Insurance

[SueEllen]

May be a red herring but I have just taken Direct Line home insurance out and was pretty impressed with their approach. Didn't appear to be any of this tick boxing for stuff away from home, named items and all that.

DirectLine do small business insurance as well.

When I was going through the fine print of policies a few months ago I found:
1. Hiscox
2. DirectLine
3. Axa
Had policies which clearly state you could run your business from home and actually work on a computer there no just clerical work as long as you had no visitors.

With the other insurers it was a case of phoning them up and asking, and as I've indicated before a certain insurer had thick staff.

May be a red herring but I have just taken Direct Line home insurance out and was pretty impressed with their approach. Didn't appear to be any of this tick boxing for stuff away from home, named items and all that. They seem to cover it all in a single option or the + option if you want more value. After being caught out with one company having away from home in and the one we moved to having it as an option I was pretty pleased with their British Airways approach unlike the Ryanair one of our previous company. I would imagine they are a little more flexible with terms because of it so worth a sniff IMO.

Hi, bit more info now.

My business insurance has changed very little; I didn't have building insurance as I rented a desk in a client building, so the only thing that's changed is the address.

I have 100,000 legal expenses (I wasn't aware of this but this covers tax investigations should it be needed as they termed it, but I asked specifically if they meant IR35 - they said on the phone yes this was covered under tax investigations, but it is not mentioned in the documents specifically. I asked if they could provide this in writing, apparently not - but pointed out that all the calls are recorded and that the confirmation that i was covered was on the call)

5m employer liability,1m public liablity,e-risks (hacking etc), 1m professional Indemnity, Property away (as they termed it) so basically laptops in cars on site etc.

On the face of it I'm covered for all eventualities hopefully, and I don't need to look elsewhere unless i want to improve the quote

One thing is it has personal accident added, but I'm thinking I may already be covered on my life insurance for this.

Thanks,

Hi,

phoned my home insurance (lloyds) seems they don't cover anything bought by the business, (which pretty much everything I have has been) - but they said I am covered for working at home. At first I thought well that doesn't mean anything..but I guess they mean the activity of working from home I'm covered for.

So I'll give hisox a ring now so what they say. I might look into the qdos insurance. I'm also wondering about ir35 cover for any longer contracts I may pick up while I'm sorting it all !

Thanks

I seem to remember I already have a business addition on my car insurance.

May be a red herring but I have just taken Direct Line home insurance out and was pretty impressed with their approach. Didn't appear to be any of this tick boxing for stuff away from home, named items and all that. They seem to cover it all in a single option or the + option if you want more value. After being caught out with one company having away from home in and the one we moved to having it as an option I was pretty pleased with their British Airways approach unlike the Ryanair one of our previous company. I would imagine they are a little more flexible with terms because of it so worth a sniff IMO.

Hi,

phoned my home insurance (lloyds) seems they don't cover anything bought by the business, (which pretty much everything I have has been) - but they said I am covered for working at home. At first I thought well that doesn't mean anything..but I guess they mean the activity of working from home I'm covered for.

So I'll give hisox a ring now so what they say. I might look into the qdos insurance. I'm also wondering about ir35 cover for any longer contracts I may pick up while I'm sorting it all !

Thanks

[northernladuk]

Thanks very much, I'll be giving them a ring tommorow

Cheers

May be a red herring but I have just taken Direct Line home insurance out and was pretty impressed with their approach. Didn't appear to be any of this tick boxing for stuff away from home, named items and all that. They seem to cover it all in a single option or the + option if you want more value. After being caught out with one company having away from home in and the one we moved to having it as an option I was pretty pleased with their British Airways approach unlike the Ryanair one of our previous company. I would imagine they are a little more flexible with terms because of it so worth a sniff IMO.

Whatever that minimal asset is; is it in Company's name or your personal name? Does your home insurance cover non-personal assets or just personal? Make sure all your assets are covered by your home insurance before you switch off the business insurance.
My personal experience suggest, that increasing home insurance cover would probably be cheaper in your case, but again I am not an expert in this cases, so the get the quotes for home insurance and then speak to the business insurance provider.

Thanks very much, I'll be giving them a ring tommorow

Cheers

[northernladuk]

Are you using the term 'asset' as in bought by the company or is it being accounted for as an asset? It has been mentioned you could get away with expensing stuff up to £1k in the past. If that was the case the actual ownership kinda disappears of the radar so should the worst happen it becomes an item of equipment in your house. The actual ownership would be quite difficult to prove? Just saying like......

