I was feeling quite overwhelmed with insuring my new commercial property. But after speaking with Tracey for a few minutes on the phone I knew I was in good hands. Tracey was very knowledgeable and had my policy setup within a couple of days. She really took the stress out of the whole process. Thank you!
Commercial property insurance covers what you own. First, let's agree on what "property" means.
Quick answerWhat does commercial property insurance cover?Commercial property insurance isn't one policy. It's the umbrella term for the covers protecting what you own: the building, the fitout, contents and stock, the income the property earns, and the liability of owning it. Owners and tenants both, ring us on 07 3292 1111.
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We had excellent service in obtaining insurance on a newly purchased commercial property. Clayton Rowlings explained everything so clearly and very patient with many questions regarding different options. Highly recommended! Thanks Clayton.
Tracey helped me sort out professional indemnity and public liability insurance for my new business - she was super helpful throughout the process helping me navigate for the first time.
Deja Coffey is our current Insurance broker for our company. Deja has Absolutely outstanding customer service and I highly recommend going with her for all your insurance needs.
Terrific experience with Gina. I had a difficult policy which other brokers couldn't find a solution for. Gina had an option for me within a few hours. I would highly recommend.
Thank you so much Cyndie for your help/advice/service. You made the whole process so easy. Thank you again. Jason Armstrong
Alison was a life-saver for us, staying after hours to make sure that we could get the building insurance coverage we urgently needed for a property purchase.
Debbie was always happy to help with my questions and very prompt with her service.
Hi I can highly recommend Aimee Spencer for all your insurance needs she has done a fantastic effort on keeping my insurance policy once again Many Thanks for all your work
Saskia Van Oostveen was efficient, professional, accurate, helpful and friendly throughout the entire process. Highly recommend!
A great experience with Tori, attaining some tricky commercial insurance, she was very professional in catering to your needs, whilst also having a quick turn around.
Jade was wonderful, finding me insurance coverage for a commercial property. Greatly appreciated her excellent service.
I contacted Tracey E from Consolidated Insurance Brokers for some commercial property quotes. Tracey was super helpful helpful, friendly and provided great advice. Highly recommend for all your insurance needs!
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I contacted Renay after she was recommended by a family friend, for home and contents insurance. She was prompt and helpful and had me all sorted in a couple of days. Highly recommend!
I needed fast transit insurance this week and Daniel Roussounis was outstanding in his immediate response and getting this organized for me. Can't recommend Daniel and Consolidated Insurance Brokers highly enough!
Second year organising insurance with Jim K., did not have any issues and a smooth transition. I recommend
May Lewong at the Emerald office was amazing. Easy to deal with and was quick and efficient.
Reena was absolutely fantastic during the entire process helping me set you our new home and contents insurance. Would definitely recommend to anyone.
Natasha as always, gives us professional, exceptional service and would recommend her to any business :-)
Reviewed by William Paull
Co-Founder & Account Director
Property is more than bricks and mortar. When you tell us "I need my commercial property insured", we don't reach for a template. We ask what you own, because your answer decides everything that follows: one policy or several, which sections carry the weight, and which number on the schedule would actually rebuild your position on your worst day.
You pay for insurance in full and only find out, at the worst possible moment, whether you actually got what you needed. Buy direct and it is a product, as-is: nobody is required to check that it fits your situation. That uneasy feeling is the entire reason brokers exist, and our job is to be the one who checked.
What does commercial property insurance actually include?
Six different things wear the name "commercial property", each with its own cover: the building itself, a business's own fitout, contents and stock, the plant and machinery, the income the property or business earns, the liability that follows ownership, and the packaged landlord version that bundles building, rent and liability into one placement. Below is the map of all six, and where each is properly insured.
The building itself
Walls, roof, floors, and everything fixed to them. It is insured for what it would cost to rebuild today, including demolition, professional fees and code upgrades. It is never insured for what you paid for it, and never for the market value. If you own one, start at Commercial Building Insurance, which explains the rebuild-figure problem and the desktop building replacement valuation we commission at no cost to you. Industrial premises have their own wrinkles, EPS panel above all, covered at Industrial Building Insurance.
