Invariably, your business will be a reflection of your personality, your style and in effect your dream. Whilst this makes your business unique, it is highly likely that you will face similar risks as other business owners – none more so than in your own office. So what are office property risks?

Put simply, office property risks are the potential risks that you could face from running an office. For example, the risk that your staff might accidentally stumble onto that shinny new plasma in reception, that your visiting client inadvertently spills water over your laptop during lunchtime sandwiches in the boardroom or that the spoilt brat work experience student, which you kindly took under your wing, feeds staples into your copier causing it to permanently shut down.

Luckily enough, there are insurance products that cover all or some aspects of these property risks in your office, however understanding just what is covered isn’t always that straight forward.

Whilst you would assume that property cover might be found under an aptly titled property section, when looking at a business insurance wording such as AAMI or GIO for example, you will find a section called “fire” instead. Why fire? Probably a throw back to the first ‘fire’ policies following the great fire of London back in 1666. Seriously! Have a look at Wikipedia.  So, a fire policy typically covers the risk of your building or contents not only for being damaged by fire but by certain other perils for example hail, earthquake or flood – check your policy wording.

Of course, your office property may be more prone to a particular peril such as accidental damage given that your office is next door to a fire brigade or malicious damage because you’re stuck with that work experience student over the summer. However, its important to read the fine print – are there limitations on claims payouts for property damage caused by particular types of perils or additional conditions – such as the payment of additional excess (sometimes up to $25,000) following an earthquake.

In addition, if you are looking at the typical Suncorp brand (AAMI, GIO, Vero) or IAG (CGU, NRMA) business insurance policies you will find that the ‘fire’ section will exclude things such as breakdown of electronic equipment or theft – these will have its own section with its own definitions, limitations, exclusions and sometimes excesses. The reason for this will generally be two-fold:

1. to limit cover to specific types of electronic equipment; and

2. to charge you a specific minimum premium for this type of cover

See our previous article on theft vs burglary cover if you want to know more about protection your office property in the event of theft.

As a rule of thumb, you can think about your business property as being exposed to the following risk groups:

- Damage, by things such as fire, theft, hail or flood;

- Theft, i.e. things could be stolen or go missing; or

- Breakdown, your specialised machinery stops working or simply explodes due to malfunction.

Of course, you could be thinking “what about transit? I’m moving my offices to a new location” and sure, you could possibly be right in that most insurers classify this under it’s own section, but then when you think about it what could happen? It will either be damaged by some peril, stolen or breakdown due to the move..and indeed, as we mentioned previously – it may already be covered!