What is covered by commercial buildings insurance?

Having the correct insurance is important for protecting your livelihood and ensuring peace of mind. Understanding what is usually covered by your commercial building insurance is therefore an important aspect of running your business.

What is commercial building insurance?

Commercial buildings insurance, aka commercial property insurance or commercial premises insurance, covers the cost to repair damage to the structure of a building you use to run your business. If the building is destroyed, it should cover the cost of rebuilding.

Commercial building insurance normally includes cover for outbuildings like garages, sheds, and drainpipes, etc.

Your commercial property insurance will normally cover damage caused by incidents like:

• leaks
• fire
• storms
• frozen pipes
• subsidence

Always check your policy to see if there are any events that are excluded from cover.

Why do you need commercial buildings insurance?

It’s not a legal requirement to have premises insurance. However, the cost of repairing or rebuilding or repairing your property can be expensive. Therefore many businessowners consider it essential cover.

Does commercial building insurance cover general maintenance?

Commercial premises insurance doesn’t normally cover general wear and tear or maintenance. In addition, damage to gates and fences, or damage done by pests will also be excluded. As always, check the terms of your policy to see what is covered.

Who needs commercial buildings insurance?

If you work in an office or building owned by someone else, or a management company, it is likely that they will already have cover in place for the premises.

But if you, as the business owner, own the property, it’s a good idea to take out a policy based on your specific needs.

The requirement doesn’t just apply to offices: it can extend to industrial units, showrooms and trade counters.

What else can I expect to be covered by commercial building insurance?

Commercial property insurance is not the same as public liability insurance. If clients or the public visit your place of business and suffer an injury or damage to their property, this will not be covered, unless you opted for additional or separate public liability cover.

An experienced and reputable insurer will likely be flexible with regards to policy additions, based on your circumstances. It may be possible to get your commercial buildings insurance as part of a ‘package’ that includes ‘all-risks’ cover, or other business insurance solutions.

However, commercial property insurance will usually cover the contents of your premises.