You may have expanded polystyrene panel in the walls, or hiding in a cool room, without knowing it. EPS is what that is called, and it can multiply a premium or make mainstream insurers decline outright.
The landlord package built around the building
If the building is tenanted, the building section is only a third of the job. The other two thirds are loss of rent, so the income keeps arriving while an insured event is repaired, and property owners liability. When someone is injured at the property, the owner's name goes on the notice. The full package, and how the three parts are sized against each other, lives at Commercial Landlords Insurance. Who pays the building premium on a leased property, landlord or tenant, is settled by your lease, usually through outgoings. Our guide to who pays for building insurance on a commercial property has the full answer.
Your business's own property: fitout, contents and stock
For a business owner, "my property" usually means everything inside the walls: the fitout you paid for, the furniture and equipment, the stock on the shelves and your customers' goods in your care. On the business packs we place this is one cover, Contents and Stock, insured together at the full replacement figure of everything on site. Most wordings pay stock differently, usually at market value, so we check how yours settles before we set the sum insured. It sits as a section of your business insurance pack, and how to set that figure without guessing is on Retail Insurance.
Plant, machinery and equipment
A cool room, a compressor, a production line. Where these are insured depends on how they live. Unregistered machinery that stays on site generally belongs inside your property sum insured, and mobile and higher-value gear usually earns its own plant and equipment policy. Mechanical or electrical failure from the inside is a separate cover again, equipment breakdown, because standard property sections respond to fire and storm, not to a motor that dies.
The income your property produces
Property damage stops money as well as machines. For a landlord that is loss of rent; for an operating business it is business interruption, which replaces the income an insured event takes away while you rebuild. In our experience it is the section most often missing entirely from the policies we review, and it is the one that decides whether a bad year is survivable.
The liability that comes with property
Owning or occupying premises means owing a duty to everyone who walks in. Occupiers carry that through public liability; owners carry their own version through property owners liability, and the two are not interchangeable, which surprises exactly the people it shouldn't.
If what you own is a lot in a commercial strata scheme, the body corporate generally insures the building and common property. In Queensland, where the lots sit in a standard format plan and the buildings are detached, taking part in the scheme's insurance is optional and the building is yours to insure. Check which plan your scheme is on. What is left for you to insure either way is smaller, cheaper and routinely skipped. It is your fitout, your own liability, and any rent above the cap the scheme's policy pays. That story is told at Commercial Strata Insurance.
The biggest risk: insuring the label instead of the property
The most expensive mistake in commercial property insurance is assuming the policy's words match the meaning in your head. Owners say "my property is insured" when the building is covered but the fitout is in no sum insured anywhere. Or the rent has no cover behind it. Or the liability sits with a tenant's policy that owes them nothing. The gap is rarely visible until claim time, because a premium was paid and a certificate exists.
The claims that hurt owners are rarely exotic. Storm damage, fire, theft, malicious damage, a vehicle through the front wall. The 2022 South East Queensland and NSW floods alone generated more than $6 billion in insured losses across nearly 246,000 claims, more than 24,000 of them from commercial policyholders, according to the Insurance Council of Australia (as at June 2026). Every one of those claims tested somebody's sum insured. What turns an ordinary claim into a financial injury is almost never the event. It is a number set years ago, or a section nobody ticked, quietly failing to match what the property became.
Underinsurance is the sharpest version of that. When quantity surveyors actually measure buildings against their sums insured, MCG Quantity Surveyors' review of more than 2,000 of its own valuations found them underinsured by an average of 24 per cent, rising to 31 per cent for industrial property. Why sums insured drift that far, and what it does to a partial claim under the co-insurance clause, is explained in our underinsurance guide. For building owners the fix is a professional replacement valuation.
