Business office insurance

28 Oct 2009

There are two main considerations you have when choosing office insurance:

• Protecting the visible risks (such as damage or loss to things you can see such as computers, office furniture and other office equipment and possibly buildings if you own them); and,
• Protecting against the ‘invisible' risks (ie claims against you for loss, injury or damage to a person or their possessions).
  

Here we look at liability insurance.

If you are working from an office at home then perhaps you may believe your risks are minimal however, you may wish to ask yourself the following questions:

• Do members of the public visit your office as 'clients'?
• Do people visit your office for other commercial reasons? (e.g. deliveries)
• Do people pass-by in close proximity to your office on the street or other public place?
• Do you have employees that spend time in your office?
• Does your office adjoin any others?
  

If you have answered any of the above questions with a 'yes', then thinking about the liability elements of business office insurance may be a very good idea.

The reasons for this are simple and can be illustrated with a few examples:

• Any non-employee that is injured while on your premises can potentially claim compensation from you and the awards made by the courts and tribunals may often  be huge if the injuries are sufficiently serious;
• This also applies to those similarly injured while passing-by should (e.g.) they be unlucky enough to be struck by that plant pot you have just knocked off your external windowsill;
• The delivery person that has just badly cut their shoulder on a screw projecting from a piece of your office furniture may well not be inclined to laugh it off as just "bad luck";
• You may think that the brand new water dispenser you've just installed is fantastic, but the office below you may not see it that way if it has leaked over the weekend and badly damaged their ceiling and other office equipment.
  

Add to these the risks to any employees you have on-site and business office insurance may start to become a higher priority (in fact, in many situations insurance covering employees is a legal necessity).

As part of Europe's largest independent insurance intermediary, we aim to meet your public liability and employers' liability insurance needs. In fact, all our business office insurance policies have public liability insurance as standard, meaning one less cost for you. And with employers' liability insurance from £10 million, you can rest assured that your business will be properly protected against the unexpected.

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