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FCA FRN 724952 · Co. No. 07014570 · Bristol
§ Commercial insurance

Commercial insurance - Bristol and South West

Apex Insurance Brokers · Last reviewed: June 2026

Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, FRN 724952. Companies House 07014570. Cover availability and terms depend on insurer underwriting at the time of quotation.

This page is written for the person who actually buys the insurance. The finance director at a £6m turnover engineering firm in Avonmouth. The owner-manager of a Bath restaurant group with three sites. The practice manager at a Clifton clinic adding a third treatment room. The bursar at an independent school in Wells. The transport manager at a Bridgwater haulier with 28 LGVs. You already know what commercial insurance is at a surface level; what you don't know is whether what you have today actually responds when something goes wrong, and whether your renewal is being handled by someone who reads the wording or someone who clicks "renew".

Commercial insurance for a £2m turnover business is a different exercise from commercial insurance for a £200k microbusiness. The £200k buyer is best served by a package product from a direct insurer, bought online in 20 minutes. The £2m buyer has a different problem set: contractual indemnity requirements written into customer contracts, aggregation of risk across multiple locations, a payroll that triggers different rating, regulated activity that brings sector-specific exclusions, and a balance sheet that can no longer absorb a six-figure loss without consequence. At that scale, the question stops being "how cheap can I get this?" and becomes "if a serious claim lands tomorrow, does this policy actually do what we need it to do?"

That is what this guide is about. It is written by a commercial broker in Bristol who places these risks every week, for buyers in Bristol, Bath, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Cardiff, Newport, Swindon and the wider South West catchment.

What commercial insurance actually is

"Commercial insurance" is an umbrella term, not a single product. It covers the whole estate of risks a business faces, sold either as separate policies bolted together for the same renewal date, or as a single "commercial combined" wording that pulls the major sections under one schedule. Neither approach is universally right. The right structure depends on the trade, the size of the business, the contractual obligations it sits under, and the appetite of the insurer.

Buyers from the United States sometimes arrive in the UK market looking for the equivalent of a Business Owners Policy (BOP) or a General Liability policy. The UK market does not work that way. There is no statutory packaging concept. Cover is built section by section: Employers' Liability alongside Public Liability, Material Damage, Business Interruption, and so on. Each section has its own limit, excess, conditions and warranties. A "commercial combined" policy is a presentational convenience, not a different kind of cover.

There is exactly one cover in the UK that is compulsory by statute for almost every employer: Employers' Liability, mandated by the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, with a statutory minimum of £5m and a market standard of £10m. Motor Third Party Liability for vehicles used on the road is compulsory under the Road Traffic Act 1988. Beyond that, no commercial cover is mandatory at law. Everything else — Public Liability, Material Damage, Business Interruption, Professional Indemnity, Cyber, Directors & Officers, Goods in Transit — is either prudent, contractually required by customers or landlord, or required by your sector regulator. The buyer's question is never "do I have to have this?" but "where does my exposure actually sit, and what would happen on the worst plausible day?"

A good commercial broker starts with the second question. We start with the trade, the contracts, the premises, the people, the IT estate, and the financial sensitivity of the business. We map exposures to cover sections. We tell you which exposures genuinely need transferring to an insurer, which can be retained on the balance sheet via a higher excess, and which are not insurable at all and need to be managed operationally. We then build the programme, present it to the right markets, and stand behind it at claim. If the broker leads with the product instead of the risk, you are buying something off a shelf, not building cover that fits.

Why you need a broker (vs going direct)

The honest version is not "brokers are always better than going direct." For a sole trader buying £1m of Public Liability for a side-hustle window cleaning round, a direct portal product is the right answer. The premium is small, the risk is contained, the wording is fit for purpose. Pay the £180 and move on.

The case for a broker starts where complexity starts. An FCA-authorised commercial broker exists to do four jobs you cannot do for yourself.