The clause behind that has a name: co-insurance, sometimes called the average clause. On a partial loss it lets the insurer scale your payout down in proportion to how far your sum insured falls below what the policy requires. That is generally 80 per cent of the real rebuild cost, so the figure in your own policy is the one that counts. On a total loss the problem flips: you receive your full sum insured, but every dollar between that figure and the real rebuild cost is yours.
In a 2025 storm claim CIB handled, a regional NSW landlord had insured a retail building for $500,000 against the roughly $1.99 million we advised in writing. The average clause still cut the partial-loss payout to about 48 cents in the dollar, worked out against 80 per cent of the building's corrected value at claim time of about $1.31 million rather than against the higher figure we had advised. The full story, and the honest lesson in it, is in The Co-Insurance Clause: What Every Building Owner Must Know.
The same drift happens inside the building, with no valuer watching it. Every renovation, every new machine, every quarter of stock growth adds to what "your property" means while the Contents and Stock figure stays where it was set three years ago. The quiet exclusions do their own work too: wear and tear and gradual deterioration are not insured events, a vacancy changes what a policy will pay, and a tenant who stops paying rent is a leasing problem, not an insurable one. The full list of what is not covered is in the FAQ below.
What a commercial property insurance broker should do differently
We start with what you own, not with a product name. Then we make the sums insured mean something: the building tested against a real rebuild figure, the contents figure built from a walk around your site, the loss of rent period against a realistic rebuild, and the liability limit against today, not the year the policy was first written.
The meaning gets sorted out first
Owner, tenant, or both, the first conversation establishes which of the six covers above are yours to hold, and which aren't. Cover you don't need is premium you shouldn't pay.
Your building's number stops being a guess
If the building is yours, we commission a desktop building replacement valuation at no cost to you, from a registered valuer, when you come on board and again at every renewal, so your sum insured is a valuer's figure rather than last year's number carried forward.
You become the expert on your own contents figure
We won't pretend to value your contents for you. We walk you through what belongs in the number, category by category, at replacement cost. Owners who do that walk are usually surprised, and then relieved when they hear the price of fixing it. As a guide, and as at July 2026, increasing this cover can cost as little as $20 to $30 a year per $10,000 of sum insured. That is a guide rather than a quote, and the only way to know your number is to get a quote against your actual risk.
Your loss of rent and interruption periods get treated as decisions, not defaults
Our default indemnity period is 18 months, we recommend 24 wherever we can, and we place 12 only on a client's express instruction, because a period that ends before the builder does is a policy that stopped paying at the worst possible moment.
Your liability limits get tested against today
Our floor is $10 million, and for a building owner we recommend $20 million. As standard practice we test whether $20 million costs little enough to be the obvious choice. A limit that was right when the policy was first written often stays on the schedule long after the risk outgrows it.
You see what we earn
Our commission appears on every invoice, and has since we opened in 2010. If you are paying for advice, you're entitled to know what the advice costs.
Who needs commercial property insurance, and which parts
Anyone who owns commercial property in either sense of the word: the investor who owns the building, the business that owns everything inside one, the owner-occupier who is both, and the strata lot owner the other three forget about. Which page you read next depends on which seat you're in.
You own a commercial building and lease it out. Your covers are the building, the rent and your own liability. Start at For Commercial Property Owners, then Commercial Landlords Insurance.
You run a business from premises you lease. The building is your landlord's problem. Your fitout, contents, stock and liability are yours. Start at For Business Owner Tenants, then Business Insurance.
You own the building and run your business from it. You hold both sets of risks, and the standard advice for either one alone will miss the overlap, including the entity questions that decide whether a claim pays. For Business Owner-Occupiers covers both sides at once.
You own a lot in a commercial strata scheme. The body corporate generally insures the building, though in Queensland a detached building on a standard format plan can be yours to insure (see above). See Commercial Strata Insurance.
Which building do you own or work from?
Your office.
