What Tools Will Business Equipment Insurance Cover?

No matter what essential tools and equipment you use in your job, it would be impossible for you to operate without them. It is not uncommon for plumbers, electricians, carpenters, food vendors, and hairdressers to take the tools and equipment they use in their work for granted.

Just how much people in these professions rely on their tools to function isn’t often realised until they are lost, broken or have been stolen. This is why having business equipment insurance is essential to protect the tools of your trade, which can be very expensive to replace out of your own pocket.

Thinking about how your business would cope without the essential tools and equipment it relies upon to function can be unimaginable. Every day valuable business tools and assets are lost to devastating fires or rendered unusable in a flood.

For those of you who offer mobile services where you take your essential tools with you, such as plumbers, electricians, mobile caterers, mobile hairdressers, dog groomers and domestic house cleaners, you must protect your valuable tools with insurance for business equipment.

What Kinds of Tools Will Business Equipment Cover?

What may immediately spring to mind when thinking about tools insurance is the electric drills and other valuable power tools that tradespeople use. But business equipment insurance can be essential to cover different industries and equipment, such as a cafe’s coffee machines or a pizza restaurant’s ovens.

No matter what business you operate, there will always be essential tools and equipment that you need to do your job and turn a profit. But nothing is guaranteed in this world.

Equipment can break down or fail, you could accidentally drop a power tool, and it can become damaged beyond repair. This is why you need a good contingency plan where you insure business equipment against the most common risks, such as loss, theft, damage and breakdowns.

Business equipment insurance can be taken out to cover a vast range of essential tools and equipment used across many industries. You can get business insurance protection for equipment such as:

• Electronic Equipment: Such as laptops, tablets, scanners and printers
• Construction Tools: Such as hammers, screwdrivers, drills, nail guns etc.
• Cameras / Recording Equipment
• Hairdressing / Beauty Equipment: Such as scissors, dryers, hairbrushes and combs, hair clippers, styling tools etc.
• Portable Equipment: Any portable equipment that you move from place to place

What Is Portable Equipment Insurance?

You can get insurance for equipment and essential tools that are permanent features of your business and never leave your premises. For example, built-in pizza ovens, deep fat fryers in your restaurant, a lathe, or a large-scale sawbench in your carpentry workshop.

Portable equipment insurance will cover any essential kit you take with you on jobs outside your business premises. If you run a cafe but decide to over mobile catering services, or you are a tradesperson that offers services to householders in their own home, taking out portable equipment cover will be necessary as soon as you decide to take valuable pieces of equipment away from your work premises.

Your portable equipment insurance will cover your losses if something your business relies upon gets lost, damaged or stolen. Mobile business equipment is more vulnerable to theft, so it will give you great peace of mind to have this protection in place.

How Does Business Equipment Insurance Work?

When you think about it, your business may rely upon a wide range of specialist or expensive tools and equipment, without which it would cease to function. A hairdresser couldn’t cut hair without scissors or clippers, and a joiner couldn’t cut wood without a saw or build a structure without a drill or screwdrivers.

Business equipment insurance protects you against a wide range of risks you face when your job relies on using essential tools and equipment of the trade. Your cover will include protection against:

• Lost Equipment: It is pretty common to lose essential tools or pieces of equipment, especially if your job involves travelling between customers or different locations. If you carry your work tools with you, it can be easy to place something down after using it and forget to pick it back up. If you can’t recover your missing tools, the cost of the lost items can be claimed on your insurance.
• Stolen Equipment: Tool theft is on the rise, and protecting your essential tools from robbery has never been so important. Tradespeople are particularly easy targets for thieves as you may work from a van where you leave your tools out, so they are ready to use when you need them. Unfortunately, this means they can be easy to grab by a passing criminal who can make off with a toolbag while you are not looking. Your van tool insurance will cover the cost of replacement tools so you can continue to operate your business with minimal downtime.
• Business Equipment or Machinery Breaks: Accidents happen, and equipment can break down or get damaged. Insurance for equipment will cover the cost of repairs or replacement should any tool be damaged beyond repair.
• Digital Documents Are Lost & Destroyed: Electronic gadgets you carry that store data can break down or become damaged. This can mean digital data and documents can get lost or destroyed. It can help to back up your digital data from the device regularly, but should any electronic data be lost, your insurance will cover the cost of data recovery and reconstituting documents caused by breakdowns or accidental damage.

Conclusion

If you own a business that cannot operate without its essential tools, it makes sense to protect them. Critical tool insurance costs less than you think.

Insurance for work tools is becoming essential to many businesses these days. For tradespeople or labourers, it covers your tools and machinery. For office-based workers, it will protect laptops, computers, tablets or smartphones that are essential for business.

Replacing these essential tools can be expensive when paid out of your own pocket, especially when you need to replace them through no fault of your own. Whatever your trade and the tools you need to use, Brisco Business Insurance can help you find the best possible cover to meet your needs.

Suppose you are just starting out in business and wondering how to find the right insurance on equipment needed to operate your company. In that case, you can always have a friendly chat with our team at Brisco Business Insurance.

We are specialist insurance brokers with years of experience in finding the right cover for businesses across all industry sectors. We can help you build the perfect insurance policy to meet the individual needs of your business, including working out the right amount of business equipment insurance you need to cover the costs of repairs or replacement of your essential tools and equipment. Whether you need general liability coverage or specialised professional indemnity insurance, Brisco Business has the right business insurance solution for you.

Dean Laming

Dean is a Chartered Insurance Broker with more than 25 years insurance experience. Through various underwriting, operational and management roles, Dean has built up extensive knowledge of how to run a business and is now Managing Director of Brisco Business, part of the wider Henry Seymour Group.

All articles by Dean Laming