Commercial property insurance

On the policies we arrange, the owner's fixtures, floor coverings, plumbing and wiring count as building. The business packs we place most often have no separate item for furniture you supply to a tenant, so we list it as contents.

On those policies, contents means property that belongs to you or is your responsibility. Your lease, the part that sets out what each side must insure, may make you responsible for insuring the fit-out, but it does not tell you which policy covers it. Nor does a clause requiring the tenant to insure something show that they have. Read the policy definitions and schedules beside the lease. Otherwise, each side can assume the other has arranged cover and leave an item uninsured. We help you establish what each side has covered and what still needs attention. Whoever has the damaged part insured usually pays first, so insure what is yours on your own policy. What a clause means in law, and the damage and destruction clause, are questions for your solicitor.

If the lease leaves the air conditioning with you as the owner, you need breakdown cover, because breakdown sits outside property cover on those policies. Its cap is often far below the cost of a modern replacement, so we check the cap on your schedule. Commercial landlord insurance works through the numbers.

Your tenant's policy protects your tenant's business. It usually does not cover your building, or you as its owner, even where the tenant pays for the building insurance through the outgoings. A landlord's building policy works the same way in reverse, and does not cover a tenant's stock or lost trade.

For a sense of scale, across Brisbane buildings we insure for about $1 million ($750,000 to $1.25 million), placed since August 2025, the owner in the middle paid $5,164 a year, all up, as at October 2026. Most of them also insure loss of rent and their own liability on the same policy, so this is the whole landlord policy, not the building alone. We charge a broker fee in addition to, or in place of, insurer commission.

We take your policy back to the insurers every year at renewal. At quote time we review aerial imagery of your roof and tell you what condition it looks to be in. Nobody attends the property, and it is not a building inspection. We see insurers use the same kind of imagery when they decide whether to take a building on.

If your renewal went up, start with the usual reasons commercial insurance goes up and what moves the premium on a commercial building.

The building. Insure it for today's rebuild cost, with demolition, professional fees and code upgrades in the figure. The price you paid and the price you could sell for do not come into it. For an owner, that figure is the one we commission (how it works). It's a desktop building replacement estimate, so it's worked out from aerial and street imagery rather than a site visit. We commission it for our purposes as your broker, to inform the advice we give you.

On most of the policies we place, the average clause, also called the co-insurance clause, tests your sums insured against 80 per cent of their full replacement value. It looks at the building, contents and stock together, so a short contents figure can cut a building claim too. Below that level a partial claim can be reduced, and after a total loss the sum insured may not cover the rebuild. Your own policy sets the arithmetic, and whether smaller claims are exempt from the test. A separate guide follows one owner's storm claim and explains how an owner can challenge a claim cut for underinsurance.

When an owner tells us their property is fully insured, we ask how long the sum insured has sat unchanged. Then we allow for rising building costs since it was last increased, and count every purchase of contents, stock and plant made in that time, small ones included. You can run a sum insured check yourself, and the building sum insured guide shows how to set the figure.

In our experience, the great majority of commercial landlords we see are underinsured, on gross and net leases alike, because nobody has checked the figure against the price of a rebuild now.

A tenant who pays the premium through the outgoings may ask for the building to be insured for less. The saving on the premium is theirs. The shortfall after a fire is yours. Where the full figure is a stretch this year, we talk the trade-off through with you.

Fit-out, contents and stock. If you trade from the premises, insure fit-out and contents at today's replacement cost. Stock is insured at what it would cost you to buy it again, counted at cost plus freight and duty. We check how your wording settles stock before we set the sum insured. Mobile and higher-value plant usually earns its own plant and equipment policy, and theft is a section you choose.

At renewal we ask what the business bought this year, so the sum insured keeps up with it.

If you lease a building out, the building, the rent and your liability as its owner are yours to insure. Insurers can read your tenant's website before they renew, so we check what it says the business does against what really happens there. Commercial Landlord Insurance sets each cover to the lease, and the commercial landlord insurance guide is written for a first tenanted building.

An office owner starts at Office Insurance, and a business renting an office at our page for business owner tenants. In a shop, the owner usually insures the walls and roof, most leases ask the tenant to insure the glass, and the tenant's fit-out, stock and trade sit under Retail Insurance.

In a warehouse, the contents and stock on the racking usually matter more than the shed, and Warehouse Insurance is written for the business that runs from one.

In a factory or shed, sandwich panel walls (insulated panels with a foam core of expanded polystyrene, known as EPS), an asbestos roof or a tenant's trade can decide whether an insurer quotes at all. We check that the sum insured is what outside trades would charge to rebuild it all, slab and fees included, not what you could build it for with your own labour. Sheds and factories have their own page, Industrial Building Insurance.

Some parts of your lot may already be insured by the body corporate. Before arranging more cover, find out what the scheme's policy includes. Arranging cover for a whole commercial or mixed-use strata scheme? See commercial strata insurance. Our guide to strata insurance vs building insurance explains who insures what.

Often a trust owns the building and a company trades from it. The owner can lose rent while the trading company loses business profits. Those losses need to be considered separately, even if you own both entities. We look at the lease between them and the cover each holds, and our page for business owner-occupiers is written for that set-up. If a self-managed super fund holds the building, read SMSF commercial property insurance. If you own several buildings, start at insurance for commercial property owners.

Loss of rent pays only where the rent item is on your schedule, only up to the amount you insure, and only for the indemnity period you choose, the time the rent cover keeps paying.

When you tell us the rent, we ask whether that is your annual rent excluding GST but including outgoings, because gross and net rent are a long way apart. We recommend an indemnity period of at least 18 months, and often 24 or even 36 depending on the client. The period is yours to choose, and the longer it is, the better your position at claim time. A longer period does not automatically raise the amount insured, so the rent figure needs to be enough for the whole period too. A rebuild and a new tenant both take time, and a period that ends before the builder finishes stops paying at the worst moment.

If you trade from the premises, business interruption is the cover that can replace lost profits while you rebuild and reopen. In our experience, it is the section most often missing entirely from the policies we review.

Before it settles, a lender will usually want a certificate of currency, the insurer's confirmation that cover is in place, showing the sum insured it asked for. Sometimes the bank's figure is more than the building would cost to rebuild, and you are caught between that number and a settlement date. Before treating it as excessive, allow for demolition, professional fees and rising costs during the rebuild. A higher sum insured does not entitle you to more than the costs your policy covers. We check when your cover needs to start, and give you the rebuild figure in writing to put beside the bank's insurance requirements. What you agree with your lender is between you and the bank. A lease or a body corporate can require insurance on a commercial building too.

Before a new tenant signs, the insurer needs to know what they will do inside. That trade can move the premium a long way, in both directions, and what a tenant does inside can cost them under your policy as well.

On most of the policies we place, cover for fire, storm, water damage, malicious damage and theft stops once a building has been empty for 90 days in a row, unless the insurer agrees in writing. If your building will sit empty between tenants, tell us before the tenant leaves and we raise it with your insurer.

Most commercial leases ask the tenant for public liability, and $20 million is the limit usually written into one. The right limit for you as the owner depends on the building and what happens in it. Property Owners Liability is the policy that answers for you, because an owner who does not trade from a building can still be sued.

If a fire or a storm ever damages the building, we look at the whole loss with you. Our claims manager and your broker look past the building damage to everything else the policy may pay. That can include the lost rent while the property is unusable, and make-safe costs, the work to secure the site straight after the damage. Debris removal and professional fees count too.

Your broker keeps an eye on the claim and tells you where it stands. The insurer decides the claim, and we press for what your policy provides.