What businesses like yours paid for insurance

What did businesses in your line of work pay?

Every figure here summarises a group of businesses renting their premises: what that group paid us for its current policy year, the whole year including government charges. These figures summarise groups of policies; they are not individual quotes.

The median is the middle of the group: half the businesses in each row paid less than it, and half paid more. A quarter paid less than the lower quarter, and a quarter paid more than the upper quarter.

Each row names the cover those businesses bought and nothing more, so contents cover alone means no public liability and no profits cover. Shops and food businesses insure their stock with their contents, and theft and glass are inside these figures only where the business took them.

Offices and professional rooms (solicitors, real estate agencies, medical and physiotherapy rooms, consultancies)

Annual premiums by cover.

Shops (gift shops, florists, clothing and jewellery stores, grocers, furniture and flooring retailers and convenience stores)

Annual premiums by cover.

The office and retail pages show what those premiums bought, each with one real policy beside the figures.

Trades and services (plumbers, electricians, carpenters, concreters, earthmovers, handymen, mobile mechanics and road freight operators)

Annual premiums by cover.

Food and hospitality (cafes, restaurants, butchers, bakeries, takeaways and caterers)

Annual premiums by cover.

Manufacturing and wholesale (food and homewares wholesalers, commercial printers, funeral directors and manufacturers)

Annual premiums by cover.

Personal services (beauty salons, hairdressers, photographers, fitness centres and child care)

Annual premiums by cover.

In every group but personal services, most businesses with public liability alone carried $20 million of cover. In personal services, $10 million was the most common limit.

Am I paying too much?

Find your group and the cover you hold, then see where your premium falls.

If it sits between the two quarters, you are paying what the middle half of your group paid.

A premium above the upper quarter can still be right for your business. Your work within the group, the amounts you insure, your claims and your liability limit can each put you there. A plumber and a handyman share the trades table, and insurers rate them differently. Public liability by trade is in what public liability costs for your trade.

Why commercial insurance goes up goes through the causes of a rise and what to do with the renewal on your desk.

What should you compare between quotes?

A lower premium is not a warning on its own. It can mean a smaller risk, a more competitive premium for your trade, or a smaller amount insured. Two quotes compare fairly only when they insure the same amounts and carry the same sections, so check those before the premium.

If you are insuring contents, check the amount insured. A lower figure buys a lower premium, and if it is below what everything would cost to replace, the shortfall lands on you at claim time. Your contents figure should be what it would cost to replace everything, fit-out and stock included.

The premium rises with the contents figure. This table mixes every group, so it shows the pattern rather than your own premium.

Every business renting its premises, by contents insured, median premium a year

Then line the sections up:

• Theft. It is an optional section of the business packs we place, and the property section alone does not cover stolen contents or stock. Most businesses with contents cover took it. What theft cover pays depends on how the theft happened.
• Glass. It is optional too, and fewer businesses took it than took theft.
• The liability limit. A quote at $10 million does not compare with one at $20 million. The right limit is the one your lease, contracts and work need, and it is worth quoting both.
• Profits cover and its period. Twelve months and 18 months are different cover.
• Stock in your busy season. Most business packs we place add cover when trading or stock runs at least 20 per cent above normal. How the seasonal stock clause works explains when.
• The excess. A higher excess can lower the premium. You then pay more of any claim the excess applies to.

Why does one business pay less than another?

What you do, how much you insure and the sections you choose all show in these tables.

What you do. Insurers rate the work you do. With contents, public liability and profits cover, the median premium was $5,177 for food and hospitality and $3,040 for offices. The food businesses also insured more: their median contents figure was $250,000, against $168,000 for offices.

How the premium moves with turnover is on our business insurance page.

What would it cost to add public liability or profits cover?

The gap between two rows will not tell you. Each row is a different group of businesses, insuring different amounts. The shops with contents and stock cover alone had a median contents figure of $195,000. The shops that also took public liability had $120,000. Above $250,000 of contents, the businesses with profits cover paid a lower median premium than those with contents and public liability alone.

The cost of adding a section is a quote on your own business, with the section and without it. We can quote a section, or a longer period, both ways, so you decide with the difference in front of you.

Profits cover pays your lost profits while the business recovers from insured damage. Most that bought it chose 12 months. A rebuild can finish before your customers come back, and the cover stops when its period runs out. We recommend 18 months of profits cover. The period is yours to choose. How profits cover works explains how to set the figure and the period.

FAQ