What's covered in Office Insurance?

There are good reasons for every office to take out office insurance. The office is the heart of your business. It's where you make money, forge relationships and build a reputation. It is important to protect your assets from casual equipment damage, to employee accidents or high-tech cyber crime. Most importantly, you as an employer should be protected against any claims made against yourself. 

Office contents insurance

Having basic office contents insurance is essential with regards to business continuity. The equipment and furniture in the workplace are expensive commodities that can easily be damaged; whether this is through an employee error or accident, or a weather event knocking communications out, or creating fire for example.

It is also possible that the workplace could be a scene of attempted robbery or break-ins which would also require an adequate level of protection, and/or security alarms. Should anything go wrong in the workplace, it is assuring to know that the business could continue with the quick replacement of valuable business items with adequate insurance. 

Public liability insurance

Keeping an office clean and tidy is obviously the best way to avoid accidents, however in a busy workplace with many staff with a high-level of mobility around the office, this is not always possible. Deliveries can easily be left in awkward positions and heavy filing cabinets and shelving tend to be abundant in an office environment. Gaining an arm or hand injury from one of these falling with certainly cost both the individual, and the business in the long-run. 

This kind of insurance should cover any guests to the office too. This could include potential or existing clients, employee family members or visiting officials. 

Cyber insurance

 

A company should protect its own system from the threat of intrusion or they risk losing valuable private and sensitive information.  Sophisticated viruses and trojans can be easily accessed by inexperienced computer users causing a catastrophe. It's better to try and intercept them or lock them down as soon as possible.

There are many legal implications for a company should computer data not be adequately protected too. If data is compromised, than a company could be subjected to prosecution under the Data Protection Act 1998, which states that data must be secure at all times. 

A loose email could easily cause damage in this manner. Email is extremely vulnerable to misdirection as it only takes a simple click. 

Professional indemnity insurance

 

Should an employee who seek legal action against you for any of these reasons; then a dedicated insurance team will be able to source lawyers, accountants and financiers to aid in any legal proceedings. This is possibly the most important cover you should own.

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