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Commercial combined cost · Updated September 2026
There is no from-price for commercial combined insurance: the premium is built section by section from your own rebuild cost, stock, gross profit and turnover, adjusted for trade, construction, location, security and claims, and the figure that matters most is whether those sums insured are right.
Part of: Commercial insurance at Apex
In short
Commercial combined insurance has no advertised price because it is rated on your own figures: the reinstatement cost of the buildings, contents and stock values, gross profit for the business interruption indemnity period, turnover and wage-roll for the liability sections, adjusted for trade, construction, location, security and claims history, plus Insurance Premium Tax at 12%. The one footnoted market figure we could verify, from the panel intermediary Bionic, is a tenth-percentile £445.08 a year across its panel for 2025, which says nothing about your policy. The decision that most affects what you get back is the sum insured: under the average clause, insuring a £1 million building for £600,000 cuts a £50,000 claim to £30,000. Apex, an independent Bristol broker established in 2009 with access to over 30 markets including Lloyd’s, has a named broker read every submission.
Commercial combined insurance packages the property, stock, business interruption and liability covers of a trading business into one policy. Almost nobody advertises a from-price for it, because there is no single rating base: each section is rated on a different number that only you can supply. The one footnoted figure we could verify is from Bionic, a business services intermediary that compares a panel of insurers, which advertises commercial combined “from £1.22 a day” and explains it as “10% of customers who were sold with one of our panel providers paid £445.08 or less annually … between 01/01/25 & 31/12/2025” (bionic.co.uk). That is a tenth-percentile figure across whatever mix of small businesses used that panel; nine in ten paid more, and it says nothing about what your policy would cost. Unless a provider says otherwise, check whether its figure includes Insurance Premium Tax at 12%; any premium you are quoted will carry it.
What a broker can tell you honestly is how the premium is built, which is what decides it:
| Section | What it is rated on | What moves the rate |
|---|---|---|
| Buildings (material damage) | The full reinstatement (rebuild) cost, not market value: demolition, professional fees, rebuilding to current regulations | Construction (brick and tile versus timber or composite panels), age, condition, the trade inside, fire protection, location |
| Contents, machinery, stock | Replacement value of contents and plant; stock at cost, with seasonal peaks declared | Theft attractiveness of the stock, security, sprinklers and alarms, flammables |
| Business interruption | Gross profit (turnover less purchases and other uninsured working costs) for the indemnity period you choose, typically 12, 24 or 36 months | How long a rebuild and refit would really take; dependence on one site, supplier or customer; seasonal trade |
| Public and products liability | Turnover, with products sold and their destination (exports, especially to North America) | Trade hazard, products history, contracts requiring higher limits |
| Employers’ liability | Wage-roll, split clerical and manual | Manual work, heat, height, machinery; compulsory from the first employee under the 1969 Act |
| Money, goods in transit, engineering breakdown, glass, specified items | The amounts and items you declare | Cash handling, vehicle use, plant that would stop production if it failed |
Across all of that sit the whole-account factors: claims history, location (flood mapping and theft rates by postcode), how the premises are secured and protected, and whether the presentation to the insurer is complete. Two businesses with the same turnover can pay very different premiums because one has a £2 million rebuild cost and 24 months of gross profit to insure and the other rents a unit and carries little stock.
Most commercial combined policies contain a condition of average. If the sum insured on a section is less than the full value at risk, the insurer pays claims on that section in the same proportion — on every claim, not just a total loss.
Worked arithmetic. Your building would cost £1,000,000 to rebuild but is insured for £600,000 — 60% of the true figure. A fire causes £50,000 of damage. Under average the insurer pays 60% of the claim: £30,000. You fund the other £20,000, and the premium saved by insuring for £600,000 rather than £1,000,000 was a fraction of that. The same arithmetic applies to stock, contents and business interruption.
This is not a rare problem. RebuildCostASSESSMENT.com, a valuation firm, says that on its assessments of more than 29,000 UK properties 71% of commercial properties are underinsured, and underinsured buildings are covered on average for just 67% of the amount they should be (rebuildcostassessment.com; the page gives no date, so treat these as the firm’s latest published findings as at 6 September 2026). The usual causes are insuring at market value or purchase price, carrying the same sum insured forward while building costs rise, and forgetting demolition, fees and VAT.
Business interruption is underinsured in a second way: the indemnity period. If rebuild, refit and recovery of trade would take 24 months and you chose 12, the policy stops paying halfway through the recovery. Choosing the period is a judgement about your business that a form cannot make for you. Our pages on buildings underinsurance and reinstatement cost and the underinsurance check go through both.
The comparison-site business insurance journeys are built around packaged public liability, professional indemnity and employers’ liability products for small businesses: MoneySuperMarket states it “has a commercial partnership with Simply Business” and its published prices are Simply Business data for those three covers (moneysupermarket.com, reviewed 24 August 2026), and Compare the Market’s published figure is for public liability (comparethemarket.com, reviewed 28 August 2026). Neither publishes a commercial combined figure. That is not a failing; it reflects what those products can do.
