For many small business owners, your business is both your passion and your livelihood. Successful small business owners know that managing their risks and having adequate business insurance protection is essential to creating a sustainable and profitable business. This can mean insuring your assets against fire, perils, theft and breakdown, covering yourself for legal liability costs and protecting your profit during times of business interruption.

Did you know:

• Research shows that 70% of Australian small businesses which are under-insured or uninsured would not survive a major event like a storm or fire.*



• Although 85% of small business owners believe they are adequately insured, 13% don't have fire insurance, 20% don't have burglary insurance and 65% aren't covered for business interruption or loss of profits.**



• Many businesses simply renew their business insurance every year without considering changes or growth that may have happened to their business. It's important to review your sums insured at least once a year to ensure your protection stays up to date.

While you might have practices in place to manage and avoid risks, no business can be completely immune from threats such as fire, theft and accidents to your physical assets. The best place to start is to understand the kind of insurance covers you need to protect your assets.

The details every business owner should know

For many small business owners, their business is their livelihood, but it's alarming that more than one in ten don't have any understanding of the business insurance coverage they have1.

If a disaster occurred tomorrow and you could no longer trade, would you be confident that your business could get back on track? The best place to start is to consider the kind of insurance covers available to protect your assets.

Typical covers for protecting your physical assets include:

• Fire and other damage - cover for your building and business contents and stock for specified events including fire, storm, explosion and earthquake.
  
  
• Accidental damage - cover for accidental loss or damage to your business's property.
  
  
• Burglary - cover for theft of your stock or business equipment following forced and violent entry at your business premises.
  
  
• Glass - cover for the replacement costs of broken glass or signage at your business premises.
  
  
• Equipment breakdown - cover for the cost of repairing or replacing key mechanical or electrical equipment in the case of sudden or accidental failure which results in physical damage to the equipment.
  
  
• Goods in transit - cover for goods in transit for loss or damage caused by collision, fire, derailment or theft.
  
  

There is more to business insurance than just protecting physical assets. Public liability claims could run into the millions and it is important to consider what would happen to your income if your business was out of action following a claim.

Other covers available to protect businesses include:

• Business Interruption - helps to ensure that small businesses can survive periods of major trading disruption by covering loss of gross profit or gross rentals caused by an interruption to the business as a result of damage caused by an insured event.
  
  
• Public and Products Liability - covers legal liability to third parties for personal injury or damage to property claims caused by an occurrence connected with your business.
  
  
• Fraud and Dishonesty - covers loss of money or goods as a result of an act of fraud or dishonesty committed by an employee.
  
  
• Money - covers loss of money while kept in your building, in transit or at your private residence.
  
  
• Tax Audit - covers the professional fees incurred as a result of a tax audit of your business.
  
  

In addition to not having the right type of cover, a common mistake made by some small business owners is renewing their policies every year without accounting for growth in their business or enhancements such as renovations and increased stock levels.

Research suggests that only 63 per cent of small to medium businesses in Australia believe they have adequate insurance2, Don't become a statistic; GIO offers a range of insurance options to protect your business and can help build a package suited to your needs.

GIO Business Insurance is issued by GIO General Ltd. ABN 22 002 861 583. Read the relevant Product Disclosure Statement or Policy Wording for detailed information on these products.

* Insurance Council of Australia Report on Non-Insurance and Under-Insurance Survey 2002
** Cameron Research Group 'The Australian Small Business Market for Financial Services 2008: Insurance and the Small Business Market' June 2008.

1 Cameron Research Group 'The Australian Small Business Market for Financial Services 2008: Insurance and the Small Business Market' June 2008.
2 Insurance Council of Australia, 'Non-Insurance in the Small to Medium sized Enterprise Sector' December 2008.