Cover on the Move

With increasing legislation, business insurance has become almost a means to survival for many. Covering your business mobility is paramount.

Businesses recognise the need for insurance on their cars, buildings, and sickness and insure against legal costs with a nation becoming increasingly litigatious. However, one area many businesses neglect is the amount of mobile equipment staff carry with them out of the office.

When people go offsite for meetings they regularly have tens of thousands of dollars worth of company goods with them. The company car, worth $30k is insured but what about their other equipment?

These days people work on the move, the office environment travels with them to meetings, presentations, conferences, and they need instant access to all their company information. The list of items commonly carried include: laptops, mobile phone, camera equipment, satellite navigation system, presentation projectors and printers.

The list goes on and can run into an additional $15k plus, and often this equipment is only insured whilst on the business premises and not insured whilst offsite.

The Australian Institute of Criminology classes this type of crime as Other Theft which inlcudes pickpocketing, bag snatching, stealing, theft from a motor vehicle, theft of motor vehicle parts/accessories/petrol, stealing of stock/domestic animals, and theft of non-motorised vehicles/boats/aircraft/bicycles. It is the largest of all the crime categories included in the national statistics.

Crimes against businesses, are proportionately greater than against residential households. Whether this is due to the items not being seen as personal property is open to discussion. However, business crime can break a small business, if they’re not fully covered.

As the strongest contributor to national employment growth, the damage to the Small Business Sector impacts on the national economy. So the effects of business theft are far reaching.

The key message to business is to audit all company items thoroughly, and then assess the time these items are sent out of the office over 12 months. With this in mind, review your current insurance to address this mobile equipment and protect your business accordingly.

NRBM
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W: Northern Rivers Business magazine
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