A commercial combined policy needs a rebuild cost, a stock figure with peaks, a gross profit calculation and an indemnity period, a trade description accurate enough to rate the fire and liability hazards, and a security and fire-protection survey. Those are a conversation and often a site visit, not a form. It also needs a presentation to the insurer: under the Insurance Act 2015 you have a duty of fair presentation, and on a policy with warranties and conditions precedent (alarm settings, waste disposal, hot work, stock racked above floor level) the presentation and the conditions are where claims are won or lost.
If the rebuild cost has not been assessed for some years we will say so and suggest a valuation before going to market: a policy with the right sum insured costs more than one with the wrong one, and it is the only one that pays in full.
A packaged product bought direct can be right for a small office or a low-stock business with no buildings to insure and a simple liability picture; the shop, office and salon packages sold online are designed for that.
Commercial combined is broker territory because the questions above have to be answered properly, because much of the market for it is broker-only, and because the sums insured and the indemnity period are decisions that need someone on your side of the table. The comparison is between insurers’ terms, wordings and conditions for your presentation, not between from-prices; the value is in the average clause never biting, a warranty you can actually comply with, and a claim paid in full because the presentation was right.
Apex Insurance Brokers is an independent insurance broker established in 2009 and based in Bristol, owned entirely by its directors and directly authorised by the FCA since 2016, placing professional indemnity insurance for professional firms and trading businesses across the UK. It is one of the longest-established independently owned professional indemnity specialists in the UK, and it is not for sale: we have declined approaches to buy the firm. We are not tied to any single insurer or professional-body scheme, we do not run our own policy or underwriting, and we have no placement quotas. We have access to over 30 markets, including Lloyd’s syndicates via wholesale, and we usually return three or four competing quotes set out so you can compare them like for like. Every client has a named broker — the same person from first quote to renewal — and every claim notification gets director-level attention rather than a call-centre queue.
For commercial combined a named broker reads every submission, checks the sums insured and the indemnity period against the business rather than against last year’s schedule, and presents the risk to the commercial markets that suit the trade. Where you also hold professional indemnity or cyber with us, the liability sections are read together so nothing falls between policies. Start with the commercial insurance quote page, which lists what we need.
There is no from-price worth quoting. The premium is the sum of section rates applied to your own figures — rebuild cost, contents, stock, gross profit for the indemnity period, turnover and wage-roll — adjusted for trade, construction, location, security and claims, plus Insurance Premium Tax at 12%. The only footnoted figure we could verify, Bionic’s tenth-percentile £445.08 a year for 2025, tells you what the lowest-paying tenth of one panel’s customers paid.
A package policy is a pre-built product for a type of small business — shop, office, salon, café — with fixed sections and sums insured chosen from a menu. Commercial combined is built section by section from your own sums insured, with wider options: engineering, goods in transit, deterioration of stock, higher liability limits, multiple sites. Businesses move to it when the menu no longer fits.
A condition of average reduces every claim on an underinsured section in proportion to the underinsurance. Insure a £1 million building for £600,000 and a £50,000 partial loss is paid at £30,000. It applies to buildings, contents, stock and business interruption alike, and to small claims as well as total losses. The cure is a current rebuild cost and stock and gross profit figures reviewed at each renewal, not a higher premium.
On the reinstatement basis: the cost to demolish, clear and rebuild the property to current building regulations, including professional fees and VAT where you cannot recover it. Market value, purchase price and the mortgage valuation are different numbers and are usually wrong. A surveyor’s rebuild cost assessment (a site visit or, for simpler buildings, a desktop assessment) is the reliable basis, index-linked and reviewed every few years.
Work backwards from the worst plausible event: time to settle the claim, obtain planning consent if needed, demolish, rebuild, refit, replace machinery with long lead times, re-stock and win back customers who went elsewhere. For a business with its own premises the answer is often 24 months or more, not 12. The gross profit sum insured must then cover the whole period, with an allowance for growth, or average applies to the interruption claim too.
It can. Each site is scheduled with its own sums insured and rated on its own construction and protections, and stock in transit, at exhibitions, at customers’ premises or in third-party storage can be added as specified items or under goods in transit. Tell the broker about every location where you hold property, including containers, yards and staff working from home with company equipment; unscheduled locations are the commonest gap.
They are terms you must comply with for the cover to respond: an intruder alarm set and maintained, waste in metal bins away from the building, a hot-work permit system, stock stored above floor level, a minimum security standard. Under the Insurance Act 2015 a breach that could not have increased the loss should not defeat a claim, but one that could have may. A warranty you cannot meet can make a policy worthless.
A description of the business and its turnover split; the premises, their construction and protections; the buildings rebuild cost and its basis; contents, machinery and stock values with the peak; gross profit and indemnity period for business interruption; wage-roll split clerical and manual; products and export markets; security details; five years’ claims experience; and the current schedule and wording. With that a broker can present the risk properly and return terms that compare like for like.
Send us the schedule you have and the numbers you know, and a named broker will tell you what is missing before approaching the market. Or call 0117 325 0027.
Get a commercial quote Start a commercial proposalApex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered in England and Wales, company number 07014570. This page is general information, not advice on your individual circumstances, and it does not guarantee that cover will be available or on what terms. Every premium figure on it is a third party’s own published figure, reproduced with the basis and date that provider states; none is an Apex quote or a typical price, and Apex holds no placement data for this class.
