Office & commercial package insurance UK
What a package policy actually bundles
A package policy exists to give a premises-based business its core covers in one contract: one proposal, one renewal, one point of claim. A typical office or commercial package includes contents and business equipment at the premises; all-risks cover for portable equipment — laptops, phones, tools — that travels with your people; tenants’ improvements, meaning the fit-out you have paid for in someone else’s building; money cover for cash on site and in transit; public liability for injury or damage to third parties; employers’ liability where you have staff; and, commonly, legal expenses cover for disputes and tribunal representation.
Each of those is a real section with its own limits and conditions, not a marketing bullet point. The package format works because insurers have standardised the questions. It stops working when your answers stop being standard — more on that below.
Buildings: owned, or insured by the landlord?
If you own your premises, buildings cover belongs on your policy, insured at full reinstatement cost — the cost of rebuilding, including demolition, professional fees and VAT where applicable, which is not the same number as market value.
If you rent, the near-universal arrangement is that the landlord insures the buildings and recharges the premium through the service charge. But the lease is the document that decides, and leases put obligations on tenants that packages do not automatically pick up: responsibility for plate glass, for your own fixed fit-out and improvements, sometimes for internal decorations or for insuring specific risks. Tenants’ improvements are the classic gap — the £60-a-metre carpet, the partitioning, the fitted kitchen you paid for sit in the landlord’s building but are your loss if they burn. Reading the repairing and insuring clauses of the lease against the policy is exactly the kind of unglamorous work that makes a claim pay properly.
Terrorism: an include, not an assumption
Standard commercial property policies exclude terrorism. Cover is bought back as a bolt-on, most commonly through Pool Re, the government-backed reinsurance scheme. Two things push businesses towards buying it: location — city-centre premises, proximity to landmark buildings or transport hubs — and paperwork, because some leases and most lenders’ standard conditions require terrorism cover regardless of your own view of the risk. It is a decision to make deliberately at renewal, not a box left unticked by default.
When a package stops fitting
Packages are built on assumptions: one premises or a small number, conventional contents, modest equipment values, most activity happening at the office. Businesses outgrow those assumptions gradually, and the policy rarely announces it.
The common signs: you have taken a second or third site and are bolting premises onto a policy designed for one; your stock is unusual — high theft-attractiveness, temperature-sensitive, or of a kind the package wording never contemplated; individual items of equipment now exceed the package’s single-article or section limits; your team mostly works at client sites, on the road or from home, so the “premises” shape of the cover no longer describes the risk; or client contracts demand limits and covers the package cannot provide. Any one of these is a prompt to look at a commercial combined policy or a bespoke programme, where each section is sized to the actual exposure. The point of moving is not to spend more; it is to stop paying for a shape of cover that no longer matches the business.
Serviced offices and flex space
Serviced and flex-space offices produce their own wrinkles. The operator’s agreement is a licence, not a lease, and it usually obliges you to carry your own contents and liability cover while insuring nothing of the building itself. Shared spaces blur where public liability responsibilities begin and end. Your equipment may move between locations, which is a job for all-risks portable cover rather than premises-based contents cover. And operators’ agreements frequently require you to evidence insurance, sometimes with specific limits. None of this is difficult — but it is different, and a package set up as if you held a conventional lease will misdescribe the risk.
Section limits and the quiet drift
Package claims that disappoint usually trace back to drift rather than drama. Contents sums insured set when the office was fitted out and never revisited, while equipment accumulated. A money section limit that assumed card payments and a business that now takes deposits in cash. Portable equipment cover bought for two laptops when the team carried two, not fifteen. Legal expenses cover nobody has read, relied on for a dispute it was never designed to fund.
The fix is not exotic: once a year, walk the sections against reality. What would it cost to replace everything in the office today, including the fit-out you own? What is the most valuable single item that leaves the building? How much cash is ever on site? Ten minutes of honest answers, sent to your broker, keeps a package doing its job — and it is exactly the describe-the-risk-properly discipline that makes every other line of insurance work too.
Business interruption inside a package
Most packages offer a business interruption section, and for an office business increased cost of working cover — the cost of temporary space, replacement equipment and keeping the team working — is often the right shape. The definitions and indemnity period questions that apply to any BI cover apply here too; we cover them properly in our separate guide to business interruption. The short version: do not let the BI section be the one nobody read.
How Apex handles package business
A package is not a lesser product — for a business that fits it, it is the efficient answer. Our work is in the checking: lease against policy, equipment schedules against section limits, actual working patterns against the premises assumptions, contract requirements against the liability sections. Wordings first, premium second. When the package fits, we place it. When it has stopped fitting, we say so and build what does.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need buildings cover if I rent my office?
Usually the landlord insures the buildings and recovers the cost through the service charge or rent, but the lease decides. Check what the lease obliges you to insure — tenants are often responsible for their own improvements, glass or fixed fit-out — and make sure the policy matches the lease rather than assuming.
Is employers’ liability included in a package?
It is normally available as a section of the package. Employers’ liability is compulsory for most UK employers, with a legal minimum limit of £5m, and most policies are written at £10m. If you have any employees, including temporary or part-time staff, the section needs to be switched on.
Is terrorism covered automatically?
No. Standard commercial policies exclude terrorism, and it is added back as a bolt-on, most commonly through the Pool Re scheme. Whether it is worth buying depends on your location, your lease obligations and your lender’s requirements — some leases and loan agreements require it.
When should we move off a package policy?
When the answers you would give to the package’s assumptions stop being simple: multiple premises, unusual or high-value stock, equipment above the package limits, significant work away from the office, or contract terms that demand specific cover. At that point a commercial combined or bespoke programme usually fits better and often costs no more for the cover you actually need.
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 724952). This page is general information, not advice on a specific policy.