It is worth more than the desks in it. An office policy is built around the fitout and contents, the gear that leaves the building, glass, theft and lost income. See Office Insurance.
Your shop.
If you lease it, your landlord's building policy covers the walls and roof they own, and your fitout, your stock and the trade you have built are yours to insure. If you own the building as well, you have a building to insure too. See Retail Insurance, and For Business Owner-Occupiers if the building is yours.
Your warehouse.
It is rarely the shed that gets you. It is the gear and stock inside, at what it would cost you to buy again, and the income you lose if you cannot trade. See Warehouse Insurance, and Industrial Building Insurance for the shed itself if you own it.
Your factory, shed or other industrial building.
What it is built from and what happens inside it decide whether an insurer will take the risk at all, not just the premium. Sandwich panel walls, an asbestos roof or a tenant who changed trades can each be the difference between covered and declined. See Industrial Building Insurance.
Common commercial property insurance mistakes
The expensive mistakes in commercial property insurance are not exotic. A fitout in nobody's sum insured. A figure set once and never re-walked. A landlord relying on the tenant's insurance. Rent cover that runs out before the rebuild does. Every one is invisible while the premiums are being paid.
Assuming the word covered the thing. "Commercial property insurance" on a schedule is not a guarantee that your meaning of property made it into the policy. A building owner can hold building cover and no liability. A tenant can hold liability and no contents. The label reads the same on both certificates.
Forgetting the fitout. One of the most commonly missed assets in commercial insurance. Tenants assume the landlord's building policy covers the fitout they paid for; it doesn't. Landlords assume it's the tenant's problem even when the lease says otherwise. The fitout belongs in somebody's sum insured, deliberately, and your lease decides whose. Your broker should settle what the lease hands to each side before the sums insured are set.
Setting the figure once and never walking the site again. Every year of purchases, upgrades and stock growth widens the gap between what you own and what the schedule says you own. The renewal question that catches it: what did the business buy this year, big or small, that the policy has never heard of?
Relying on the tenant's insurance. Their policy protects their business, not your building and not your entity. If they underinsured, let cover lapse, or go broke after a loss, the financial damage lands on you. See Why a note on the tenant's policy doesn't protect you.
Rent cover that's missing, too short, or missing the outgoings you recover. Loss of rent has three ways to fail quietly. All three are set out, with the two real claims that prove the point, in the Commercial Landlord Insurance Guide.
What to do when something goes wrong
Make the property safe first, then photograph everything from several angles before anything is touched, cleaned up or thrown out. Call us straight away rather than the insurer: we lodge the claim and manage it on your behalf from there. Beyond emergency work to stop further damage, do not authorise permanent repairs until the insurer agrees.
Whatever the damage, the first hour matters more than people expect. Prevent further damage if you can do so safely. But do not clean up, dispose of anything, or book in permanent repairs before your broker and the insurer have seen it. A few photos from several angles, taken before anything is moved, are worth more to your claim than anything else you can do in that first hour.
Then call us, not the insurer. We lodge your claim, deal with the insurer and any assessor on your behalf, and manage it through to settlement. You are not the one chasing updates or working out what an assessor's report means. For the full process, see how to lodge a claim.
Short answers
How much commercial property insurance cover do I need?
Each part has its own honest method. The building: a registered valuer's desktop assessment, not a guess, and we commission one at no cost to you, for our purposes as your broker, to inform the advice we give you. Contents, fitout and stock: walk the site and price everything you own at replacement cost. Loss of rent: your real annual rent, and whether your recoverable outgoings belong in the figure is a question your lease answers. Liability: our floor is $10 million, and for a building owner we recommend $20 million, which we test as standard. Never inherit last year's numbers because they came pre-filled on the renewal.
I lease my premises. Which parts of commercial property insurance are mine to insure?
More than most tenants expect. The building is your landlord's to insure, but your fitout, contents, equipment and stock are yours. Your lease almost certainly requires you to carry liability cover, and if fire or storm stopped you trading, the lost income would be yours too. That set usually lives in a business insurance pack, and For Business Owner Tenants walks through it from your side of the lease.
