Commercial insurance, explained in plain English

• How Much Does Commercial Building Insurance Cost in Australia?

  There's no standard price. What you pay turns on how the building is built, what happens inside it, where it stands, and whether it sits vacant. Your claims history, your sum insured, and your excess and cover choices do the rest.

• The Co-Insurance Clause: What Every Building Owner Must Know

  A co-insurance clause, also called an average clause, lets your insurer cut a partial claim payout when your building is insured for less than its true rebuild cost, commonly under 80 per cent. It does not touch a total loss payout. Building owners fix it with an accurate valuation.

• How to Calculate Your Building Sum Insured

  A commercial building sum insured is worked out from what it would cost to rebuild today, which means demolition and debris removal, professional fees, bringing the building up to current codes, and the cost rises during the rebuild itself.

• How Much Does Commercial Property Insurance Cost in Australia?

  There is no single price, and two buildings that look identical can carry very different premiums with both prices correct. What you pay is the output of your own property's risk: how it is built, who occupies it, where it sits and what it has claimed.

• Construction Cost Increases in Australia: What They Mean for Your Building Insurance

  Building costs in Australia have risen sharply since 2020 and haven't stopped, so a sum insured set a few years ago and only nudged along by indexation is very likely short of what a rebuild would cost today.

• Underinsurance: The Biggest Risk to Commercial Building Owners

  If you own a commercial building, underinsurance is the gap between the sum insured on your policy and what a rebuild would cost today, and that gap is yours to fund. Many exposed owners have no idea, and on a partial loss the payout can be scaled down too.

• Fire Insurance for a Commercial Building: What Covers Fire, and What Doesn't

  Fire is already covered inside commercial building insurance, so it is not a separate policy you bolt on. Fire claims go wrong on the number, not the peril: the sum insured. The rent, contents and liability outside the building section are separate covers, and a fire tests them all at once.

• Why Did My Commercial Insurance Go Up?

  Your premium rose because two numbers moved at different speeds: the rate your insurer charges, and the sum insured it applies to. Renewals are commonly up 15 to 20 per cent while sums insured lift only 5 to 10 per cent, so many buildings are quietly underinsured.

• Why We Sometimes Recommend a Higher Excess

  Your excess is what you contribute when a claim is paid. On a total loss it comes off the payout. On a partial loss claim you pay it up front. A higher excess lowers your premium, and that saving can buy a bigger sum insured.

• How Out Of Date Is Your Building Sum Insured?

  A building sum insured set years ago is a photograph of what it cost to rebuild back then, and construction costs have kept rising since. This page shows how far, using published Australian Bureau of Statistics figures and rebuild rate ranges, for building owners rather than tenants.

• Who Pays for Building Insurance on a Commercial Property?

  The owner holds the building policy, because the owner suffers the loss. The lease decides who funds it, and most Australian commercial leases pass the premium to the tenant as an outgoing. If you are a landlord or a tenant unsure which side you are on, ring us and we will read the lease with you.

• Business Interruption Insurance, Explained Properly

  Business interruption cover restores the profit position your business would have been in, plus the costs that keep running, when insured damage stops you trading. It's not your lost revenue.

• How Your Roof Condition Affects Insurance Claims

  Insurers pay on the cause, not the leak. Sudden storm, hail or impact damage is generally covered; a roof that rusted or wore out is treated as maintenance and excluded. Condition is what decides which side your claim lands on, so dated records matter.

• The Clause That Can Switch Off Business Interruption Underinsurance

  Most of the business pack wordings we place delete the underinsurance clause on business interruption where the gross profit or annual revenue sum insured came off an insurer-approved calculator, built on the GST exclusive sales in your own BAS and kept on file. The deletion does not reach every item.

• What Insurance Is Required on a Commercial Building?

  No general Australian law requires you to insure a commercial building. The requirements come from contracts instead: your lender, your lease and, in a strata scheme, the body corporate rather than you.

• What Is in the Insurance Clause of a Commercial Lease?

  A lease insurance clause is a promise you make to the other party, not cover from an insurer, and it reads best as six questions. This page is for business tenants and commercial building owners with a lease to comply with. Send us the clause and we'll check it against your policy.

• Commercial Landlord Insurance: The Complete Guide (from a Brisbane Broker)

  A commercial landlord insuring a leased building needs four things: cover to rebuild it at today's cost, loss of rent if it can't be occupied, liability cover in your own name (not your tenant's), and clarity on who insures the fitout under your lease.

• Loss of Rent Insurance for a Commercial Building or Commercial Strata Lot

  Loss of rent insurance replaces the rental income a commercial building or commercial strata lot stops earning when insured damage stops it being used. It's for commercial property owners, not residential landlords, and your own cover pays for a set number of months you choose.

• Mixed-Use Building Insurance: Shops Below, Units Above

  If you own, or own part of, a building with shops or offices below and flats above, who insures it depends on the title rather than the mix of uses. One owner of the whole building insures the whole structure. A strata lot may not be yours to insure.