Job one is market access. Roughly half the UK commercial market does not deal direct with end customers — they only quote through brokers. That includes most Lloyd's syndicates, several large composites when the risk is anything beyond a small SME, and the entire MGA layer that writes specialist classes. If you only ring the direct insurers you see on television, you are quoting your risk against a fraction of the market. A broker with a real panel takes the same risk to fifteen or twenty markets and finds the one whose appetite matches your trade today. Appetite shifts constantly: an insurer that loved hospitality two years ago may have withdrawn from late-night venues this year. We track that.

Job two is presentation. Underwriters quote off the information they are given. A risk presented as "construction firm, £4m turnover, EL and PL needed" gets a different price and wording from the same risk presented with project values, JCT contract excerpts, RAMS, sub-contractor controls, loss history with closed versus open detail, and risk-management evidence. The first gets the standard rate. The second gets the underwriter's attention and, often, a meaningfully better quote.

Job three is claims advocacy. When a claim is straightforward, the direct route works fine. When it is contested — when the insurer reserves rights, queries the cause, disputes the indemnity period, challenges the gross profit calculation, or appoints a loss adjuster whose timeline does not match yours — you need someone whose name is on the file, who knows the wording, who can read a reservation of rights letter and push back on it. We sit on the call. We chase the adjuster. We escalate to the claims handler's manager when the response time slips. We are on the policyholder's side.

Job four is renewal preparation. A managed commercial renewal starts 60–90 days out, not 14 days before expiry. There is a sequence: confirm changes in the business, update sums insured against current rebuild and stock figures, refresh the claims position, gather updated risk information, re-present to incumbent and at least two challenger markets, run the quotes, recommend, bind, and document.

Direct insurers fail at the edges. They are priced for the median risk. If your risk sits at the edge — a hard-to-place trade, a poor claims year, an unusual contract requirement, a brownfield site with flood exposure, a profession outside the standard list — the direct route either declines or quotes a rate that does not reflect what the broker market would actually charge. The FCA's product governance rules (PROD 4) require insurers and intermediaries to distribute products that fit identifiable target markets; direct portals are designed for narrow target markets by design. Outside those markets, an intermediary is doing real work.

The Apex panel approach

Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is an independent commercial broker. Independent means we are not owned by an insurer, we are not tied to a single network panel, and we are paid by commission and fee disclosed on the schedule. We hold direct agencies and broker agreements with the major UK composite and specialist insurers writing commercial business, including AXA, Aviva, Allianz, RSA, QBE, Hiscox, Zurich, NIG, Markel, Travelers and Beazley. For Lloyd's market business we place via wholesale broker partners with direct syndicate access, giving us reach into specialty classes — international liability, contingency, specie, fine art, certain professional risks, and a range of hard-to-place commercial covers — that no domestic UK insurer would write.

For specialist trades we hold relationships with MGAs that underwrite on behalf of A-rated capacity providers in niche classes: motor trade, fleet, late-night hospitality, charity, abuse and molestation, contractors all risks, contingency, and several others. These are the markets that own the appetite for trades composite insurers will not touch.

"Broad market" is a phrase used loosely. The honest version: no broker in the UK quotes every commercial insurer for every risk every time. What it means in practice is that for each risk we identify the markets whose appetite genuinely matches the trade, the size, and the claims position, and approach those markets with a properly prepared presentation. For a small office risk that might mean three quotes from three composite insurers; for a complex fleet, two wholesale presentations to Lloyd's via a specialist partner and a parallel domestic placement.

The FCA's PROD 4 rules require us to operate a defined product approval and distribution process, and to test that the products we recommend fit the identified target market of the client in front of us. That is a regulatory obligation, not a marketing line. We do not have a single "house product". We match the risk to the market. Where the panel has limits is on extreme distressed risks and on cover types where global capacity has withdrawn; when we cannot place a risk, we say so plainly and explain what would need to change to bring capacity back.

The major commercial covers explained

Below are the commercial covers that, between them, make up almost every programme we place. This is broker-level explanation: what the cover is, when the buyer actually needs it, the limit logic, and the most common claim type.