Is commercial property insurance tax deductible?
Generally, yes: premiums on an income-producing commercial property are typically deductible, and landlords commonly recover them through outgoings under the lease. Tax positions turn on your structure, so confirm yours with your accountant before you rely on it. Our plain-English guide to the tax side covers the common situations.
How do I choose the right insurer for a commercial property?
You don't, not from a list of logos. We place cover on the Steadfast Client Trading Platform, where up to nine insurers write comparable business pack wordings. Rather than picking a name, we take your risk to market and come back with up to nine quotes to compare. We add a further quote where a simpler alternative wording happens to be competitive. We remarket your policy every year rather than letting it roll over unchallenged. We show you what we're paid, in dollars, on every invoice, and have since we opened in 2010. Choosing the insurer is our job; showing you the spread so you can see we actually did it is yours to check.
Is commercial premises insurance the same as commercial property insurance?
Yes, in everyday use. "Premises" and "property" both get used to mean the place your business owns or occupies, and neither word tells you which covers you need. What decides that is which of these six things are yours: the building, the fitout, the contents and stock, the plant and machinery, the income, or the liability. Tell us what you own and we will sort out which ones apply.
Is there a plain-English commercial property insurance guide I can read?
This page is the map. It sorts the six things "commercial property" can mean and points to the right cover for each. For more depth, see our guides on how much your building should be insured for, underinsurance in commercial buildings and the commercial landlord's side of it.
What is commercial property insurance in Australia?
Commercial property insurance protects the physical assets of an Australian business or property investment: the building, contents, stock and fitout, against events such as fire, storm, vandalism and theft. It can also replace the property's income and cover your liability if someone is injured there.
Think of it as cover for what your business or investment cannot operate without. For a landlord that is the building and the rent; for a tenant, the fitout, equipment and stock. It is built in sections, so it covers what you chose to include. The right mix depends on whether you own the property, lease it, or both.
That is also why one product carries several names: business property insurance, a business pack property section, commercial building insurance. All are doors into the same modular policy. What matters is not the label, but whether the sections behind it match what you stand to lose.
What does a commercial property insurance policy cover?
A typical commercial property policy covers the building and fixtures you own, loss of rent if an insured event makes it untenantable, and public liability for injuries connected to the property. Common optional sections: machinery breakdown, broken glass, flood and contents.
The core sections do three jobs. The building section rebuilds the asset. The loss of rent section (often called business interruption) keeps income flowing during the rebuild, for the indemnity period you chose. Our default is 18 months, we recommend 24 wherever we can, and the 12-month floor is given only where a client instructs it. The liability section defends and pays on your behalf when someone is injured, or their property damaged, in connection with the building.
Then come the choices: machinery breakdown for plant like air conditioning and hot water systems, glass for shopfronts, flood as a deliberate add-on, contents if you own fixtures and fittings worth scheduling. The lease often reallocates some of these. Plenty of leases make the tenant responsible for glass and the machinery they use daily. So your policy is partly written in your lease. Bring the lease to the quoting conversation.
What is not covered by commercial property insurance?
Three exclusions catch commercial landlords most often. Tenant default: a tenant who stops paying rent. Wear and tear or gradual deterioration, including rust. And vacancy, because most policies restrict or exclude cover once part of the property sits empty and you have not told the insurer.
Tenant default surprises people every time. If your tenant walks out, defaults on the lease or is evicted, commercial property insurance does not replace that rent. Loss of rent cover responds to physical damage from an insured event, not to unpaid rent.
Wear and tear is the maintenance boundary. Insurance does not replace looking after the building, so deterioration, rust, anything that developed gradually and building defects are all excluded. Keep maintenance records; they keep the sudden-damage claims clean.
