrong.
If you couldn’t use your premises for several weeks, how long could the firm continue to meet wages, loan repayments and other commitments?
If someone central to the business couldn’t work, who would take over their responsibilities and what effect could their absence have on revenue or operations?
Questions like these help shift the conversation from “What insurance do we have?” to “What would we need protection from?”
You may find your existing cover already addresses the risks that matter most. Or you may identify something worth discussing with your insurance adviser.
Either outcome gives you a clearer picture than simply renewing the same policies each year.
When should you take another look?
You don’t necessarily need to wait for your annual renewal.
A significant change in assets, turnover, operations, ownership, premises or team structure can be a good reason to revisit your cover.
It can also be worth including insurance in your wider business planning. Looking at potential risks alongside your financial position helps you consider not only what could happen, but how well prepared the firm would be to deal with it.
Your accountant isn’t a substitute for specialist insurance advice, but we can help you look at the wider financial picture and identify areas that may warrant a conversation with an adviser.
Is your insurance keeping pace with your firm?
If it’s been a while since you took a closer look at your cover, talk to your usual Bennetts Proactive advisor or call 07 573 8446.
If specialist advice is needed, we can also introduce you to one of our preferred insurance advisers.