The five things a growing business should insure first

Most businesses buy their first policy reactively. A neighbour has a fire, so they buy fire cover. A customer threatens to sue, so they ask about liability. The result, a few years in, is a drawer of policies that overlap in places and leave the serious gaps untouched.

There is a better order to work in, and it starts with a question that has nothing to do with insurance.

Ask what would actually close the business

Not what is most likely. What is least survivable.

A stolen laptop is annoying and you will replace it. A warehouse fire that stops trading for four months is a different category of event, and plenty of otherwise healthy businesses never reopen after one. Insurance earns its premium against the losses you could not absorb yourself, which is why cheap cover for small frequent problems is usually the wrong place to start.

With that in mind, here is the order we normally recommend.

1. What the law and your contracts already require

Start here because you have no discretion. Employers carry obligations to staff injured at work. Motor third party is compulsory. Landlords, lenders and larger clients frequently write their own insurance requirements into the lease or the contract, and those are usually discovered late, often in the middle of a tender.

Read your lease and your two largest customer contracts. The requirements are already in there.

2. The premises and what is inside them

Fire and allied perils on the building where you hold an insurable interest, plus contents, stock, plant and equipment. This is the policy most businesses already have, and the one most often set at the wrong number. More on that below.

3. The income you would lose while rebuilding

This is the most commonly skipped cover, and the most painful absence.

Fire cover pays to rebuild the shop. It does not pay the salaries, the rent and the loan instalments across the six months you are not trading. Business interruption cover does, up to an indemnity period you choose. Choose that period honestly. Think about how long it would genuinely take to find premises, refit, restock and win the customers back. Most people pick three months when the real answer is twelve.

4. Liability to the people around you

Public liability, for injury or damage your operations cause to other people. Product liability if you make, import or sell goods. Professional indemnity if what you sell is advice or expertise rather than objects.

Which of these matters depends entirely on what you do, so it is worth a conversation rather than a checklist.

5. The people the business cannot run without

In a small firm, one or two people usually hold the client relationships, the technical knowledge, or the bank's confidence. Group life and personal accident cover for staff is both a retention benefit and a real protection. Key person cover buys the business time if one of those individuals is suddenly not there.

The mistake that undoes all of it

Under-insurance. It is quiet, it is extremely common, and it only ever surfaces at the claim.

Suppose you insured stock for GHS 100,000 when it was really worth GHS 200,000. A fire damages GHS 40,000 of it. You would expect GHS 40,000 back. Under the average clause that appears in most commercial policies, the insurer reasons that you covered half the value, so it pays half the loss. You receive GHS 20,000, and the shortfall is yours.

Nobody sets out to under-insure. It happens because the business grew and the policy did not. Stock levels rise, a second unit opens, equipment is added, and the sums insured stay where they were set three renewals ago.

Review your sums insured every year, and any time the business changes materially. It is the cheapest thing on this page, and it protects everything else on it.

Where to start

If you already hold cover, send us the schedules. We will read them against what the business actually does now, show you the gaps and the overlaps, and go to the market on your behalf. We are paid by the insurer, so a review costs you nothing.

If you hold nothing yet, a conversation is the right first step. Come with a rough idea of your annual turnover, your staff numbers, and what you would struggle to replace.