Find out what insurance your business needs
A few plain questions about how the business actually operates, about two minutes, and a map of what businesses like yours typically carry and why. No cost, no obligation.
Every business carries a different mix of cover. Which ones apply to yours depends on how the business runs, not on what it is called.
This is for business owners working out where to start. If you already know it is the building you want covered, go straight to commercial building insurance.
A few quick questions about how the business runs. The first two matter most. Skip any of the rest and you still get a list.
What best describes what your business does?
Pick the closest. It decides whether there is a product built for your trade or whether we start from a business pack.
How do I find out what insurance my business needs?
Quick answerAnswer a few plain questions about how the business actually operates: what it does, who is on the payroll, who visits, whether you own or lease the premises, and what a bad day at that address would cost you. Those five things decide most of the list.
There is no single list of policies that fits every business, and any page that gives you one is selling you a pack rather than answering the question. What decides your list is not the industry code on your ABN. It is the shape of the business: what it does, whether the building is yours or your landlord's, whether anyone is on the payroll, whether the public comes to you or you go to them, whether you give advice or supply labour, and how much of the income depends on one address staying open.
That is the same set of questions a broker works through on a first call, in roughly the same order. The finder above asks them as buttons instead, which takes about two minutes and gets you to the same place: a short list of the covers that businesses like yours typically carry, each one with the reason it earns its place, and a link to the page that explains it properly.
Two things it is worth knowing before you start. First, nothing on the list is a recommendation for your business specifically, because a list cannot know what a conversation would find out. Second, the list is deliberately short. A router that hands you eleven products has not helped you.
If you would rather read than click, the same ground is covered on business insurance, which is the fuller written answer to what a small business typically carries and why a business pack exists at all.
What insurance does a business in Australia typically carry?
Quick answerNearly every business carries public liability, cover for its own contents, stock and equipment, and business interruption cover for the income that stops when trading does. The rest depends on how the business runs: the building, the people, the advice it gives, the data it holds and the vehicles it uses.
Start with the covers that appear on almost every policy we place. Public liability sits at the base, because any business that customers walk into, or that works on other people's property, can be blamed when someone is hurt or something is damaged. Cover for contents, stock and equipment protects the things the business owns and works with. And business interruption cover pays the income and fixed costs that keep running while the doors are shut, which is usually where the deeper damage happens: businesses recover from the fire and go under during the six months of lost trading that follow it.
From there, the list forks on how your business actually runs, and each fork below is one of the questions the finder asks.
The building. Own the building you trade from, or own a commercial building with tenants in it? The building's own cover is the biggest number on any policy you hold, and it is a separate conversation: commercial building insurance. Rent your premises instead? The building is usually the landlord's to insure, and your lease decides most of what is yours to cover.
The people. Employ anyone, and workers' compensation is compulsory. It is run by state schemes rather than sold by a broker, so no checklist decides it for you, but everything else you carry should line up with it.
The advice. Businesses that are paid for advice, designs or professional services typically carry professional indemnity, because being blamed for a client's financial loss is a different kind of claim from someone slipping in your shop, and public liability does not answer it.
The data. Businesses that hold client details or take payments typically carry cyber cover, because the days lost to a locked system and the cost of notifying clients land on the business, not on whoever attacked it.
The vehicles. Work vehicles typically sit as commercial motor cover inside the same policy package, and businesses that work on other people's sites typically add cover for tools and equipment that travel with them.
A list like this is a starting map, not advice. The finder above turns it into your map: a few questions about how the business runs, and the covers businesses like yours typically carry, with the reason beside each one. For the full plain-English walk-through of the covers themselves, start with business insurance.
What the questions ask, and why
Quick answerWhat the business does, whether you own or lease the premises, staff, work vehicles, whether the public visits, whether you give advice, and how much of the income relies on one address. The first two do most of the work.
What the business does. Some trades have their own product because the risk does not fit a generic pack: a shop's stock and fit-out, a tradie's tools travelling in a ute, a farm's machinery and livestock, a warehouse's racking and forklifts. Where your work has its own product, the finder sends you there rather than to the generic one.
