Protect your interests

Most business owners see short-term insurance as a grudge purchase, a necessary evil. This is even more true for smaller businesses in current economic times. The fact however is that businesses own assets, employ staff, deal with clients, handle money, etc. These are things that carry risk, a risk that every prudent business owner can and should mitigate by taking out comprehensive short term insurance, tailored to their unique business and circumstances.

There are certain unforeseeable and often unavoidable risks that go hand in hand with the ownership of property, assets and valuables and with the day-to-day operations of running a business. The best way to ensure that you have peace of mind and security is to hand these risks over to a third party, an insurer. In exchange for an agreed sum of money paid monthly, an insurer will provide you with agreed cover should you suffer any loss, damage or liability to your property and assets or those of a third party. Insurance cover is taken out to protect the business against incidents or perils, more commonly referred to as “insureable events”.

The insurance market has experienced a lot of development in recent years, with the result being that you are able to insure an extensive range of risks, especially in the commercial lines where business insurance is done. The range of insurable events are divided into categories and normally summarised in “sections” on the policy document. These vary from insurance company to insurance company and some have up to 36 possible sections in their policy document. The most common are:

• Fire - Loss or damage due to fire, earthquake, storm, wind, water, hail and snow
• Buildings – cover on the buildings and its’ fixtures that the business operates from
• Office contents – this includes office contents, documents and increased cost of working
• Business interruption – insurance for your overheads if you cannot operate temporarily
• Motor – comprehensive motor insurance
• Electronic equipment – all equipment should be insured separately here
• Goods in transit – if your business transports goods often
• Money – due to EFT’s and credit cards, the use of this is reducing
• Public and employer’s liability – to insure against harm to third parties
• Theft – very prevalent in our society

These are just a few. More innovative insurance categories are being created such as Cyber Insurance, where business can ensure against risks such as hacking, identity theft, etc.

Although insurance has existed for many decades and cover for business owners is not new, there has never been a focused solution for the franchise industry. For this reason, Franchise Protect was established, to focus more closely on the needs of the franchisee and their businesses. Because of our intimate knowledge of the franchise industry, we are able to develop custom solutions for individual brands or niches. We already have such a success story where Franchise Protect, the franchisor, and an insurer developed a unique customised solution for this brand, that not only saves the franchisee premiums every month, it also provides them with much better comprehensive cover for their business.

We have many innovative plans for the franchise industry and we urge all franchisors and franchisees to contact us for all their short term insurance needs. Franchise Protect looks forward to servicing the industry for years to come.

Contact us on  +27 12 346 4180 or email keith@franchiseprotect.co.za