Employers' Liability

Compulsory by statute under the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 for almost every business with employees, including most labour-only sub-contractors, casual workers, and certain volunteers and trainees. The statutory minimum is £5m any one occurrence; the market standard is £10m, which almost every insurer's wording defaults to without extra premium — there is no commercial reason to buy below it. Larger contractors, hauliers and manufacturers often carry £25m or £50m via excess of loss layers because customer contracts demand it. The most common claim is a manual handling injury or slip/trip; the most expensive are catastrophic injury, latent disease (HAVS, asbestos, occupational asthma) and fatalities. EL claims are long-tail: a current policy can be drawn into a claim years after the act that caused the injury.

Public Liability

Covers injury to third parties or damage to their property arising from the business. Not statutory but contractually mandatory in almost every B2B contract, commercial lease, and local authority procurement. Typical limits: £1m (very small operations only); £2m (small businesses with no public-facing work); £5m (most commonly purchased SME limit); £10m (standard for most contractors, anyone with significant footfall, and anyone bidding for public sector work). For construction firms and certain manufacturers, £10m is a floor and £25m or more is common. The most frequent claim is property damage during work at a customer's premises; the largest involve serious injury to a member of the public.

Products Liability

Often combined with Public Liability under a single "PL/Products" section but worth understanding as distinct. Responds to injury or damage caused by goods you supply, manufacture, sell, repair, install or label. Anyone selling physical product needs it; the limit usually follows the PL limit. The most expensive product claims involve safety-critical goods (food, drink, children's products, electrical equipment, medical devices) and tend to bring product recall exposure with them; for those trades a standalone product recall extension is worth costing.

Material Damage

Property cover for buildings, contents, stock, machinery and tenants' improvements. Sold on a sum insured basis: you declare the value, the insurer charges a rate, and at claim time they pay up to the sum insured, subject to the average clause if the sum is under-stated (see FAQ). For owned premises, the building sum insured must be rebuild cost, not market value — the single most common cause of under-insurance we see at renewal. For tenants, you insure tenants' improvements plus contents and stock. Stock sums need to be set on a maximum-anticipated basis. The most common claim is escape of water; the largest are fire and storm.

Business Interruption

Covers the financial loss following an insured material damage event. The two big variables are the indemnity period (how long the cover keeps paying) and the basis (gross profit or gross revenue plus increased cost of working). We default to a 24-month indemnity period because a serious fire, with planning permission and rebuild, frequently takes longer than 12 months to recover from. Gross profit is the standard UK basis: turnover less specified variable costs, plus increase in cost of working. Gross revenue cover is simpler, used for service businesses with low variable costs. Under-insurance on BI is the second most common cause of disputed payments after under-insurance on buildings, almost always caused by a sum insured that has not been updated since the business was smaller.

Cyber

A standalone cyber policy responds to first-party costs (incident response, forensics, data recovery, BI from a cyber event, cyber crime/social engineering theft, ransom payments where lawful) and third-party costs (data subject claims, regulatory investigation costs, PCI fines and assessments, defence costs for ICO action under UK GDPR). Cyber add-ons bolted onto a commercial combined are usually narrow — limited sub-limits, restricted incident response panels, no real ransomware response. Anyone holding sensitive personal data, anyone reliant on IT for trading, anyone taking card payments, should look at a standalone wording. Full detail at /commercial/commercial-cyber/.

Fleet & Commercial Motor

Motor Third Party Liability is compulsory under the Road Traffic Act 1988 for any vehicle used on a road or other public place. Beyond MTPL, you choose TPFT or Comprehensive, any-driver versus named-driver rating, telematics, class of use, and (for fleets) whether to rate on declared mileage and driver lists or on specified vehicles. For five vehicles or more, fleet rating is normally cheaper and more flexible. Hauliers with HGVs and trailers need MTPL plus Goods in Transit, and many need Carrier's Liability under CMR or UK domestic conditions. Sector detail at /commercial/fleet/, /commercial/motor-trade/ and /commercial/transport-logistics/.