Whether you own or lease the premises. This is the single biggest driver, and it is the one most business owners are surprised by. A landlord's exposures and a tenant's exposures barely overlap. Get this one wrong and the whole list is wrong.
Staff. The moment you employ anyone, workers' compensation is compulsory under your state or territory scheme. It is not something we sell, and the finder says so plainly rather than dressing it up as a recommendation. Employing people also brings a second, quieter exposure: claims about how the business was managed.
Work vehicles. Most personal motor policies restrict paid uses like rideshare or paid deliveries rather than excluding business use outright, which is still a nasty thing to find out after a crash if it applies to you. The number of vehicles matters less than people expect. A motor fleet is generally 15 or more, so a handful of utes is a section of the business pack rather than a fleet policy.
Whether the public visits. This one never changes whether public liability is on your list, because public liability follows the business wherever it operates rather than sitting on an address. What it changes is how much of the conversation is about your own front door.
Whether you give advice. If your advice or design is wrong and it costs someone money, public liability does not respond, because nobody was hurt and nothing was damaged. That is a different kind of mistake. Plenty of trades sit in that grey zone without realising it, which is why the question is asked separately from the first one.
How dependent the income is on one address. If the place were unusable for months, the question is not only who pays to rebuild it. It is what happens to the money coming in while it is being rebuilt, and how long the cover keeps paying.
Why a landlord's list and a tenant's list barely overlap
Quick answerA landlord insures the building, the rent it earns and the liability the building itself creates. A tenant insures the fit-out, the stock and the income the address produces. Each one's policy protects them, not the other.
The most common expensive misunderstanding in commercial property is both parties assuming the other one has it covered.
If you own the building and lease it out, the rebuild is yours, the rent you would lose while it is repaired is yours, and the liability if someone is hurt because of the building itself is yours. Your tenant's policy protects their business. It does not put your building back. More on that in insurance for commercial property owners.
If you lease the premises, the building is not your problem. Your fit-out, your stock, your equipment and the income that address produces are. And the day the building becomes unusable, your landlord's insurer rebuilds the building while your business waits, which is what business interruption cover is actually for. More on that in insurance for business owners who rent.
If you own the building and trade from it, you carry both sides at once, and two clocks start on the same bad day. That is the case where the indemnity period, the length of time the cover keeps paying, deserves the hardest look. More on that in insurance for owner-occupiers.
And if you own a lot in a strata or body corporate complex, the body corporate generally insures the structure and the common property, though where the lots sit in a standard format plan and the buildings are detached that cover is optional, so check which plan your scheme is on. Either way it does not cover your liability as the lot owner, and it does not tell you whether its own sum insured is current.
What this finder will not do
Quick answerIt will not price anything, and it will not tell you that you are covered. It maps what businesses like yours typically carry, from the answers you gave. Only a conversation, and then a policy, can tell you what you actually hold.
Three honest limits, stated up front rather than buried.
It never quotes. There is no premium, no sum insured and no dollar figure anywhere on this page, on purpose. A number produced by a tool from a few buttons is not a price, and treating it like one is how people end up underinsured while believing the opposite.
It is not advice about your business. It is general information, and it works from what you told it. A broker asks the follow-up questions a set of buttons cannot: what is in the lease, what the fit-out cost, what the body corporate's policy actually says, what happened the last time you claimed.
And a short list is not a clean bill of health. If you skip most of the questions, you get a shorter list, and the page says so. That is honest rather than reassuring, and the two are not the same thing.
What Insurance Does My Business Need? Free Finder: your questions answered
How do I find out what insurance my business needs?
Is the insurance needs finder giving me advice?
Does the insurance needs finder cover workers' compensation?
Information current as at 04/10/2026
Fit-for-purpose insurance at a competitive rate starts with the right list
A few questions get you a list. One conversation turns it into cover that matches how the business actually runs.
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