Bundling your business insurance into one package.
As your business grows, you face a greater range of risks that require a greater range of insurances.
What can start off as a single policy when you start your business, can end up as a dozen or more separate policies as your assets and risks grow.
Adding separate policies through different insurers and different brokers is highly inefficient, and in this guide we’ll look at how you can consolidate your policies.
- How did we get to this point?
- Should I have all policies with one insurer?
- How to efficiently bundle your business insurance
- Consolidating your insurance payments
- Benefits of packaging your business insurance
How did we get to this point?
If you’re a business owner who has found themselves in the position of having a bunch of policies spread around the place, you’re not alone!
It can happen so easily, especially when you’re busy growing a business, rather than focusing on how your insurance is packaged.
For a trade business this might start off as a basic public liability policy. Then you need to insure some tools, then a business vehicle.
Business is good and you end up moving into a small warehouse, taking on more staff, larger projects and more equipment.
All of these assets and additional risks need to be insured, and you can easily end up with a dozen or more policies spread around different insurance companies and brokers.
Should I have all policies with one insurer?
When business owners think about consolidating or bundling their business insurance, there is a common misconception that everything should be covered by a single insurer.
This isn’t a crazy idea. In domestic insurance advertising we’re always being told about multi-policy discounts and the like.
In the world of business insurance, things are quite different.
First up, the concept of a multi-policy discount doesn’t exist in business insurance.
There is however a policy referred to as a business package, or in industry speak, a biz pack.
Whilst a biz pack doesn’t cover everything that a business needs, it can include many of the must-have elements such as:
- Public Liability
- Product Liability
- General Property (including tools)
- Theft
- Money
- Glass
- Machinery Breakdown
- Electronic Equipment Breakdown
- Tax Audit
- Transit
- Employee Dishonesty
Not all businesses will need all of these types of covers, but it’s a good way to bundle a few of the key insurances into a single policy.
Now, if you have your biz pack with a certain insurer, does this mean there is any benefit to insuring your vehicles or your buildings with the same insurer?
The answer is typically no.
As with all forms of insurance, different insurance companies have different pricing for different policies.
The insurer who offers an amazing price for your biz pack might have a terrible price for your vehicles, or perhaps has a poor claims rating for vehicles.
Forcing yourself to place all of your business policies with a single insurance company is more likely to hurt rather than help you.
A good insurance broker – such as Trade Risk – can review your insurance portfolio and make recommendations on which policies should be placed with which insurance companies.
This will typically be based on competitive premiums, along with our experience with the given insurance company.
How to efficiently bundle your business insurance
The question you really need to ask is why are you considering bundling your business insurance.
It could be because you want to:
- Save money.
- Have a single point of contact for all policies.
- Simplify your insurance portfolio.
None of those answers are wrong!
Typically it’s a combination of wanting to save money and simplify your insurance portfolio, which typically comes by having a single point of contact.
You could attempt to undertake this work yourself, but if you end still having multiple policies with multiple insurers – which is most likely – then you’re not exactly simplifying things.
The most efficient way to manage your insurance portfolio is by letting an insurance broker do all of the work for you.
The broker will look at all of your different policies, along with considering what other risks your business is exposed to, and can then put together recommendation on how to package your insurance.
This might involve putting your public liability with company A, your vehicle fleet with company B and your plant and machinery with company C, but the important point is that each recommended company is offering you the best value coverage.
Whilst the policies might still be spread around, you’ll have a single point of contact with your insurance broker, who is familiar with each of the recommended insurers.
Whenever you need anything insurance related, you’ll have a single point of contact regardless of the policy type or insurance company.
Consolidating your insurance payments
As we’ve discussed, bundling your business insurance is generally more about consolidating them with a single insurance broker, rather than a single insurance company.
So does this mean you still have to manage multiple payments?
Yes or no, depending on how you pay for your insurance.
Paying monthly
When paying monthly, which is a great way to manage cashflow, you can consolidate your policy payments via a method known as premium funding.