Professional Indemnity

Covers financial loss caused to a third party by professional advice, design, specification or service. Required by most professional regulators (SRA for solicitors, RICS for surveyors, ARB for architects, ICAEW/ACCA for accountants, FCA for advisers) and contractually by almost every B2B services buyer. The minimum limit is dictated by regulator or contract; the highest claims involve large project failures, regulatory complaints, and complex consequential losses. We maintain detailed sector pillars at /solicitors-pi-insurance-uk-guide-2026/ and /architects-pi-insurance-uk-guide-2026/, plus a wider PI sector index at /sectors.html. PI is written on a claims-made basis, which is why run-off matters at sale or closure (see FAQ).

Directors & Officers

Covers the personal liability of directors and senior officers for wrongful acts in management of the company. Private company D&O is normally written in three Sides: Side A covers the director personally where the company cannot indemnify them (e.g. insolvency); Side B reimburses the company for indemnifying its directors; Side C covers the company itself for securities claims (less common outside listed entities). Private company D&O claims most often arise from employment practices disputes, insolvency where liquidators pursue former directors, regulatory investigation, and shareholder disputes. Anyone with an institutional investor, a credit facility with personal guarantee implications, or a non-executive board should be carrying it.

Crime / Fidelity

Covers loss of money or property by employee dishonesty (fidelity) and by third-party crime (theft, fraud, social engineering, computer crime). The standard limit is set by reference to cash and stock handled and the controls in place. Anyone with employees handling significant cash, payments or stock — retail, hospitality, distribution, healthcare — should carry meaningful fidelity cover. The most common claim is long-running internal theft by a trusted employee, often discovered during a holiday cover.

Goods in Transit

Covers your goods, or goods entrusted to you, in transit by road, rail, air or sea. Hauliers, couriers, distributors, importers, exporters and any business that owns stock in transit needs GIT. Limits are set per vehicle / per consignment plus total carryings. The most disputed area at claim is the basis of the carrier's liability — CMR for international road carriage, RHA conditions or UK Standard Trading Conditions for domestic — and whether your customers' contracts were signed on your conditions or theirs.

Engineering Inspection

Statutory inspection under LOLER (lifting equipment), PSSR (pressure systems) and EAWR (electrical equipment) is required for many businesses with lifts, hoists, cranes, pressure vessels, boilers, compressors and certain electrical installations. The inspection is the statutory requirement; insurance against breakdown of the same plant is a separate cover, sold alongside. Detail at /commercial/engineering-inspection/. The most common engineering claim is breakdown of a critical plant item — a chiller, production line motor, goods lift — and the BI consequence that follows.

By sector — index

Apex places commercial cover across every major UK trade sector. Each entry below is one of the 25 sector hubs we maintain, with a one-line description and a link to the dedicated page. Each hub goes into the covers, limits, common claims, and Bristol & South West considerations specific to that trade. The slug architecture is /commercial/[sector]/ throughout.

Motor & Transport — vehicle-led trades where MTPL, Goods in Transit and fleet rating drive the programme:

People & Premises Services — trades whose largest exposures sit in people, premises and footfall:

Trades & Production — businesses with physical sites, plant, contract works and production risk:

Property & Retail — property-led businesses and shopfront trades:

Distribution & Trade — businesses moving, storing and trading goods:

Professional & Tech — knowledge-economy businesses where PI, cyber and D&O dominate:

If your trade is not explicitly named above, ring us. The 25 hubs cover the trades we place most often; our panel writes considerably wider, and niche risks and hybrid businesses are placed individually.

By location — index

Apex is Bristol-headquartered and places business across a 50-mile catchment covering most of the South West, South Wales, the southern Cotswolds and the M4/M5 corridor. The 50-mile figure is practical, not arbitrary: it is the distance within which we can sensibly attend a premises survey, meet a client for a renewal review, and physically be present alongside a loss adjuster at a serious claim. Outside that radius we still place business; we travel for it where the size of the case justifies it.