Vacancy is the quiet one. Most policies change once a tenancy empties, sometimes at a threshold like one unit in four, sometimes entirely. Every insurer treats it differently. You must tell your insurer when tenancies change during the year, not just at renewal. Some specialist insurers cover unoccupied property with conditions. If a vacancy is coming, have that conversation before the tenant leaves.
What decides the cost of commercial property insurance?
Insurers price the likelihood and size of a claim. The main factors: the building's replacement value and rental income, location, construction materials (EPS panel and cladding especially), its age, what your tenants do, any vacancy, your security and fire protection, and five years of claims history.
Some you cannot move: the postcode and the building's age are what they are. The rest respond to management. Monitored alarms, sprinklers and documented fire protection pull premiums down. A vacancy filled, disclosed or managed properly stops a loading. A five-year claims history stays clean when small maintenance issues are fixed before they become claims.
Construction is the factor owners underestimate. Expanded polystyrene panel, whether in the walls or hiding in a cool room, can multiply a premium or make mainstream insurers decline outright. Plenty of owners do not know it is there until an insurer's surveyor finds it. If your building has EPS or unknown cladding, the market that will quote you is a specialist one, and reaching it is broker work.
How much does commercial property insurance cost in Australia?
The same property can attract very different premiums from different insurers, so the useful question is not the average, it is whether your price is right for your risk.
The full breakdown is in How Much Does Commercial Building and Property Insurance Cost in Australia?
Why is commercial property insurance so expensive?
Because rebuilding costs rose faster than almost anything else in the economy. Non-residential building construction costs across Australia rose 4.4% in the year to June 2026, and about 40% since 2018 (ABS Producer Price Indexes, construction, released 31/07/2026), and premiums track rebuild costs. Higher-risk activities, northern locations and past claims add further loadings.
Yours may not have to be this expensive. Premiums surged during the hard market years when insurers were recovering catastrophe losses. That cycle has turned: commercial property rates in Australia have been softening through 2025 and 2026, and insurers are actively competing again. The premiums still stuck at hard market levels are usually the ones nobody has re-marketed.
The other lever is accuracy. A cafe with deep fryers costs more to insure than a consultant's office, and it should. What should not happen is a fryer premium on an office risk, because the occupation on the policy is out of date. Nor should you carry a loading for a vacancy filled a year ago. Before accepting that insurance is just expensive, have someone check the insurer is pricing the risk you actually have. Then take it to a market that wants it. A higher excess can help where it genuinely saves money, and premium funding spreads the cash flow. But re-marketing an accurate risk does the heavy lifting.
Who needs commercial property insurance, and when is it required?
Any business or investor with meaningful physical assets needs it, and three parties will demand proof. Banks require a Certificate of Currency before settling or refinancing a commercial loan. Equipment financiers require it for funded fitouts and contents. Most commercial leases oblige tenants to hold suitable cover.
Settlement, refinance, lease signing: that is when most people first buy the cover, usually in a hurry, to satisfy someone else's checklist. That is the worst way to buy it. A policy arranged to tick a lender's box gets the least attention on the questions that decide whether it pays: the sum insured, the indemnity period, the occupancy description, the exclusions.
The better frame is the lender's own: this asset is worth enough that a bank will not lend against it uninsured. If it is worth that to them, it is worth an hour with a broker to you. Make sure the certificate you hand over represents cover that would actually rebuild the asset, not paperwork that satisfies a condition.
Where can I get commercial property insurance?
Through an insurance broker, direct from an insurer, or through an online comparison site. The practical difference: many of Australia's commercial property insurers only distribute through brokers. Quoting direct or online means choosing from a fraction of the market, without personal advice on what the policy should contain.
Buying direct works like a shop. You ask for a product, they sell you that product, and whether it was the right one is your problem, discovered at claim time. An insurer's call centre generally cannot give you personal advice. So if you do not already know that flood is optional, that your trust needs to be the named insured, or that your sum insured fails the co-insurance test, nobody there will tell you.