• Strata Insurance vs Building Insurance: Who Insures What in a Commercial Scheme

  Strata insurance is building insurance bought by a body corporate instead of one owner, so your title decides which you have. It does not cover your fit-out. The scheme policy carries a capped loss of rent benefit. Rent above the cap is the owner's to insure.

• What does residential strata insurance cover? 7 covers worth checking

  Residential strata insurance covers the building and common property, plus liabilities and financial risks that sit with the body corporate or owners corporation. Beyond building damage, a policy can include office bearers liability, fidelity, machinery breakdown, catastrophe costs, temporary accommodation or lost rent, audit costs and legal defence. Cover depends on the policy and schedule.

• How Much Does Commercial Landlord Insurance Cost in Australia?

  There is no single price. A commercial landlord policy is three separately rated covers: the building, the rent you lose while it is repaired, and your liability as owner. What your tenant does inside moves the price most.

• How Property Owners Get Sued for Injuries on Their Commercial Building

  A title search is what usually pulls a commercial building owner into a tenant's injury claim. The injured person's lawyer finds the registered owner and names them alongside the tenant. An owner's duty tends to sit with the structure and the common areas, and defending the claim costs money either way.

• If a Subcontractor Is Hurt on Your Job, Can You Be Held Liable?

  A subcontractor hurt on a job or site you controlled can leave you liable at least in part. A genuine contractor isn't your employee, so it's a public liability matter rather than a workers compensation one, and whether your policy responds depends on the wording and what you declared.

• How Much Does Public Liability Insurance Cost in Australia?

  Why no article can quote your public liability premium, and the seven things that actually decide it. Consolidated Insurance Brokers explains.

• Why Theft Is a Separate Section on Your Business Insurance

  Theft has its own section on a business pack, and it only responds if that section is on your schedule. On the wordings we place, the cover for fire, storm and impact excludes theft, so a break-in tests how someone got in, not what went missing.

• Why You Cannot Buy General Liability Insurance Online

  Not in practice. Standalone general liability cover is priced by hand, one business at a time, and the insurers and specialist underwriting agencies that write it deal with brokers rather than the public, so there's no consumer front door.

• How Much Does Cyber Insurance Cost in Australia?

  There's no standard price. What a small business pays for cyber cover turns on its turnover, the data it holds, how money moves through it, the limit chosen and the optional sections added. The only way to know your number is a quote against your actual risk.

• Public Liability and Professional Indemnity Insurance: Do You Need Both?

  They answer different triggers. Public liability responds to injury or property damage; professional indemnity responds to money a client loses because your advice, design or report was wrong. If your work can cost a client money with nobody hurt and nothing damaged, both may matter.

• The Seasonal Stock Clause: The Extra Cover You Already Have

  On most of the business pack wordings we place, a seasonal stock clause raises the sum insured on your stock by 50% in your peak season, with nothing to apply for. It applies while your trading runs at least 20% above your yearly average, usually capped at 126 days a year.

• Does business insurance cover customers' vehicles?

  Sometimes, but never assume it from the product name. In the 16 Australian business pack wordings we reviewed, every one removed customers' vehicles from the liability section first. What each gave back ranged from little, to optional extensions, to automatic but limited cover. A specialist motor trade wording starts from the opposite position: customer vehicles are central to the risk.

• Insuring a Commercial Property Held in Your SMSF: What a Trustee Actually Has to Get Right

  A commercial property inside your self-managed super fund needs the same cover any commercial building needs, with the policy named to the entity that holds legal title. Where the fund borrowed, we name both the fund's trustee and the bare trustee. Super and tax belong with your own licensed adviser.

• Is Commercial Property Insurance Tax Deductible?

  Insurance on a property that earns income is generally treated as deductible, because the premium is a cost of producing that income, whether you rent the commercial building out or trade from it yourself. Entity type and timing change the detail, and that part belongs with your accountant.

• Direct Insurer vs Insurance Broker: What's the Difference?

  A direct insurer sells you its own product and isn't required to check it fits your business. A broker is a licensed adviser who searches the wider market, takes your situation into account and is accountable for the advice.

• A note from our co-founder: what an "award-winning" insurer actually means

  An insurance award's scoring is usually genuine. The badge in the ad is, in many cases, a licence the winner pays to display. An award can tell you a product scored well on what the scheme measured, usually price and features. It cannot tell you whether the policy suits your home, and nor can ours.

• A note from our co-founder: how home insurance really works

  Home insurance is sold at three levels, and that structure decides more claims than anything else on the policy. A listed-events policy pays only if the cause is on its list. An all-risks policy pays for anything sudden and accidental unless it is excluded. Most people are on a narrower tier than they assume.

• Insurance Premium Funding, Explained: How Monthly Instalments Work (and What They Cost)

  Premium funding is credit from a third-party funder. It turns one annual premium into ten monthly instalments, with interest to help with your business's cash flow. Miss or stop paying the instalments and the insurance policy can be cancelled with money still owing.

• Commercial Insurance Terms in Plain English

  This glossary explains 54 commercial insurance terms in plain English, so you can look up a word from your policy, schedule or renewal letter, from excess and sum insured to co-insurance clause and indemnity period. It's written for commercial building owners and small business owners.

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