Each city page below sets out the local commercial landscape and the considerations specific to that locality — flood plain exposure in Avonmouth and Cardiff Bay; the M4/M5 corridor for distribution and logistics; the independent schools cluster around Bath and Wells; the GCHQ-adjacent regulated cluster in Cheltenham; the aerospace and advanced manufacturing concentration around Filton and Yeovil/Westland; the heritage hospitality estate across Bath, Wells, Stroud and the Cotswolds.

The 12 commercial insurance city pages:

The Apex difference

Plenty of commercial brokers have a panel. The difference is in how the panel is used and what happens after the policy is bound.

Claims advocacy in practice. When something goes wrong, we sit on the call with the insurer. We read the loss adjuster's terms of reference before they leave their office. We push back on reservation of rights letters when the basis is thin. We drive the timeline — claims handlers manage hundreds of files, and the ones that get attention are the ones a broker is chasing weekly. None of this is glamorous, but it is the difference between a claim that pays in four months and one that pays in fourteen.

Renewal preparation, 60–90 days out. A real commercial renewal is a project, not a transaction. We open the file 60–90 days before expiry, confirm the business has not changed in ways that need disclosing, refresh sums insured against current rebuild costs and gross profit, pull updated loss runs, produce a closed/open analysis, update the risk-management evidence, and re-present to the incumbent and at least two challenger markets. We bring you the recommendation with time to consider it. The fortnight-before-expiry renewal is a failure mode, not a service standard.

Panel access used properly. Independence means we can place with whichever A-rated insurer has the best appetite, the right wording and a fair price. When the right answer is not the cheapest quote, we explain why in writing on the recommendation.

Director-level service. Matt Bartlett, the director, is named on every account. You are not handed to a service team in another country between renewals. Continuity of broker is one of the quiet drivers of underwriter trust — the same name presenting year after year is a real factor in how the risk is received.

FCA-authorised, FRN 724952. Independent, regulated, Companies House 07014570. We carry our own PI cover (brokers buy PI too). We sit under the Financial Ombudsman Service for client disputes that fall within FOS jurisdiction.

20-question FAQ

Do I legally need commercial insurance?

Almost every UK employer is legally required to hold Employers' Liability under the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, with a £5m statutory minimum. Motor Third Party Liability is required under the Road Traffic Act 1988 for any vehicle used on a road. Beyond those, no commercial insurance is mandatory at law, but most other covers are required by customers, landlord, regulator or sheer prudence.

What's the difference between commercial and business insurance?

In UK market usage there is no meaningful difference; both describe insurance for a business as opposed to an individual. "Commercial" is the term insurers use; "business insurance" is direct-to-consumer marketing language. The product is the same.

What does a commercial broker actually do?

An FCA-authorised commercial broker accesses a panel of insurers on your behalf, presents your risk, negotiates terms, advises on cover selection, and stands behind you at claim and renewal. We are paid by commission and fee disclosed on your schedule; we work for you, not the insurer.

How much does commercial insurance cost in the UK?

There is no honest single answer because premium scales with trade, turnover, payroll, sums insured, claims history and limits. As order of magnitude only: an office-based services firm with £1m turnover and no claims might pay £600–£1,500 for a combined package; a £5m construction firm with EL, PL, contract works and tools £8,000–£20,000; a haulier fleet depends entirely on vehicles, drivers and claims.

What's the minimum Employers' Liability limit?

£5m any one occurrence, statutory under the 1969 Act. Market standard is £10m, which most insurers default to at no extra premium. Larger contractors and hauliers commonly carry higher limits via excess of loss layers.

Do I need Public Liability if I work from home?

If you ever meet a customer face-to-face, attend a customer's premises, or have any third party at your own premises, yes. If you are purely digital, PL exposure is lower, but most commercial leases, customer contracts and platforms still require evidence of cover.

Can I cover my whole business under one policy?

