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Shop Insurance

This page has some information on shop insurance in general. In particular, how shop insurance is rated and how you can make your shop insurance premiums cheaper. We can provide a shop insurance quote online, which you can buy, or if you would like us to review several different policies a quotation form is available for completion.

Rating Factors: Location

Obviously the location of your shop has a lot to do with the premium for insurance. An inner-city location with a history of break-ins or property built about 2 feet above a river represents a substantially higher risk than normal and premiums will reflect this. Regrettably there is not much you can do individually to affect the premium, however it may be possible to co-operate e.g. to identify quickly shop-lifters

Risk Management

If you have a shop then good risk management can reduce the cost of insurance:-

Security - keep intruders out

If you equip the shop with steel bars on the windows, install an alarm system with direct contact to a monitoring centre, have shutters, maybe a cctv camera and possibly external lighting then the insurance premium should come down. Not only that - you are less likely to be burgled and thus not suffer the stress that this causes.

Water Damage

As well as not having your shop too close to the river, you can reduce the risk to water damage by ensuring that stock is not stored on the ground but is raised up.

Attraction

Obviously as a shop owner has to make the goods attractive, however it may be a good idea to remove them from display outside of opening hours

Making goods harder to steal

Here is where ingenuity can pay off. Simple tricks e.g. keeping remote controllers in a secure place, having security cable around display items that triggers an alarm when cut. Another example is putting coat-hangers on rails in alternate directions - thieves cannot then just simply remove the clothing by lifting them off en masse.

An Attitude

Risk management is an attitude. Insurers want to insure people who are pro-active in reducing risk. Even if you have had claims, if you can show you have taken steps to prevent them happening again you might obtain a better deal on your insurance. Of course it is difficult to tell a computer quotation system what you have done - which is why contacting us may be a better course of action if you feel that there are good features to the risk that you cannot explain online.

Reducing Cover

To reduce your insurance premium there is nothing more tempting than reducing cover. Our general advice would be: don't. You could take a higher excess or not have as many policy sections in force - in fact I expect that online there will be (if not already present) a large number of policies with cover cut to the bone to reduce the cost. If you want to buy online see what covers are available - for example see our shop insurance cover summary. Then decide what you need. It is worse if you decide to insure your shop and contents for a lower amount than you should. If you do so then, should a claim arise, you will only be paid a percentage of your loss. (Excluding first-loss policies - which aren't really available. You could 'save' £200 and end up losing £20,000. Not a good deal.

When a claim is made

If your building or contents are damaged the important thing to do is contact the insurance company immediately. Although claim contact details are shown in the insurance policy wording, it is likely that in the heat of the moment you can't lay your hands on them! Make copies and keep them in key locations (make sure you have the policy number written down on each copy)

Once the claim is made the insurance company will organise firms to come and make the property safe. They may also appoint a loss assessor to evaluate your claim, make a fair offer for the loss and get you trading as soon as possible (remember that further loss as a consequence of an insured peril is usually covered under a decent policy so it is in the insurance company's interest to get your claim sorted as quickly as possible).

As your insurance broker we would assist you in these matters - we would advise you on what you can claim for, and chase the insurance company if they appeared tardy.

Your options

Quote and buy online.
Fill in a quotation form and we'll review the policies we have to meet your needs
Transfer your policy to us and benefit from our commission-rebate policy. Suitable for premiums over £500.00.

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