[rd409]

Hi,

Apologies if I wasn't fully clear;

My assets are probably quite minimal - at home I have a couple of small servers (more like fancy NAS boxes) for files & backup, few monitors etc, bits and bobs of inexpensive networking kit.

The rest is really minimal - I now am down to using one decent machine, a laptop, Ipad so that's all I really take outside of the house. Just me and a bag basically.

I am going to ring the insurers definitely (hiscox at the moment), need to sort it out, was just wondering about other peoples setup so I was armed with some info before ringing them.

Thanks for all your help, I got got a comprehensive message off a fellow forum user too, so it's all helpful.

Cheers

Owen

Whatever that minimal asset is; is it in Company's name or your personal name? Does your home insurance cover non-personal assets or just personal? Make sure all your assets are covered by your home insurance before you switch off the business insurance.
My personal experience suggest, that increasing home insurance cover would probably be cheaper in your case, but again I am not an expert in this cases, so the get the quotes for home insurance and then speak to the business insurance provider.

Hi,

Apologies if I wasn't fully clear;

My assets are probably quite minimal - at home I have a couple of small servers (more like fancy NAS boxes) for files & backup, few monitors etc, bits and bobs of inexpensive networking kit.

The rest is really minimal - I now am down to using one decent machine, a laptop, Ipad so that's all I really take outside of the house. Just me and a bag basically.

I am going to ring the insurers definitely (hiscox at the moment), need to sort it out, was just wondering about other peoples setup so I was armed with some info before ringing them.

Thanks for all your help, I got got a comprehensive message off a fellow forum user too, so it's all helpful.

Cheers

Owen

[northernladuk]

You're still a knob!

That point is without doubt or argument lol...

[jmo21]

You are too kind good sir.

but bearing in mind he doesn't know what his current insurance covers it would still be good advice to tell the OP to go speak to his insurer first to find out what the current situation is. He also hasn't been very clear on what his assets are. It could be his company laptop, it could be a large server so hard for us to comment usefully. Get PI/PL from QDOS for peanuts so that is taken care of and then find out what his home insurance covers and then he will know if he has an issue so has need to ask this question. When it comes to insurance the devil is most certainly in the details... which we don't have.

You're still a knob!

[northernladuk]

Highlighting a bit for NLUK to stop him being such a knob!

You are too kind good sir.

but bearing in mind he doesn't know what his current insurance covers it would still be good advice to tell the OP to go speak to his insurer first to find out what the current situation is. He also hasn't been very clear on what his assets are. It could be his company laptop, it could be a large server so hard for us to comment usefully. Get PI/PL from QDOS for peanuts so that is taken care of and then find out what his home insurance covers and then he will know if he has an issue so has need to ask this question. When it comes to insurance the devil is most certainly in the details... which we don't have.

[jmo21]

but wondering that they might insist I take up all sorts of things - just wondering what's actually needed from a independant view before I go back to them to adjust.

Highlighting a bit for NLUK to stop him being such a knob!

[northernladuk]

Hi,

wonder if anyone can help - I had an office until around a few months back, for which I had insurance for.

I have now given this up and work from home/out on site, but my insurance is up for renewal - I understand I'll need to retain employers liability as my wife does some admin, and that I need to retain profesional indemnity.

but wondering if I need to retain some kind of business buildings insurance for my assets ? as I'm wondering that perhaps home contents provide for this - but unsure about the rules for business assets, and also the public liability - I would generally meet clients away from the house in a more business enviroment, so I'm wondering if I need that also.

At the moment I am on short contracts but looking to eventually take more direct clients on.

I understand the best thing is to talk to the insurance companies as it's their job - but wondering that they might insist I take up all sorts of things - just wondering what's actually needed from a independant view before I go back to them to adjust.

Thanks for looking

Highlighted a bit for you to help.....

[mro]

Hi,

wonder if anyone can help - I had an office until around a few months back, for which I had insurance for.

I have now given this up and work from home/out on site, but my insurance is up for renewal - I understand I'll need to retain employers liability as my wife does some admin, and that I need to retain profesional indemnity.

but wondering if I need to retain some kind of business buildings insurance for my assets ? as I'm wondering that perhaps home contents provide for this - but unsure about the rules for business assets, and also the public liability - I would generally meet clients away from the house in a more business enviroment, so I'm wondering if I need that also.

At the moment I am on short contracts but looking to eventually take more direct clients on.

I understand the best thing is to talk to the insurance companies as it's their job - but wondering that they might insist I take up all sorts of things - just wondering what's actually needed from a independant view before I go back to them to adjust.

Thanks for looking