You started a business. You didn't sign up to become an insurance expert too.

One policy, or several? Most small businesses hold their core property, liability, and business interruption covers together in a business pack: one renewal, one premium, sections you still choose individually. A pack is usually simpler and cheaper than buying the same covers apart, but it only holds the sections you choose.

The packs we place do not include cyber as a section, so cyber, and any cover a pack's insurer doesn't write, needs a standalone policy.

An online quote form is written for an average business. The classic gap is stopping at public liability and property, the covers everyone's heard of, and skipping cyber and management liability as big-company covers, which they aren't.

In FY2024-25, small businesses that reported a cyber incident to the Australian Signals Directorate lost an average of $56,600 each, up 14% on the year before (Australian Signals Directorate, Annual Cyber Threat Report 2024-25).

Underinsurance is the other gap: if you own the building you trade from, Commercial Building Insurance explains how a sum insured that looks fine on paper can fail you at claim time.

For most business pack risks we put your business in front of a panel of insurers who write that cover competitively, and we'll flag a further specialist option where it's genuinely cheaper without being worse.

We show you what we earn on every invoice, as few brokerages in Australia do, and have done since we started in 2010.

We compared six business pack wordings side by side in September 2026. Four exclude flood unless it has been added and shows on the schedule. On the other two we found no way to add it, so damage at your premises from a river or creek breaking its banks is not covered.

If you close for a renovation, a quiet season, or a move, check the vacancy clause. On four of the six, cover for loss or damage is generally excluded once the premises has sat unoccupied for more than 90 consecutive days. One cuts in after 30 days. Another cuts in after 60 days and reaches every section, liability included.

Before we place a pack, we read the vacancy clause and tell you which version you would be holding. Where flood can be added, we show you what it adds to the premium, which near a creek can be a large loading, and you decide whether to take it. Already on a pack? A broker can check yours on the phone.

Which parts apply depends on whether you lease, own and occupy, or own as an investment, not your industry. If you lease your premises, start with For Business Owner Tenants.

If you own the building you trade from, you're both the occupier and the landlord, and For Business Owner-Occupiers covers both sides at once.

If you own a commercial building purely as an investment, start with For Commercial Property Owners and Commercial Landlords Insurance.

Assuming the pack covers everything. An unticked section isn't a gap the insurer quietly fills in but a risk you're carrying yourself.

Assuming theft is covered under property or contents cover. On the business pack wordings we place, theft is its own section, but it typically only pays in full for forced or violent entry, an armed hold-up, or a short list of other named triggers. A break-in with no forced entry, or stock that simply goes missing, is often outside cover.

Setting the Contents and Stock sum insured low because it feels expensive. Contents and Stock is the wrong section to underinsure, and stock is insured for what your business paid for it, not what you'd sell it for. Set the sum insured at the full replacement cost of everything on site: fitout, contents, electronic equipment, furniture, plant, machinery, stock, and customers' goods. Our Retail Insurance page has the full walkthrough.

Answering the subcontractor payments question from memory. The main reason an insurer asks what you pay subcontractors is to rate the risk of one of them being hurt on your job, not the damage they might do to others. On many wordings the declaration is what switches on cover for that injury. Direct insurer wordings commonly exclude personal injury to subcontractors by endorsement, while the Steadfast badged wordings we place generally cover it where the payments have been disclosed. Declare the real figure, and say so if it changes mid-year. The full picture is in If a subcontractor is hurt on your job, can you be held liable?

Insuring in the wrong name. The policy needs to name the actual trading entity, the company or the trust, not a director personally. Owners often assume they are the trustee personally when a corporate trustee holds the entity, and that structure decides whose name belongs on the policy. Check the ABN is listed: a policy with no ABN is a common gap we find at first review.

Whose name should be on a business insurance policy?

Every entity and person who actually runs or owns part of the business, exactly as the business operates, because the insured name decides who is covered.

A family-run tourism business ran a hands-on outdoor activity for its customers. The family had set the business up years earlier under a structure meant to cover everyone's part in it. When a customer was injured, the insurer questioned whether the person who actually ran the activity was a named insured.

Our account director reconstructed the policy's full history and produced file notes going back years, showing the cover had always been intended to include that operator. On that evidence, the insurer accepted the intent and granted indemnity, with no excess to pay.

Continuity and record-keeping are real broker value: the insured name, the entity or trust, and the activities have to line up with how the business operates, and someone has to be able to prove it years later. What was secured here is indemnity: the policy responding as it should, with no excess to pay, while the underlying claim continues.

Treating renewal as a formality. If you've added a vehicle, hired staff, started selling online, or moved into a bigger space, your risk has changed. If nobody has told the insurer, your policy is covering the business you had last year.

Buying on price alone. The cheapest quote is cheap for a reason, usually a lower limit, a narrower definition, or an exclusion nobody read aloud.