Often yes — that is what a "commercial combined" policy is: EL, PL, Material Damage, BI, Money and Glass under a single schedule. Specialist covers (PI, Cyber, D&O, Fleet, certain GIT placements) usually sit on standalone wordings because the markets and policy forms are different.

What's "commercial combined" insurance?

A single policy schedule containing multiple sections — typically EL, PL/Products, Material Damage, BI, Money and Glass — placed with one insurer for administrative convenience. It is a packaging concept; the right structure depends on whether the same insurer has the best appetite for every section.

How long does it take to get a commercial quote?

For a straightforward SME risk with complete information, 24–48 hours is normal. For a complex placement involving wholesale markets or specialist underwriters, 5–10 working days is more realistic. We will tell you upfront which path your risk sits in.

What documents do you need to quote?

For most risks: business name, trading address, trade description, turnover and payroll, claims history for the last five years, current schedule, and any sums insured. For specialist placements we ask for additional information — contracts, RAMS, fleet driver lists, premises surveys, loss runs.

Can you place cover outside Bristol?

Yes. Apex places business UK-wide via remote handling, and physically attends within a 50-mile catchment for surveys, renewal meetings and serious claims. For risks outside that radius we still place; we travel where the case justifies it.

Do you cover sole traders and LLPs?

Yes. We place cover for sole traders, partnerships, LLPs, private limited companies, charities, CICs, parish councils, schools and other entity types. The entity structure affects how the policy is set up but not whether we can place it.

What if my industry isn't on your sector list?

The 25 hubs cover the trades we place most often; they do not cap our appetite. Niche trades and hybrids are placed individually. Ring us and we will tell you within the first call whether your trade fits panel appetite.

How does a claim work in practice?

You notify us; we open the file; we report to the insurer the same day in most cases; the insurer acknowledges and either pays, requests information, or appoints a loss adjuster. We sit alongside that process — chasing, challenging, advocating — until the claim is settled. For complex claims we attend meetings with the adjuster and, where needed, instruct loss assessors and specialist legal support.

What's "average" and how does it affect a claim?

Average is a clause in almost every UK material damage policy that reduces a claim payment in the same proportion as the sum insured is under-stated. If your buildings are insured for £600k but rebuild cost is £1m, you are 40% under-insured, and a £100k partial loss becomes a £60k payment. Setting sums insured correctly is the single most important thing buyers can do.

Will my premium go up if I claim?

Often yes, but the size depends on the claim, frequency and wider market. A single small claim on an otherwise clean record rarely moves the needle. Repeat claims, large claims, or claims in a hardening sub-class do affect renewal pricing and sometimes availability.

Do I need cyber cover if I don't take payments online?

Yes, in most cases. Cyber exposure is not limited to card payments; it includes ransomware against operational systems, social engineering theft of supplier payments, business email compromise, data subject claims under UK GDPR, and ICO investigation costs. Any business reliant on IT has cyber exposure.

Is Business Interruption worth the premium?

For any business that would struggle to continue trading after a serious fire, flood or other insured property loss, yes. The relevant questions are the indemnity period and basis of cover. BI is the difference between a fire that closes you for three months and one that closes you permanently.

What's run-off cover and when do I need it?

Run-off cover continues a claims-made policy (most commonly PI, D&O and Cyber) after the business stops trading, sells, or you retire. It responds to claims notified during the run-off period that arise from work done while the business was active. Run-off is usually purchased for six years, sometimes longer, as a one-off premium at cessation.

How is Apex paid?

By commission paid by the insurer on the placed premium, and (on some larger or specialist placements) by a transparent brokerage fee disclosed in writing before binding. We disclose all remuneration on the policy schedule and in the demands and needs document.

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Our service promise. We acknowledge every quote request the same working day. For straightforward risks, indicative terms typically follow within five working days. Complex risks — higher-risk buildings, cladding, mid-term proposals requiring fresh underwriting — may take longer; we’ll send you a progress note by the end of the fifth working day in those cases.
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