What I cover
Coverage, in plain language.
Commercial insurance is written in a language nobody teaches you. Below is what each coverage actually does, what it will not do, and which ones tend to matter most depending on what you run.
Intact · Aviva · Wawanesa · Economical · Northbridge · Specialty & MGA markets
The core coverages
General liability
Pays when your business injures someone or damages their property. It also pays your legal defence, which is frequently the larger number of the two.
Property
Building, contents, stock and leasehold improvements. What decides the claim is whether your values are current, not the limit printed on the declaration page.
Business interruption
Replaces the income you lose while you are shut down, and keeps paying rent and payroll. The most under-bought coverage in commercial insurance.
Commercial auto and fleet
Vehicles registered to the business and the people who drive them. Driver records move the premium here more than anything else does.
Equipment breakdown
Mechanical and electrical failure of the equipment you depend on, plus the stock that spoils when it stops. Property policies exclude this by default.
Cyber and crime
Ransomware, funds transfer fraud, a compromised point-of-sale, an employee quietly moving money. Small businesses get targeted precisely because they are assumed not to carry it.
Umbrella and excess
Sits above your primary limits. Landlords, general contractors and municipalities now routinely demand limits a base policy will not reach on its own.
Professional and D&O
Errors and omissions for advice and design work, and directors’ and officers’ cover for the people running the company. Both answer claims general liability explicitly excludes.
Specialty and hard to place
Vacant buildings, past claims, unusual operations, late-licence hospitality. When the standard market says no, the MGA and surplus markets are where the risk still gets placed.
Where I specialise
Those coverages get assembled differently depending on what you do. Here is how they come together for the four sectors I write most.
Contractors
Tools, uninsured subs, and a certificate that satisfies the contract.
Commercial property
Values, vacancy, water, and the coinsurance clause behind all three.
Not sure what you need?
Send me your current policy and tell me what you do. I will tell you what is missing before I tell you what it costs.
Rayanur Rahman 