Protecting your business with insurance
If you have your own business, it’s often difficult to know what sort of business insurance you need and how much of it to buy – particularly when you’re starting out.
01
What sort of cover do you need?
There are different types of business insurance. The particular cover that suits your needs depends on the nature of your business and the way it is structured. Cover can broadly fall into two areas:
- Protection from damage, liability and disruption
Protects the things you need to conduct your business, i.e. premises, vehicles, tools, machinery and stock. Also covers public liability and keeps your business in operation if disrupted. - Business Life and Disability
Protects you from the financial impact following the death, illness or disability of a business owner or other key person essential to the continuity of the business.
02
Protection from damage, liability and disruption
Would you be able to keep working if your tools were stolen, or if your stock was damaged by a fire? Do you and your employees need liability protection? Protection from the financial impact of damage, liability and disruption potentially enables you to recover and keep operating should the unexpected happen. Without it, your business may be put under significant financial stress. We can cover your business for the following, in three key areas:
Your company vehicles
- Loss or damage to vehicles caused by accident or theft.
- Legal liability for accidental damage to someone else, or their vehicle or property.
Your plant, assets and premises
- Loss or damage to buildings, plant, contents, machinery, and stock.
- Loss of income/increased operating costs following damage to your premises.
- Mechanical or electrical breakdown.
Your legal liability, including employer's and statutory liability
Your legal liability if you, or one of your employees accidentally cause:
- Bodily injury to another person.
- Damage to someone else's property.
When buying business insurance, it’s important to have adequate cover for your assets and plant. Often ordinary but essential things, like office furniture and facilities can be overlooked. Being under-insured could mean that if you need to claim, the cost of replacing vital items may not be met.
03
Insuring you and your people
The death, illness or disability of you, or one of your business’s other key people, could have a major impact on both your business and your family. These, often unexpected, events can cause loss of income, interruption to cash-flow, disruptions to loan repayment and changes in shareholder control.
When considering your needs, you may need to think about the following three areas:
Business loan protection
With perhaps your own personal assets, such as the family home securing your business, it’s essential for your family’s financial security that you plan how these debts would be paid off, if you were to pass away or suffer a serious illness. Business life and disability protection can help provide a payment to settle any outstanding debts or personal guarantees ensuring that assets such as the family home are secure.
Key person protection
Have you ever thought what might happen to your business if injury or illness made it impossible for you or one of your key people to work?
Key people are vitally important for the success of a business. A ‘key person’ is someone who’s fundamental to a business, in order to ensure its continued operation. These are people that you may wish to consider protecting, just as much as your other business assets.
Ownership protection
For any business with multiple owners, it’s crucial that you have a plan on how individual business shares will be distributed, in the event of the death or serious illness of one of the partners/shareholders – and where the funds to purchase the shares will come from.
Without a plan, that share may be left to beneficiaries who may not have the skills to continue with the business and who may not be compatible with the surviving business partners.
In conjunction with your lawyer, we can help ensure you have the right insurances in place to protect you, your business and your family.
We can offer you a wide range of insurance solutions, to suit the size and nature of your business; from newly self-employed to specialist products for the rural sector.
04
Consider both business and personal insurance
When it comes to protecting you, your family and your business, a combination of business and personal insurance could offer you the best all-round cover. For example, in addition to any business protection you take out, you could also start a personal protection policy such as Family Protection. This can provide you and your loved ones a regular monthly payment to help pay for essential things like groceries, rent, or your mortgage if you pass away.
Your ability to recover after an illness or injury may be faster if you aren’t worried about your finances. Insurance can help ease your financial concerns, so that you can relax and concentrate on getting better and getting back to work.
Contact us
Protect your business from damage, liability and disruption
Call us to arrange cover for the things you need to conduct your business and protect it against business disruption.
Protect your business if something happens to you
Need to protect your business against illness, disability or death? Find your local ASB Insurance Manager or call us and we’ll arrange an appointment with one.
Other helpful guides
The availability of insurance cover is subject to your application being approved. All applications are subject to individual consideration. Special conditions, exclusions or premiums loadings may apply. An excess applies for most benefits. For full details refer to the policy document which is available on request from ASB Bank Limited.
ASB life, health and disability insurance is underwritten by AIA New Zealand Limited ("AIA").
General Insurance is underwritten by IAG New Zealand Limited ("IAG").
See further details about AIA's financial strength rating and IAG's financial strength rating.