Businesses change, so do industries and products.
Your annual insurance and risk review provide an important opportunity to make sure you have the right amount and type of cover for the coming year.
A quick annual check can help avoid any gaps or shortfall in your insurances, ensuring your major financial risks are protected or managed. Of course, if you plan on making important changes during the year, talk to your insurance adviser, they can make sure cover remains in place.
Quick Tips
Do the existing insurances cover your main risks?
Each year (or if you plan on changing your business) before renewing your insurance covers, talk to your insurance adviser about your:
- Insurance Needs;
- Financial Business Objectives and Situation; and
- Insurance Budget.
You can choose to accept or reject risks or manage them, including by buying insurance. For example, you can choose to reduce your professional negligence limit of cover and increase your Cyber package, as your business changes.
From talking to you, asking questions and completing risk questionnaires, an insurance adviser can suggest ways to manage your risks, including risk management (higher excesses or reduced cover) or recommending additional insurance cover.
You can then make informed decisions about how to best financially protect yourself, the business and customers.
Material changes your insurers need to know
The material changes you need to tell your insurers to ensure continuing cover include:
- changes to the business activities;
- moving to new building or adding another location;
- taking control of customers goods;
- building new premises or installing additional equipment;
- Starting to manufacture, sell, supply or import or export of new products;
- exports to a new country, not previously exported; or
- purchase (or sale) of a business or company.
Valuations – Check the Property & Equipment Sums Insured against Valuations
Regularly updating the insurance values for your building, machinery or equipment is important to ensure you have the right amount of cover.
Inflation, higher building materials, labour and import costs need to be considered when buying or renewing your insurance.
Policy covers and exclusions
A few key areas to look at include:
- What is Excluded: take the time to check what are the main exclusions, would they impact your business if they occurred. For example, Flood cover is not automatic, do you need this for your location and is it insured?
- Your Sum Insured: Insurers will ask you to declare the value of buildings, plant, machinery and equipment. These should reflect the current cost of rebuilding or replacing to avoid under-insurance. In addition, are the sub-limits listed in the policy for say theft, accidental damage or social engineering still enough?
- Business or Profession insured: are all your operations or services accurately listed? If a business name or work undertaken are not listed on the policy, they may not be insured.
What are the main uninsured risks?
There should be a list of key uninsured risks, this will depend on your business and industry. Take the time to check these off, to ensure there are no gaps in cover which would leave the business financially exposed.
Valuations – Commercial Buildings & Machinery
It’s recommended that building, plant & machinery valuations be obtained from licenced specialists every couple of years to ensure that you have the right amount of cover, in the event of a claim. These should be provided to your insurance adviser to discuss with the insurer. Sums insured can then be updated, if needed.
Insurance Advisernet have agreed discounted rates from the following licenced valuers:
- MCG Quantity Surveyors – specialising in property valuations MCG Web site
- Andrew Nock valuers – Buildings, Site Improvements, Plant, Equipment, Mobile Plant, Contents, Fine Arts, and Antiques. Andrew Nock Web site
Online free Home & Contents calculators
We recommend using a free online calculator to check the amount of insurance cover for your home and contents. There are free calculators from insurers and banks, as well as from The Insurance Council of Australia.
Even a quick annual check can help to avoid any nasty surprises in the event you need to make a claim.
Why are Regular reviews important?
Taking the time to review and discuss your insurance covers during the year or on renewal with your insurance adviser will help to ensure your key financial risks continue to be managed and insurance cover remains in place.
When was the last time you reviewed your insurances? Please call us and we can help!
Make a time to speak:
Call: 02 8935 1177
Email: concierge@thelagroup.com.au
