Your business runs out of a warehouse. Is the gear and stock inside insured properly?

We insure your contents and stock together as one cover. That figure has to be the full cost of replacing everything on site: stock, racking, shelving, the office fit-out, computers, an unregistered forklift, the tools on the bench and the goods customers have left with you. For stock, that means what it would cost you to buy it again, counted at cost plus freight and duty, not what you sell it for.

Most owners we meet are short without knowing it. The business grew a pallet and a power tool at a time, and nobody went back to the policy. Often the person who pays the insurance bill is the finance manager, not the owner, so the old figure rolls over again. We have seen claims come in underinsured for exactly that reason.

What we check: we go through what is on your floor with you, item by item, and build the figure from what is actually there, not from last year's schedule.

All nine of those wordings carry an 80 per cent underinsurance clause, also called an average clause. It compares the total you insured at the premises with what everything there was really worth, and it does that test at the start of your policy year, not on the day of the claim.

• On a partial loss, if you are below the line, the insurer pays only part of the claim, in proportion to how far short you were. Small claims, under about 10 per cent of your figure, are not cut.
• On a total loss, the payout stops at the limit your sum insured sets. Stock you never insured is stock you pay to replace yourself.

The test is not worked exactly the same way on every wording, which is one more reason to read yours before a claim does. How the clause is worked, with figures, is in The Co-Insurance Clause: What Every Building Owner Must Know.

On these wordings, theft is its own section, not part of your contents cover. It is built around forced entry: a smashed door, a cut lock, someone hiding inside.

Stock stolen from inside the building with no sign of a break-in is paid on eight of the nine, up to a cap; on the ninth that cover does not reach stock. On most, the cap is $20,000 or a higher figure if your schedule shows one. On one it is a flat $20,000, and on another it is also capped by your contents sum insured. Stock that simply goes missing, found short at a stocktake with no theft you can point to, is excluded on most.

Two more things catch warehouse businesses out:

• Tobacco and alcohol. On eight of the nine, tobacco is not treated as stock for theft unless it is listed on your schedule, and on most the same goes for alcohol.
• Staff. Theft by an employee is written back at only $5,000, only if it is discovered within 45 days of it happening, and on most wordings only if you can name the employee. Fuller cover is an optional extra on eight of the nine.

What we check: the theft cap against what your stock is worth to a thief, and whether anything you hold needs listing by name. More detail: Why theft is a separate section on your business insurance.

On these wordings, the stock figure lifts automatically through a busy period, without you asking, though one of them ties the lift to set dates such as Christmas and Easter. If you claim, your records have to show the busy period: on most of the wordings, at least two years of financial records showing stock or turnover well above your average. The lift also has a ceiling and a limit on how long it runs, and a peak bigger or longer than that is yours to carry.

What we check: your real peak, not your average, against that built-in lift. How far it goes is set out in The Seasonal Stock Clause: The Extra Cover You Already Have.

Most leases also set a public liability limit, usually $20 million in the leases we see, though the right limit depends on what your business does. The rest is in insurance requirements in a commercial lease.

A building you own is insured under its own cover, at today's rebuild cost, and we commission a desktop building replacement valuation at no cost to you, for our purposes as your broker. On one $1 million warehouse in August 2026 we obtained nine quotes, from $5,000 to $20,000. See Industrial Building Insurance, or commercial property insurance for every building type we insure.

• Income while you cannot trade. Business interruption pays for the period you chose, and the wording will not correct a short one. In our experience a short period is the gap we find most often on a warehouse business's old policy, and a big warehouse can take 24 months to rebuild. Our default is 18 months, we recommend 24 where we can, and 12 is the floor given only on your instruction. See Business Interruption Insurance.
• Gear that leaves the building. Tools that go out in the van are covered under the portable property section, not contents, and anything worth more than a few thousand dollars is listed by name. Machines that work off-site belong on Plant and Equipment Insurance.

1. We ask about your business before we ask about the warehouse: what you do, what you want protected, and what keeps you up at night about it.
2. We build the contents and stock figure with you, item by item, and ask about your real peak.
3. We quote it across the panel of up to nine insurers on the Steadfast platform and explain the differences that matter to you.
4. Nothing is arranged until you tell us to go ahead.

If you are a logistics, storage or fulfilment company, other people's goods are your stock, and that changes the cover. On these wordings, public liability excludes property in your care, with a write-back commonly capped at $250,000 any one occurrence unless your schedule shows more. That is cover for your legal liability, not cover for the goods. Tell us what you hold and for whom, and we will treat it as its own question. Goods you carry are on cargo cover for the goods you carry and Transport Operators Insurance.

1. Rolling over last year's stock figure while the business kept growing.
2. Setting the stock figure at retail price. Carry what it would cost you to buy again, at cost plus freight and duty.
3. Assuming any theft is covered. No break-in means a cap, and stock found missing at a stocktake is mostly not covered.
4. Picking the shortest income period to save premium.