The premium funding company will pay all your insurance policies for the full year, and you’ll then make a single monthly repayment each month.
This includes policies held with different insurance companies, as long as each policy has the same renewal date.
Paying annually
If paying annually you will need to make separate payments to each insurer, but the benefit is that your broker can consolidate your renewal dates across the policies and issue a single renewal with each of your invoices attached.
Sure you’ll still need to pay each invoice separately, but it will be a lot easier to manage with the invoices being packaged up by your broker.
Some clients choose to not have their renewal dates consolidated, and will work with a broker to spread them across the year.
So they might have their public liability due in March, their vehicle fleet in July and their commercial property insurance in September.
They do this in order to spread the costs across the year, and can even do so in a way that matches the ups and downs of their expected cashflow across the year.
This does mean there is a little more work involved, as you’re dealing with insurance more than once per year, but if that works better for your cashflow, we’re happy to work in a way that suits you.
Benefits of packaging your business insurance
There are plenty of benefits to consolidating your business insurance, whether that’s into a single biz pack or to a single insurance broker.
- Reduced risk of missing a renewal
- Improved claims experience
- Saving time
- Saving money
Reduced risk of missing a renewal.
This is perhaps one of the most overlooked, but most important benefits.
If you’re managing your business insurance yourself as the business owner, you’ll have multiple policies spread across multiple insurance companies with multiple renewal dates.
It’s so easy to miss a single renewal of one policy, and suddenly you’re at risk.
By having all of your policies managed by a single broker, you’ll never miss a renewal as your broker will be fully across your policies and renewal dates.
Improved claims experience
Aside from the fact that brokers typically obtain better claims outcomes due to their knowledge and experience, there is a more practical benefit.
Some claim events can include multiple assets and policies. For example a storm event might cause damage to your building and contents insured under one policy, your machinery under another policy and some vehicles under yet another policy.
If you held each of those policies directly through different insurers, or even through different brokers, you’d need to run through the full story multiple times.
By having a single broker you only need to go through the claim once, and your broker will then deal with the individual insurance companies to get you the best claim outcome.
Saving time
By consolidating your business insurances with a single broker, you’ll get yourself a single point of contact for anything insurance related.
At a basic level, this means making a single phone call or email when you need to update something as basic as your contact details.
Instead of calling multiple insurance company call centres and waiting on hold, you can just flick a text message or email to your broker to update your details.
Looking at the bigger picture, having a single broker who understands your business and is fully across your insurance portfolio will lead to better outcomes overall.
Saving money
We’ve left the best to last, because we know how important it is to manage cashflow in any business.
Whilst we’ve debunked the myth of multi-policy discounts in business insurance, there are ways in which a broker can reduce your overall insurance spend.
As a broker holds more of your insurance portfolio, they get a better understanding of your business and can use that information to ensure they’re getting the most competitive terms for each of your policies.
Where possible, they will be able to combine some of your covers into a single policy. The best example of this is a fleet policy when you have multiple vehicles owned by the business.
They may also find overlapping policies, if you’ve ended up with multiple policies with different insurance companies and brokers.
By having a single overview of your insurance portfolio, your broker can ensure your policy spend is being fully optimised with zero wastage.
Get started
As the old saying goes, the best time to start consolidating your business insurance was yesterday, and the second best time is right now!
Whilst many business owners wait until renewal time to start reviewing their insurance, the reality is that you can start any time.
The risk is that you leave it until a week or two before your renewal date, and depending on how complex your business is, you might not be giving your broker enough time to do a proper job for you.
Getting started is easy at Trade Risk. Simply speak with one of our expert insurance brokers and they can start reviewing your existing insurance policies and getting an understanding of your business.
They’ll be able to make recommendations on which of your existing policies are already a good fit, which ones could be consolidated, and which ones should be switched.
They also be able to pick up any gaps in your coverage and make recommendations on how to fill those gaps.
To get started, please call our team on 1800 808 800 or click here to enquire online.
