Office insurance for your fit-out, contents and business

On the business packs we place, your contents, fit-out and stock sit in one section, called Contents and Stock, with one sum insured.

In an office that figure is the professional fit-out first (partitions, joinery, flooring, ceilings, lighting, cabling and electrical work), then workstations, monitors, computers, the server cabinet, photocopiers, furniture and kitchen, and any stock, including anything in a warehouse room. It has to be the full cost of replacing it all today.

In our experience, many owners come to us without a fit-out figure, and raising the contents sum insured can make only a modest difference to the premium.

What travels with your team. Laptops, phones and sample kits need their own cover, called general property. Some policies exclude laptops and phones from the cover for contents temporarily away from the premises. In the pack, general property is a section you select, with anything above a modest value listed by name. We would normally arrange it as its own policy, because it is more likely to have a claim on it. It is generally inexpensive.

Working from home. Most of the packs we arrange cover your contents at an employee's home, but cap it, commonly at a share of the contents sum insured.

Glass and theft are sections you choose. Most leases require the tenant to carry glass.

Most of the packs we arrange include a smaller benefit for theft without forced entry, and only if you took the theft section. Other listed events can still trigger the main cover. On those packs, theft by your own staff is excluded, then put back in for only $5,000, and fuller cover is usually an optional extra.

That is what business interruption cover is for: the profits you lose, and the extra cost of keeping the business running, when insured damage makes the office unusable. How long it pays is the indemnity period. For an office we recommend 18 months of business interruption cover. The period is yours to choose, and the longer it runs, the better placed you are at claim time.

We negotiate the sections, sub-limits and terms with insurers to suit your lease and what you want the insurance to do. Money cover earns its place where someone handles cash or cheques.

Most leases ask for public liability, which responds if a client, courier or contractor is injured at your office. A landlord asking for proof wants a certificate of currency, which records your cover when it is issued.

Cyber and professional indemnity are not in the pack. An office generally needs cyber cover. If your office sells advice, design or reports, professional indemnity covers the loss your work could cause a client.

On the policies we place, breakdown is excluded from the property section and needs its own optional breakdown section. That matters if you own your office, or your lease makes the air conditioning and switchboard your job. A lease may also make you service the system, a duty tenants often miss.

Take a system installed for about $10,000 twenty years ago. A modern, energy-efficient replacement can cost about $30,000 to $40,000. Breakdown cover is often capped at about $10,000, and sometimes the section is not on the policy at all. The cap sits on your schedule (your policy's list of covers and limits), not in the policy booklet, so a higher figure asked for at quote is not your cover until the schedule says so. We can compare your cap with the cost of a new system.

A figure set before your last refurbishment may leave out what you have added since. A new partition, a bigger team or new cabling can all raise what it would cost to replace the office.

Where an office or finance manager pays the bill, the figure can roll over for years without anyone raising it with the owner. We have seen claims come in underinsured because of it. Ask us to work through the fit-out, contents and stock with you.

On the policies we place, your contents and stock sit under an underinsurance clause, also called an average clause, usually set at 80 per cent, though your own policy's percentage is what counts.

• On a partial loss, the clause can cut what you receive if the figure used in its test is too low. Your policy sets how the cut is worked out, and whether it applies to a smaller claim at all.
• On a total loss, a short sum insured can leave you paying part of the replacement cost yourself.

If you lease, your landlord insures the building, and your fit-out, contents and stock are generally yours. Some leases also make you insure the fit-out the landlord put in. Make-good at the end of the term (restoring the office as you found it) is usually expensive, and almost nobody sees it coming.

If you own the building you work in, insure it for what it would cost to rebuild. See commercial building insurance, or landlords insurance if another business leases it from you.

If your office is a room at home, most home and contents policies limit or exclude business equipment and liability. We help home-based businesses too, usually with public liability, professional indemnity or cyber cover, depending on the work, and sometimes general property that follows laptops, phones and other portable property anywhere in Australia.

If the renewal went up and nobody explained why, we can look at the cover and the price together, and at whether a cheaper quote comes from a lower sum insured. To bring the premium down, ask us what each cut leaves you carrying, or whether a higher excess makes a fuller figure affordable.

We have shown our commission and broker fee in dollars on every invoice since 2010. We charge a broker fee in addition to, or in place of, insurer commission.

These three are among the lowest premiums in our book for a Queensland business's contents and stock, as at October 2026, all up including government charges and fees.

None of the three includes liability or business interruption.

The accountant's $500 policy above covered $20,000 of contents, theft up to $10,000 and glass, and nothing else.

The claims manager will keep you informed and explain what you need to provide. The insurer decides the claim. If it turns down or underpays something your policy covers, we will challenge it.