A licensed broker works the other way around. We start with your situation, then take it to the insurers that actually compete for this risk, including the specialist commercial property insurers with no direct channel at all. You get personal advice we are accountable for, and a policy built to your risk, not pulled off a shelf. That is why the broker channel exists. Around half of all general insurance in Australia is placed through intermediaries like brokers (APRA, June 2025). Commercial lines make up the majority of what brokers place (NIBA Data to Direction, FY25).
What is business property insurance?
Business property insurance is a broad term for any policy insuring a business's physical assets: buildings, contents, stock and fitout. It is usually sold as the property sections of a business insurance pack, where you choose each section and each sum insured rather than one bundled figure.
The term covers both sides of a tenancy. A landlord's policy is about the building and the rent. A tenant's is about the fitout, equipment and stock, plus choices home insurance never asks: theft, portable contents that leave the premises, and flood are each a separate decision. The pack is powerful because it is modular, and dangerous for the same reason: an unticked section is an uninsured asset. The job is matching the sections to what you would need replaced on your worst day. That is a conversation, not a checkout flow.
Does commercial property insurance cover loss of rental income?
Yes, when an insured event like fire or storm damage makes the property untenantable. The policy pays your rental income during repairs, for the indemnity period you selected; our default is 18 months and we recommend 24 wherever we can. It does not cover a tenant who simply stops paying rent.
The number that matters is the indemnity period, because it is a bet on how long a rebuild takes. Choose 12 months and the rent stops at month twelve, even if the builder finishes at month twenty. Rebuild timelines have stretched, with approvals, labour and materials all slower than they were. A period that looked generous a few years ago can now run out mid-project.
When we review a policy we pressure-test that period against a realistic rebuild for your specific building, not a generic assumption. Owners regularly discover this too late: tenant default is a leasing risk, not an insured one. No commercial property policy replaces rent a solvent building failed to collect.
Am I covered if my tenant damages the property?
Accidental damage caused by a tenant is generally claimable under the property sections, like any other insured event. Deliberate or malicious damage by a tenant depends on the policy: on the business-pack wordings we place it is included, but plenty of commercial policies in the market exclude it. Unpaid rent and eviction costs sit outside the property and liability covers we place.
Sort tenant damage into three buckets. Accidental damage, a forklift through a wall or a fire from faulty equipment, sits inside normal cover. The insurer may pursue the tenant afterwards. Malicious damage, a tenant who trashes the premises on the way out, depends entirely on the wording. It is where commercial policies differ most. On the business-pack wordings we place it is included as standard, but that is a fact about those wordings, not the whole market. So it is worth knowing your specific policy, its schedule and its excesses before you sign a lease with a marginal tenant.
Financial damage, rent arrears, lease default, the cost of getting them out, sits outside the commercial property and liability covers we place. Your protections there are the lease itself, the bond or bank guarantee, and directors' guarantees. That is a conversation for your solicitor as much as your broker. Have it before the tenancy starts, not after it sours.
Can I bundle commercial property insurance with other business insurance?
Yes. Commercial property cover usually sits as sections of a business insurance pack, alongside public liability, business interruption, theft, glass and machinery breakdown. One policy, one renewal date, one insurer, each section and sum insured chosen separately.
A pack done well is genuinely better: one renewal to manage, no gaps between insurers arguing over whose section a claim belongs to, and often a sharper total price. Done badly, it is how businesses end up "fully insured" with three sections they did not need and the one they did need unticked. The bundle is the container, not the strategy. The strategy is still section by section. Is the property sum insured accurate? Is the interruption period long enough? Is theft included for the contents? Does the liability limit match the lease requirement? Get those right, then bundle for convenience. Bundling for a discount while those are wrong just renews the same gaps more efficiently every year.
Not sure which of these covers is yours to hold?
Call 07 3292 1111Get your commercial property properly insured. All of it.
Tell us what you own and we'll tell you which covers are yours to hold, which aren't, and what the right numbers look like. No jargon, no obligation. Have your renewal notice or policy schedule handy if you have one.